A Guide to Eating Ethically, if You Just Can't Cut Out Meat and Dairy

Many of us are trying to eat more ethically. A Gallup poll in 2020 found that one in four Americans were trying to eat less meat, and one-third of Americans drink non-dairy milk every week. Last year, 620,000 people signed up for Veganuary, and this year the campaign has had a record-breaking sign-up rate of one person every 2.4 seconds.

For some, these dietary changes are are health-oriented, but many are more motivated by concerns about the impacts of livestock farming on animal welfare and the environment.

The idyllic farmyard pastures that reside in our imagination are a far cry from the truth of concentrated meat factory farming. In these intensive settings, tens of billions of animals are slaughtered every year. Animals are mutilated, male chicks and calves are often killed at birth, and many of the animals we eat spend their entire shortened lives in cages.

In the U.S. alone, over 9 billion animals are slaughtered every year, most of which were raised on factory farms, Julia Johnson, U.S. senior food business manager at welfare organization Compassion in World Farming, told Newsweek. "These environments confine pigs to crates where they cannot even turn around...and laying hens are crammed into cages that are no bigger than an iPad," she said.

Even the animals that are not immediately slaughtered often face grueling conditions. To produce the 850 million tons of milk consumed annually around the world, many cows are forcibly impregnated and separated from their calves at birth.

"A single cow produces around 8,000 liters of milk per year, compared to 4,000 liters back in 1975," Richard McIlwain, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, told Newsweek. "Overall, dairy cows live short, intensive lives with slaughter at five years old, when their natural life span can be up to 20 years."

On top of animal welfare concerns, conventional livestock farming can negatively impact the environment and human health. "Whether that is the subtherapeutic antibiotics and hormones fed to animals or farm runoff going into waterways, the negative outcomes of these 'efficient' models are overwhelming," Johnson said.

With these environmental and welfare concerns in mind, many are trying to adopt a more ethical diet. At the supermarket, it is easy to find labels promising "humane" treatment and "natural" produce, but many of these claims are unregulated and confusing. So what can you do to make more informed, ethical food choices?

How To Eat Meat, Dairy and Fish Ethically

Here are seven things to look out for on your next food shop:

1. Read the labels—opt for products that have been approved by third party animal welfare groups.
2. Beware of product packaging that masquerades as an ethical certification.
3. Opt for organic dairy where possible.
4. If you choose to eat beef, opt for pasture-raised cattle.
5. Choose welfare-certified chicken and pork over beef and lamb.
6. Source seafood that was farmed using sustainable fishing practices.
7. Reduce how much meat, dairy and fish you eat overall.

Ethical Foods Labels You Can Trust

At the supermarket, packaged meat and dairy carry so many labels that it can be hard to know which ones to trust. "The marketplace is incredibly crowded with claims like 'natural' and 'humane,' but because there are no federal on-farm laws to ensure the well-being of the billions of farmed animals in our food system, well-meaning consumers often support factory farms," Johnson said.

"Third-party animal welfare certifications ensure that pigs and hens are never confined in crates or cages too small even to turn around. Instead, they are granted space and environmental enrichments, improving their quality of life."

Look out for the following food labels which can guide you to making ethical food choices:

• Animal Welfare Approved certified by A Greener World
• Certified Humane.
• Global Animal Partnership.
• USDA Organic.
• American Grassfed Association.
• Regenerative Organic Certified.
• Marine Stewardship Council.
• Aquaculture Stewardship Council.
• Best Aquaculture Practices.

Each of these have different standards and are used in different contexts.

Animal Welfare Approved Certified by A Greener World

This label by the nonprofit organization A Greener World guarantees animals have been raised outdoors on pasture or rangeland for their entire lives. Crates and cages are prohibited. The animals must be given an environment that allows them to behave naturally, in a state of good physical and mental health. A Greener World also requires farms to uphold rigorous environmental standards. This label is only given to independent farmers, and auditors from A Greener World visit every farm in their program at least once a year to make sure that all farms are meeting the required standards.

A Greener World also certified other types of animal products, and information on each certification can be found on the Greener World website. These are: Certified Grassfed by AGW; Certified Non-GMO by AGW; Certified Organic by AGW; and Certified Regenerative by AGW.

Certified Humane

This certification is administered by the nonprofit Humane Farm Animal Care. It requires that animals are able to exhibit natural behaviors that improve their quality of life through enriched indoor environments. No cages are permitted, but access to the outdoors is only required for cows, not pigs and poultry. You can find animal-specific requirements on their website.

