The Eat with Care blog

Humaneitarian turns a year old

December 2, 2012

A year ago today, I launched Humaneitarian.org as a source of information and inspiration for people who want to buy humanely raised meat. It’s been an amazing year – full of quiet accomplishments and steady progress – and I just wanted to update you.

On the website (which is still evolving and developing), you can now do many of the things that are necessary or ideal for eating humanely. You can pore over various definitions of “humane” so that you can settle on your own; you can learn about major humane meat brands sold in your supermarket; you can find your local farmers’ market through an interactive map; you can decipher the meanings of meat labels; you can read about developments in the humane meat movement as reported on the Eat With Care blog; you can find advocacy organizations working for farm animal welfare; and you can read personal stories by people who eat humanely.

Soon you’ll also also be able to watch videos of different humane farming methods, get advice on how to order humane meat in restaurants, learn how to cook unusual cuts of meat, and find out how to buy meat through CSA’s, online, or by purchasing a whole or half of an animal. Although the website is still a volunteer project, I look forward to tackling these topics as the seas of time part before me (or I part them myself!).

Thanks to the support of so many people, the following wonderful things also happened this year:

• Grist, the respected online magazine about food and the environment, picked up two of Humaneitarian’s blog posts: one about the former Perdue chicken farmer in “Food, Inc.” who now runs a pasture-based farm, and one about the woman who oversees undercover factory farm investigations at the Humane Society of the U.S.
• A graduate student at Antioch University New England worked this summer as Humaneitarian’s first research assistant.
• Humaneitarian’s Facebook page now has 245 followers, and the Twitter feed has 70 followers.
• Collaboration is being explored between Humaneitarian and a handful of like-minded humane meat sites, including GoEo (Go Ethical Omnivore) and Vital Awareness.

I’m also continuing to promote the word “humaneitarian” – defined as a person who eats humanely raised meat, however he or she might interpret that. I coined this word knowing full well that it’s hard to spell and hard to pronounce (!), but it perfectly encapsulates what I and so many others are trying to do: buy meat solely from farmers and companies who are trying to do right by animals.

So, onto year 2!  Thank you so much for your support, be sure to tell friends about the site, and always keep the animals in mind when you eat.