I am not a vegetarian, but hate cruelty. Are there any companies with more "humane" practices?

Question

I don't want to go completely vegetarian but it makes me very sad to see the how animals are treated before dying for our food. I don't see anything inherently wrong with eating meat, just the cruelty involved in the process. Are there any companies where the animals are treated more humanely before slaughter and are killed in a way that causes the least amount of pain possible?

Answer 1

Getting your meat from local small farmers is usually better.  Small farmers tend to have less animals so they can give each one better care.  Look for organic meats, the animals will not have been given unneeded shots and will have probably been outdoors more.

Fish is an animal that has less nerves than other meat products so I have heard that they will feel less pain.  (I'm not a fish so I can't tell you for sure)  Fish will also give you omega 3 which is great for your body.

I've been a vegitarian for almost 10 years now and I don't find that I eat that much different than before.  You can buy so many vegitarian products now so meals are easy.  If you want to try to cut down your meat consumption a little-try brands like morning star or boca (in the freezer section).

Answer 2

Big companies with big factories follow factory farming practices so they're out.

Try scouring your local area for small scale farmers or farmer's markets where the treatment and slaughtering of animals is generally better than the big farms. Usually the quality is higher (though more expensive)  and not just meat but vegetables, fruit, grain etc are usually better too.

Organic is just a method of farming that does not use artificial pesticides, chemicals  or feed etc.  Better treatment of animals is possible but not guaranteed. You still have to check each one.

Answer 3

No :S

My sister went vegetarian because of cruelty. She says its hard because she loves the taste of meat but she thinks of that animal dying everytime she sees the food. She also became very healthy and lost weight in the process, her doctor says she is healthier now.  

Answer 4

I worked for a while for the Meat Hygiene Service in Scotland and was surprised at the strict guidelines for the treatment of animals preparing for slaughter.  There was a focus on them being happy to the end, with regular inspections carried out.  I wouldn't touch the pork though... I can't remember exactly why, but I think it was more to do with the pigs themselves than the way they were slaughtered.

You can go kosher - there seems to be lots of kosher butchers and kosher supermarket options.

Free range for chickens and eggs is also a good option.  But read the fine print - some farmers say free range, but the chickens are still roaming around in a big concrete floored shed and being pumped with hormones and antibiotics.

If you live somewhere that has farms nearby, the local farmers markets will usually have people selling their own products.  People who do this are generally very proud of their products and will be happy to answer any questions you have.  It also keeps money circulating within communities instead of going to a big head office somewhere.

Glad to hear there's other people actually thinking about what they put in their mouths!!

Answer 5

Go local.

Drive out to the boonies, wherever you live. I live near Chicago and if I were to drive two hours north, I'd be in Southern Wisconsin, and I have been there many times and I have seen very respectable, local, small-scale chicken farms that do their own on-site slaughter. Small-scale chicken farms are legally permitted to slaughter on site (up to a certain number of birds). Chicken is the safest and easiest to find if you're looking for something far less cruel.

Even though I am a vegan I can attest to the fact that you can find honest, salt of the Earth farmers that treat their animals with respect.

Go local because you can see what it's like with your own eyes.

You can find local farms for pigs and cows as well, but these large mammals are likely to be slaughtered in a slaughterhouse and not on site.

As far as I have studied, large mammals like pigs and cows are more likely to be slaughtered in a slaughterhouse, there are laws that prevent people from doing their own versions of humane slaughter, and organic or not, 5 companies own all the cow slaughterhouses in the USA and violations, mistreatment and abuse are prevalent.

The people that work there (those that hang on, not those that vomit and quit within days of getting the job) usually become cold, ruthless and desensitized. This coldness leads to carelessness. It takes a few more hacks to kill the cow. The cow gets kicked around and humiliated. The cow gets skinned and gutted before it's dead and fully bled. It happens constantly, daily, all over the country. It has to, if you consider the tens of thousands of animals that have to get through there every day. Imagine, the people doing the slaughtering kill thousands of feeling, sentient creatures daily, watching them bleed and vomit and urinate in fear and pain. They kill, kill, kill all day long. It's mechanical, robotic, unfeeling and eventually void of any compassion. Humanity has to be absent in order for them to do the job and get that paycheck.

It's statistically proven that slaughterhouse employees are very likely to be people with criminal records, they are likely to take the violence home and use it against their wife and children. Statistically, the job attracts the wrong crowd - people in a real pinch to make money, people that are in the country illegally that can't work anywhere else, people that might even want to kill all day long without consequence. If someone were to even kill one animal out on the street ruthlessly like you do in a slaughterhouse, they'd be penalized. But if you do it by the thousands behind closed walls, it's legal and fine.

