ATHLEISURE MAG #83 NOV ISSUE | CERTIFIED HUMANE American Humane

You may have seen American Humane certification logos on a number of foods that you have purchased, but may not have known what that meant. We took some time to chat with Dr. Robin Ganzert President and CEO of the first and oldest organization that focuses on animal welfare whether it's in the movie and film industry or when you're selecting your proteins for your next meal!

Their focus is to ensure that ranchers and farmers are abiding by the standards that they have set with scientists and ethicists that they work with. This job focuses on over 1 billion animals in the world and they continue to look for ways to ensure that they have a humane and better life. In addition, they recently released a cookbook The Humane Table: Cooking with Compas sion which not only has a number of recipes to enjoy during the holiday or everyday, but it features producers who have this certification which you can make note of as you shop for your next meals.

ATHLEISURE MAG: You are the President and CEO of American Humane, the country’s first national humane organization and the world’s largest certifier of animal welfare. Can you tell us about what this organization is and what the focus is?

DR. ROBIN GANZERT: Well American Hu mane was actually founded way back in 1877 so we’re almost 150 years old for our nation’s oldest national humane organization and you know us through our rescue work, our work with the military for service dogs and in particular, with Wounded Warrior – you know us through our work to protect animals in Hollywood’s Film and Television sets.

But you also know us through our farm an imal program which was the very first of its kind and the largest in the entire world! We have uplifted the humane treatment of farm animals by ensuring that scientists and ethicists are actually providing stan dards for farmers and ranchers to aspire to and that’s part of the animal humane certified program!

AM: Wow! What are your roles and responsibilities that you do?

DR. RG: I am the CEO of American Humane, so I get the pleasure of actually overseeing this incredible organization. I wear that heavy mantle of responsibility to ensure that animals around the world have a better and more humane life. So when people, ask me what I do, I lead the compassion movement around the world! I have the opportunity to ac tually motivate and inspire people to be a voice for the animals. That’s one of the reasons why we created The Humane Table: Cooking with Compassion, so that we could open up that conversation about what it means to be humane on our nation’s farm and ranches and now we can celebrate every season being hu mane.

AM: What does it mean to be American Humane Certified?

DR. RG: To be American Humane Certi fied means that farmers and ranchers voluntarily agreed to subscribe to over 200 point standards for each type of an imal in food production. So when you think about this, it’s 200 standards that ensure animal welfare is uplifted and is determined to be humane. Those stan dards are coming from the world’s top leading scientists and ethicists who actually determine what it is to be humane. So it’s rooted in solid science and then American Humane ensures that those standards are upheld on farms and na tions around our great country. Again, this is the #1 program of its kind and in fact, if you eat a caged free egg which I hope you do enjoy, 90% of the entire cage free egg marketplace is American Humane Certified and we just recently did a survey and we wanted to see if this was a value set – cooking with compassion – that consumers connected with. So we did a survey and we found that 67% of those respondents said that they would want humanely raised products and 70% said that they would choose an American Humane Certified product

over one that wasn’t certified. So it tells me that many people and families are coming across their dining room table and are sitting there having discussions about whether or not their protein is ethically sourced and humanely raised. That’s why this program exists and it provides consumers with assurances that animals were humanely treated and importantly, I think that it shows values across our en tire civilization and indeed our communities.

AM: Well, I know from a personal standpoint, I have always wanted to make sure that I was eating things that were raised responsibly and having that element.

Obviously it’s always been something that we have promoted! I had no idea that what you guys do, also goes into the film industry as well! This is a massive job!

DR. RG: Yes, we’re the largest certifier of animals around the entire world. I go to bed every night worries about 1.2 billion animals under our care through certification programs, through rescue and other initiatives that we do around the world. 1.2 billion. But yet, my wonderful mother always reminds me there are billions more that need to be certified by American Hu mane, protected by our science and evidence programs and that’s my mission and that the mission of everyone who works at American Humane.

AM: Tell us about the Humane Table: Cooking with Compassion and what are some of the recipes that are in there that are perfect for the upcoming holiday season?

DR. RG: Thank you for asking! Many of the recipes are from my home, so it’s a very personal effort and I love to cook and entertain and I always love to bring up the topic of what it is to be humane by what we are enjoying on our dining room tables. It’s an important value set and to be able to have those conversations across generations is critical.

So the Humane Table for Thanksgiving

holidays would include an incredible Butterball turkey that I will be serving. It’s actually roasted with a beautiful whole butter and citrus sauce. It’s gorgeous, herbs are on the side and it’s a beauti ful centerpiece for anyone’s dinner table. I love love love the roasted vege table and tomato souffle! This features Eggland's Best eggs in it. It’s gorgeous and it makes a great vegetable offering. For every night, there are incredible rec ipes such as Crispy Pan Roasted Chicken – it’s easy to make and gorgeous. I also again, love to have appetizers like these Pesto Deviled Eggs that I love to make, Sheep Cheese Bruschetta that’s deli cious and makes for a great tray when you have guests over during the holiday season for cocktails and beautiful appetizers. The Sheep Cheese Bruschetta is incredible! But this holiday season, I’m changing it up! No more Pecan or Pumpkin Pies for my house! We’re going to do a Carrot Cake so that everyone gets their own mini cake. They’re gorgeous and it’s American Humane certified in terms of the butter and all of the good ies in that beautiful Carrot Cake. So for our Humane Table, we love to celebrate cooking with compassion and having those conversations with people that we entertain – families and friends.

AM: Why was it important for you to create this cookbook and although this is the 1st one, will there be future ones as well?

DR. RG: You betcha on future cook books! Actually, there are so many recipes that we want to share with our families and friends and again, it’s about celebrating what is humane and ethically sourced and raised proteins. So there will definitely be more and more cook books. But as I look at this wonderful opportunity to celebrate the holidays, we see this as a way to celebrate every holiday season and every day with what it means to be humane. So there are great recipes that are here and there will be another volume in a year or two or so and there’s much for us to do that

we can celebrate.

AM: What is the process of giving certification to farmers, ranchers and food producers? If someone is in the food space/food supply chain and wants to have this certification, how do they go about getting that from you?

DR. RG: I love that question, thank you! Farmers and ranchers volunteer to be American Humane Certified. They come to us, they agree to comply to the 200 point standard sets that are created by leading scientists and ethicists. They contact our farm team and our farm team is happy to schedule conversations to show case what those 200 point standards are and you can visit our website at American Humane.org to see our standards for the Humane Heartland, for our Farm Program and you can actually see what it is to be humane for a chicken, for a cow and it’s wonderful. We’ve also recently launched Aquaculture. There’s a lot of fish in our diet recently and so we do have some salmon recipes in the Humane Table and we’re looking forward to certifying Aqua culture! Those animals and all animals de serve humane life and that’s our mission and we’re here to oversee and to make sure that that happens.

IG @americanhumane

PHOTO COURTESY | American Humane