More and more products appear on supermarket shelves with ‘humanely slaughtered’ or ‘[insert animal rights association label] approved’ – from food to clothing.

Marketers urging shoppers to buy products from companies who care about animals {insert photos of loved up lambs being cuddled by cherubic children, hens roaming freely in vast fields of green, calves of both sexes suckling gently from cows}.

A quick search of the words humane and slaughter in any dictionary {and I checked quite a few} will give you similar results. ‘Humane slaughter’ is an oxymoron if ever there was one. Those below are from dictionary.com.

humane
[hyoo-meyn or, often, yoo-]

adjective

1. characterized by tenderness, compassion, and sympathy for people and animals, especially for the suffering or distressed:
   humane treatment of prisoners.
2. acting in a manner that causes the least harm to people or animals:
   humane trapping of stray pets.
3. of or relating to humanistic studies.

slaughter
[slaw-ter]

noun

1. the killing or butchering of cattle, sheep, etc., especially for food.
2. the brutal or violent killing of a person.
3. the killing of great numbers of people or animals indiscriminately; carnage:
   the slaughter of war.

 verb (used with object)

1. to kill or butcher (animals), especially for food.
2. to kill in a brutal or violent manner.
3. to slay in great numbers; massacre.
4. to defeat thoroughly; trounce:
   They slaughtered our team.

So slaughter is not really, is it? Humane, I mean.

Even if you can’t watch the footage, the words should tell you all you need to know.