As with the AGW certification, animals that fall under the Certified Humane label are audited throughout their lives, from birth to slaughter.

Global Animal Partnership

This label follows a five step rating system that recognizes farms which support animal health, emotional wellbeing and natural behavior. It is overseen by an independent nonprofit organization, the Global Animal Partnership, established by John Mackey, the CEO of the supermarket chain Whole Foods Market.

The lowest rating in the system, Step 1, indicates that the animals have not been subjected to cages, crates or crowding. The best rating, Step 5+, indicates that animals have spent their entire lives on pasture on the same farm. The Animal Welfare Institute recommends that you look for products with ratings of Step 4, 5, and 5+.

Under the scheme, farms receive an initial rating following an audit by an independent third-party certifier, which is reassessed every 15 months. You can read the full step programme here.

USDA Organic

The U.S. organic seal is regulated by the USDA. It certifies that animals were raised on land free from chemicals such as fertilizer and pesticides, that their diet is free from genetically modified grains, and that they have not received antibiotics or growth hormones. The animals must also be given year-round access to the outdoors.

McIlwain said that, while it was not perfect, organic certification for dairy from a credible organization was a better alternative to the increasing industrialization of dairy seen elsewhere. "Choosing organic means that cows will predominantly be pasture reared, with minimal antibiotic use and less stocking densities." This is the case for cheese as well as milk.

However, in the U.S. there is no requirement that these animals have access to green, sprawling pasture—Compassion in World Farming said that the animals' "outdoor space" may be limited to a screened-in concrete "porch." Painful mutilations, such as debeaking and castration, are still permitted within the USDA's restrictions.

American Grassfed Association

The American Grassfed Association goes one step further than the USDA, prohibiting the use of routine antibiotics and growth hormones, and ensuring the animals are raised on pasture without confinement. For all USDA-recognized grass-fed products, animals that have been 100 percent grassfed must have continuous access to pasture and forage (i.e. grass and hay) from weaning until harvest, and cannot be fed grain-based products. More about the certification standards can be found on the American Grassfed Association website.

Regenerative Organic Certified

When shopping for beef and dairy, look out for the Regenerative Organic Certified label (ROC) that guarantees the animals had continuous and open access to pasture. Under these standards, growth hormones and antibiotics are prohibited, and animal welfare and soil health are prioritized. More information can be found on the Regenerative Organic Alliance website.

Sustainable Fishing Labels

When it comes to seafood, the most prominent global labels to certify sustainability are the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for wild fisheries and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) for farmed seafood. However, because the MSC fosters partnerships with the intent to develop long-term relationships with the fisheries, it is not guaranteed that seafood carrying its blue tick label is from a fishery that is currently following the best practices in sustainability. The Best Aquaculture Practices label also covers important issues like stocking densities, water quality and proper waste disposal, and examines all stages of the supply chain.

Beware of Misleading Ethical Food Labels

You might see products with welfare promises from their manufacturer. However, these claims can be misleading. These are some of the most common terms to look out for:

• "Natural": This usually refers to how the meat is processed but the label is not regulated at all and does not give any indication of the animal's wellbeing.
• "Naturally raised": This term was once regulated by the USDA to indicate the animal had not received growth hormones or antibiotics. However, since 2016 the label has been unregulated.
• "Humane": There is no legal definition of this term and is not verified by the USDA so unless the product has been certified by a trusted third party, this term carries little meaning.
• "No hormones" for poultry and pork: While this label is meaningful for beef products, it is illegal to use hormones and steroids on poultry and pork, so it is merely an indication that these farmers are following the law.
• "Cage free" for chickens raised for meat: No chicken raised for meat in the U.S. is kept in a cage prior to being transported to the slaughter house so this label gives no meaningful indication of animal welfare for poultry meat.
• "Free range" eggs: The terms free-range and cage-free can be misleading as there is no legal definition for these phrases in the U.S. Generally, free-range animals will have been given access to the outdoors, but there is no indication of the quality of this outdoor space, the duration and frequency of outdoor access, and how many animals are kept in one place. If a box says "free range", look for additional third party certifications to be sure of what you are buying. And don't forget that eggs are found in mixed ingredient products too, such as pasta, cakes and salad dressings.

Choosing Pasture-Raised Cattle

Meredith Leigh, author of The Ethical Meat Handbook, told Newsweek that the confinement of animals in factory farms was intrinsically linked to the environmental damage caused by industrial farming procedures. "Much of the negative environmental impacts of livestock come from confinement operations, where animal waste is a liability rather than a natural fertilizer, and animals are removed from natural ecosystems such as grasslands, that, if managed properly, can both sequester carbon and mitigate the methane impact of ruminant animals," she told Newsweek.