Organic mostly specifies what kind of feed the animals get, there's little to no protection as to how they are treated, they just get fed a diet that won't deposit pesticides and hormones in their flesh on top of everything else they went through. They get slaughtered in the same places, they get transported in the same weather and in the same crowded, filthy conditions usually. You pay more because their feed costs more, really.

If you find it at a store, and if it's cheap, it's probably far from humane. The steps taken to reduce the cost of meat are all steps that reduce any care and consideration for the animal.

Try local farms, local co-ops, and see it with your own two eyes.

Answer 6

Try the Oliver Ranch Co., www.oliverranch.com, 888-456-8494. They sell only free range beef from a number of sources, both grain-fed and grass-fed. But expect to pay a good deal more than the supermarket price.

Answer 7

Even the animals in the more "humane" environments such as "free range" animals (you should really research what THOSE are like and ask if you'd agree to live there) are treated horrifically.

There is no "NICE" way to take the life of an innocent creature...

Answer 8

When I went vegetarian, it was not hard at all. Like seriously? what you just said was stupid. You're slaughtering animals viciously just so you can have some food. Do you really think that you're so important that an animal has to die everytime you want to eat?

Answer 9

Kosher foods are said to be cruelty free. AsK about where to locate them at your local supermarket.

Additionally, you may want to ease your way into eating at least SOME of your meat in the form of meat substitutes (usually made of soy and/or vegetables.) I'd like to recommend a couple that are easy to find and very enjoyable. Morningstar Farms makes some meatless "hamburger patties", some of which are not as delicious as the others. But you can't go wrong with their "Grillers", which taste almost exactly like a fried hamburger patty if you put it between a bun and garnish it the same way you would a hamburger. They can be found in the frozen foods section, under "organic". Then there is the meatless "hot dog" made by Yves. These are almost impossible to tell from the real thing--in or out of a bun--and are available in the produce section near all the tofu products.

Eventually you MAY find that you are able to wean yourself from meat altogether as long as you can find suitable substitutes. It will be a matter of trial and error, but it can be done. And it feels so good to know that no animals are being harmed by our rather uncivilized food pocessing methods.

Answer 10

Most organic companies or smaller, independent companies treat cattle with more respect.  These meats will usually be a little more expensive and, as a plus, will probably have a lower fat content and better quality meat because their mucles develop better.  DON'T EAT VEAL and DON'T EAT AT FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS.  Places like McDonalds make their food cheap by keeping their animals in inhumane conditions, buying half- dead dairy cows, giving them antibiotics because they sleep in their won filth, and pumping hormones into their food to produce supercows or chickens with abnormally large b*****s. i know this is hard, especially if you're living on a budget, but most places have fish sandwiches now.  If you need encouragement, read a few chapter of the book fast food nation.

Answer 11

If something is going to be thrown out if you don't eat it, there is no guilt in doing so, no matter where it came from. It's just not helpful when people think that such a practice is a form of vegetarianism.

If meat is that important, you should learn to hunt or find a hunter than can share with you. That's the only option I can think of but it would be hard to even verify that as "humane".

I think that it's very important for you to know that meat is definitely not required to have a certain physique or fitness level. I don't know if it matters to you but it is just a myth that needs to be dispelled.

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Answer 12

Define humane.  

An animal in the wild can either die by being ripped apart and eaten alive by a predator, starve to death or die slowly of some disease.  Or if it is really lucky get splattered all over the highway and be dead in minutes.  

Unless you are lucky and die in your sleep or are killed instantly in a car crash the end of your life will likely consist of weeks of being doped up but still in pain, feeling your life slowly slipping away.

Animals in a slaughterhouse get a near instant death except for rare instances.    

Answer 13

organic..all the animals are treated well, and killed "humanely" also its more healthy..

Answer 14

Find a local farmer who kills and butchers his own animals. You can check and see if he takes good care of his animals.

This is just my pet peeve, if you couldn't kill yourself don't eat it.  

Answer 15

Actually, organic meat is not much better than the rest. In fact, almost all of the animals go to the same slaughterhouses, so really there's no difference.

The only benefit of eating organic is that they aren't treated with antibiotics, which means that their living conditions must be a little cleaner, but it doesn't necessarily change the way they are treated.

If you go to google and type in "humane meat" you'll see what I mean. Although I would recommend just going vegetarian, if you won't do that than the best thing you can do is to buy organic, pastured, and free range meat. They have cleaner living conditions and more room to live, but the slaughterhouse conditions are still cruel.

Hope this helps!

Answer 16

You can start eating kosher like jewish people. They eat mean but the animals are killed fast and painless.