Hope starts us off by exposing the contradictions inherent in labeling meat “humane.” Classifying the flesh of slaughtered animals as humane, or implying in the product marketing that the animals had a happy life, is a cognitive dissonance that most people don’t think about or don’t want to think about.

She then has an informative interview with journalist and animal activist Martha Rosenburg who talks about her decades of reporting on the use of pharmaceuticals in animal agriculture. Martha and Hope discuss numerous aspects of animal agribusiness including: meat treated with ammonia gas, arsenic in turkey feed, antibiotic abuse and the potential impending catastrophe of human antibiotic resistance, and how conditions are so bad in slaughterhouses that even prisoners won’t work there.

“It is impossible to reconcile the principles of humane treatment with the inherently inhumane act of sending animals to slaughter, irrespective of how “good” a life they may have had.” –Hope Bohanec, The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?

The Contradiction of “Humane” Meat and Journalist Martha Rosenberg