Ben and I share the duties of answering emails sent to info@exploreveg.org. This is CAA's main contact address, so it gets all sorts of questions. Most of them are pretty simple, like "how can I volunteer?"
From time to time, we get one that requires a more involved answer. I thought I'd share a question we got recently, and the answer I sent.
I am not prepared to become a vegetarian or vegan because I honestly do not care for many vegetables. However, I am very prepared to eat less meat - and ... more so - to ONLY purchase it from organic farms - or whatever they are called .. farms that do not abuse animals.
I believe animals can be raised outside, allowed to live a decent life, and be humanely killed for food. I realize it would be better not to eat them at all - but the least I can do is NOT support factory raised animals ... that is the most appalling thing I have ever seen.
Do you have ANY info on where I can purchase non-factory raised meat? I looked up Omaha Steaks and they look like a big giant factory!!
This is pretty timely, given that the board just discussed the idea of a campaign to promote the use of Certified Humane products. Here's the reponse I sent ...
Hi, XXXX,
Thanks for contacting us.
This is a tough question. CAA doesn't really support any use of animals, and as such we're not comfortable endorsing any particular supplier of animal products.
While a "free-range" supplier may better than modern factory farms, they are still extremely cruel. For example, a cage-free egg facility still keeps thousands of hens in crowded, uncomfortable conditions. Those conditions are certainly better than battery cages, but they're still pretty horrible.
When it comes time for slaughter, there are, to the best of my knowledge, no certification programs for any sort of humane slaughter. These animals will go through the same horrendous slaughterhouses as every other animal.
There is a program that has been endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States called Certified Humane (http://www.certifiedhumane.org/), that has at least some minimal certification standards for animal ag facilities.
But Certified Humane is very far from the image I think you may have, of animals running around freely, living naturally until they're humanely slaughtered.
The only way you're going to find that is by visiting individual suppliers and assuring yourself of the conditions. If you do find a supplier like this, it will probably be quite expensive. Factory farming greatly reduces costs, and I suspect at least part of the reason what you want is hard to find is that no one is really willing to spend that much money on meat.
Also, be aware that there are a lot of other "standards", many of which are created by the producers themselves. Certified Humane is the only standard I know of with independent inspections, which is crucial in maintaining any sort of integrity. HSUS has some information about egg labeling on their website at http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_farm/facts/guide_egg_labels.html
You say you don't like vegetables, which is funny, because I was the same way before I first went vegetarian. I was a picky eater, and mostly preferred to eat beef and chicken. I found that once I stopped eating meat, I was forced to explore new foods, and I even enjoyed some of them!
As part of your effort to reduce your meat consumption, maybe you could make a point of trying out some new vegetarian food once a week. That could be a new vegetable, a new recipe, or maybe even tofu or a mock meat product. There are a lot of great mock meat products out there. My current favorite is anything from Gardein (http://www.gardein.com/). It's pretty amazing stuff. Of course, it's also expensive.
We have some recipes on our website at http://www.exploreveg.org/resources/recipes. Also check out http://www.vegweb.com/, which has a huge selection of recipes to browse.
One more thing ... often, when people reduce, the first thing they eliminate is beef and pork, and they compensate by eating more chicken. This is unfortunate, because birds are the worst treated animals in our factory farming system, and being smaller, more of them need to be killed to produce the same amount of meat.
Thanks, and good luck,
Dave Rolsky
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