On being a humaneitarian

On the door of your freezer, there might be family photos tacked up with magnets, inspiring quotes, the Boston Red Sox schedule. Push those aside and make room for another piece of paper: a list of the contents of your freezer. A humaneitarian life begins by reflecting on the kind of meat you eat now so you can find humane versions of all the cuts you love.

Here’s my list from mid-2011. It reflects my love of bacon, stew beef, and breakfast sausage. Perhaps as you sort through your own freezer (ouch, cold!) you discover that you’re a guru of ground beef, a lover of lamb, churlish about chicken. Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t attempt to change your preferences as you shift to humanely raised products!

Take your freezer list to the meat department of your local grocery store, where the employees will wonder what you’re doing as you spend 10 minutes in front of the meat case, searching for different brands of the products that were in your freezer. You’re looking for brands that have an alternative label on the packaging, such as “free-range” or “organic.” (A list of these labels is here, along with an explanation of why they indicate better animal treatment.)

At home, return to this website and see if the brands you found are on the humane brands page. Read about the companies’ farming practices and see what you think. Just because it says “organic” or “grass-fed” on the packaging, or because the company has a farmy-sounding name, doesn’t mean they’re raising animals in a way that’s acceptable to you.

Ok, so what is acceptable to you?  As I write on this page, “humane” means different things to differenct people, so it’s important to use your own personal instincts to determine what farming systems you’re most comfortable with. You can learn about the natural behaviors of farm animls — and the farming systems that are used to raise them — on the beef, chicken & turkey, pork, and lamb & goat pages.

Then determine on a practical level what your humaneitarian life will look like.  You may choose to eat humanely raised meat every time you eat meat, only when you eat at home, only when you eat out, or only during certain times of the year. A lot will depend on how much you want to spend, what your supermarket sells, and how many farmers’ markets are in your area. Also, you may drop your principles entirely when you’re at a friend’s house and they’ve slaved all day over a (factory farmed) pork roast. Or you may put your principles on hold when you travel. Be inspired and get ideas from fellow humaneitarians here.

Be prepared for some sticker shock when you see different meat brands. The industrial farming model — which doesn’t exactly put animal welfare first — produces cheaper meat. Farms that pasture their animals, give them natural environments to live in, or raise fewer animals in a space, have more costs associated with that kind of treatment.

So chances are you’ll reflexively say, “I can’t afford that.” But dig a little deeper into that assumption. It’s one thing to have very little money for food — people in such circumstances truly can’t afford alternative meat on a regular basis. It’s another thing to be blessed with an income that allows us to buy things we value. If we value a few extra beers at the bar each week (about $10) we’ll pay for that. If we value knowing that the chicken we’re about to cook was able to spread its wings during its lifetime (about $10 more than a conventional chicken), we’ll pay for that. Not to put down beer, but most of us can save a little coin somewhere else in our lives to pay for humane meat.

Given that humanely raised meat can be expensive — and hard to find in some parts of the country — it follows that when humaneitarians can’t afford humane meat or can’t find it, we simply don’t eat meat. We become “temporary vegetarians.” And we do so happily, knowing that giving up meat for a meal when the right kind is not available keeps our money out of factory farms.

But wait!  We Americans can’t stand the word “less.” We want it all!  Faced with the prospect of eating less meat, we recoil, revolt, rebel. We think it’s necessary to eat it every day, or a few times a day. Yet the only reason we can eat factory farmed meat at every meal is because it’s cheap. Before industrial agriculture (only 60 years ago) meat was a treat. Now it’s as common (and as cheap) as soda. Let’s make meat a treat again.

As you search for humanely raised meat, go beyond the sliding glass doors. We’re accustomed to shopping at major supermarket chains, but they don’t sell very much humanely raised meat. You’re more likely to find it at farmers’ markets and food co-ops. In other words, humaneitarians buy meat at pretty unique places and get to encounter interesting things, such as:

So, find a local food co-op here. Find a nearby farmers’ market here. Click on FarmPlate or Local Harvest to find farms near you that sell meat from a farm stand. Here’s a guide to buying meat in alternative ways, such as through CSAs and the mail. And here’s how to find restaurants that serve humanely raised meat.

As you become a humaneitarian, here are some ways you might “mess up”:

1. You’ll… buy clam chowder at the local deli, then realize it includes bacon of unknown origin (darn!) — but you’ll eat the bacon anyway, so as not to “waste” the animal it came from.
2. You’ll… overcook the first dish of pork ribs you’ve ever made, undercook the chicken legs, and burn the lamb shanks — but a few weeks later you’ll try all those recipes again.
3. You’ll… grow weary of not finding humane cuts of your favorite meat, so you’ll just buy the industrial version in the store — but at least you’ll be aware that you’re doing it, unlike most people.
4. You’ll… express your eating philosophy to a friend over dinner at a restaurant, and unintentionally make them feel “inhumane” when they order the steak — but you’ll reassure them that you’re ok with their choice and will express yourself differently next time.
5. You’ll… think that your life as humaneitarian should be easier than it is — but who said this is an easy way of eating? Instead, it’s a deeply rewarding one, and makes a real difference in the lives of animals.

It’s a new word — and honestly, not easy to spell. It’s similar to the word “humanitarian” (as in, “She worked for humanitarian causes around the world”) but with an ‘e’ stuck in the middle. The similarity is intentional.  A humanitarian has concern for the welfare of people, and a desire to help them. A humaneitarian has concern for the welfare of farm animals, and a desire to help them.

Some people concerned about farm animals choose not to eat meat; others choose not to make any changes in their diet at all. Humaneitarians make a third choice: to eat only humanely raised meat. In doing so, to paraphrase Gandhi, they eat the change they want to see in the world.