The Eat with Care blog
Writing about humane farming issues by Caroline Abels, founder of Humaneitarian. Your comments and feedback welcome. (All replies are screened and posted, if thoughtful and respectful.)
Our first giveaway! Enter now to win free chicken
[Contest is now closed. Congratulations to Angela from Columbus, Georgia!]
Humaneitarian is thrilled to partner with renowned farm White Oak Pastures to give away $95 worth of free humanely raised chicken! You can’t get chicken much better than this: Red Rangers living on lush pastures, processed on the farm, and allowed to engage in chickeny behavior at all times.
To enter, go to this page and type in your name and email. We’ll notify you in mid-September if you win!
We’re giving […]
Why did the chickens cross the road?
Recent news out of the poultry industry should give chickens a good reason to cross the road: to celebrate! Over the past few months, Perdue, Whole Foods, and America’s egg hatcheries all announced they are “crossing over” to some more humane practices.
Let’s cheer these recent victories:
1. Perdue sees the light: If you’re inside right now, look out a window. The billions of chickens raised in America each year never see natural light. Their growth is controlled by artificial light – […]
American bison: How is it raised?
Wild Idea Buffalo Co. is among a small group of ranches raising bison entirely on grass. (Photo: Wild Idea)
No one today – it’s pretty safe to say – prepares bison the way Meriwether Lewis and his Corps of Discovery did on the banks of the Missouri River in May 1805.
According to Lewis’s journal from that month, one of his men took a bison intestine, stuffed it with chopped kidney and other parts of the animal, added salt, pepper, […]
Interview: Wayne Pacelle and the “Humane Economy”
What do chickens in cramped cages and pigs in tight crates have to do with elephants in circuses, orcas at SeaWorld, or trophy-hunted tigers?
According to Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), all of these animals – and more – are being liberated, so to speak, by a new “humane economy,” in which consumers (including humane meat eaters) are driving corporations to improve their animal welfare standards.
In Pacelle’s new book, The Humane Economy: How Innovators and Enlightened […]
Action Opportunity: Improve living standards for organic poultry
Free-range turkeys at an Applegate company farm
You might be surprised to hear that certified organic chickens aren’t required to have access to pasture and may not have enough space in which to express natural behaviors, such as perching, scratching, and foraging.
It’s true. Organically raised egg-laying hens don’t necessary get the kind of life pictured in the photo above. Thankfully, they’re not trapped in cages, and they get more than “cage-free” birds do because they’re allowed outside, but as […]
Candidates! Address our local food concerns
Sheep grazing outside the White House during the Woodrow Wilson presidency
A popular post on Humaneitarian’s Facebook page is proving that people have serious questions for the presidential candidates about how they would support our local farms — including the farms that provide our nation’s most humanely raised meat.
I asked Facebook followers what question they would pose to a presidential candidate (of either party) if allowed one food-related query. The answers were varied, and kicked off with Humaneitarian’s question:
“Why are small […]
Weaning: What is it, and why care?
I can still remember my first day at nursery school. It involved a lot of screaming. It involved feeling sick to my stomach from all my crying. It involved someone eventually taking my hand and dragging me out of the hallway, where I had refused to leave my mother, into the bright, white classroom that I would eventually — eventually — come to love.
I was helpless and confused in the new environment — new peers, new surroundings, […]
Holiday gifts for humane meat eaters
Think of the people on your holiday gift list: Are any of them humaneitarians? Friends or family who like cooking delicious meats from ethical farms that raise animals with dignity? If so, consider giving one of these gifts to the humaneitarian in your life. These are nice things to get, too, if you’re a humaneitarian yourself… (I can vouch for that…)
Cookbooks
The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook, by Shannon Hayes (Eating Fresh Publications, 2004)– A meat cookbook that focuses on pasture-raised animals, because pastured […]
How to buy a humanely raised turkey
Order early. Order early. Order early!
I write this three times because if you want a pastured turkey for Thanksgiving, small farms tend to sell out early, so mind the calendar — and pick up that phone!
Actually, wait. Before you pick up the phone, decide if you want a pasture-raised turkey or not. As you might know, turkeys evolved in the wild, where they could run around, flap their wings, eat insects, breathe fresh air, and nest in trees. On pasture-based […]
Eating tip #3: How vegetables can make you a better humaneitarian
A vegetable pan
People’s number one complaint about humanely raised meat is its cost (followed closely, I’ve observed, by confusion about what is humane). And people’s most frequent health complaints (at least in the developed world) are about their weight, daily sluggishness, and a lack of adequate vitamins and minerals.
So it’s time to talk about vegetables — the simple, lowly vegetable — because, in a roundabout way, vegetables can make the humaneitarian way of meat eating more financially feasible, and […]