By rearing sheep and cows on pasture land, the carbon intensive feed inputs used in industrial agriculture can be almost entirely eliminated, and the animals' interaction with the environment can support the surrounding ecosystem, Glen Burrows, co-founder of the Ethical Butcher, told Newsweek. "Nature is taking care of everything, and by managing the animals in a particular way–which usually involves grouping them together and moving them frequently–they have an impact on the land that is very different from what it would be like in an unmanaged system," he said.

By eating plants, pasture-raised cows encourage competition and prevent one species from taking over the entire field. This increases diversity and improves soil quality. Plants may also put more energy into root growth, which holds the soil together. As a result, more carbon can be stored in the soil. "You can have a system that is sequestering more carbon into the ground and into vegetative plant matter and into soil formation," Burrows said.

Johnson said that it was important to see agriculture as part of a wider ecosystem. "We are all part of a great, beautifully complex ecosystem, and what industrial farming has done is remove that synergy and instead focus on one sole outcome: efficiency. What you lose with this model, however, is the health of flora and fauna that evolved to work together in a symbiotic way where every piece of the puzzle played a crucial part.

"By returning animals to the land and allowing hooves and snouts to restore the earth, as we see with many regenerative farmers focused on sequestering carbon into the soil, microscopic mycelium to birds of prey begin to return to the land, rebalancing the ecosystem."

Choosing Chicken and Pork Over Beef and Lamb

As well as polluting the immediate environment, livestock farming accounts for 14.5 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions, as per data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. However, some meats have a bigger impact than others.

Analysis by the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization found that, on average, beef produces eight times more greenhouse gas than chicken for the same amount of protein, and five times more than pork. This is largely due to the way cows digest their food, a process which produces large quantities of the greenhouse gas methane.

"Consumers can lower the greenhouse gas emissions embodied in their food consumption by about 18 percent by changing from lamb and beef to pork and chicken," Nick Hewitt, a professor at the University of Lancaster's Environment Center, told Newsweek.

Because of this, even milk-based products tend to have a higher carbon footprint than chicken and pork. A study in 2018, published in the journal Science, found that, on average, cheese produces nearly double the amount of greenhouse gas that chicken does, when comparing per gram of protein. Hard cheeses usually require more milk than soft cheeses, and more processing, so to minimize your impact, it is best to stick to small amounts of soft cheese.

Choosing Sustainable Fish and Seafood

Farmed fish and seafood is, on average, about the same as chicken when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. But this greatly depends on the type of fish. Filter feeders, like oysters and mussels, are one of the most environmentally beneficial options as they actually clean the water in which they are raised.

Plant-eating fish, like anchovies and sardines, put less of a strain on wild fish stocks than carnivorous fish because they do not require fish-based feed. Salmon, by comparison, need to eat five times more fish than they will ultimately supply.

By far the worst type of seafood are crustaceans. When it comes to shrimp, both wild and farmed animals are often environmentally unsustainable: wild shrimp caught by bottom trawling can wreck natural habitats, and the construction of shrimp farms often involves the destruction of essential ecosystems like mangrove forests.

For wild fish, the fishing method matters, as some are more destructive than others. "Pole and line caught" fish are generally considered a more sustainable option because there is less risk of catching non-target animals (known as bycatch) and it is less disruptive to the marine environment. However, it is one of the least efficient methods, meaning it uses more fuel and requires the use of bate, often in the form of other fish.

For a more comprehensive database of which fish to avoid, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program examines a number of different factors, including overfishing, habitat destruction and bycatch, to categorize fish into different categories: "Best choice"; "Good alternative"; and "Avoid." This is an online database, rather than a label on a specific food product, so it requires you to do a bit of extra research to find out which fish are the most sustainable choices and where they should be fished from.

Reduce How Much Meat You Eat

Eliminating meat from our diets would reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions by about 22 percent. "This reduction increases to about 26 percent if both meat and dairy products are eliminated from the diet," Hewitt said.

However, restrictive diets can be hard to stick to, and simply reducing how much meat and dairy you eat can still make a big impact. Whether that is by incorporating "meat free" days into your week, or by mixing beef mince with lentils to bulk out a Bolognese, there are lots of different ways you can cut down on animal products without cutting them out.

It is also important to remember that different diets suit different people, and that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work for everyone. "We are all different and we all thrive on different proportions of macronutrients," Burrows said. "Some people do very well on high fat, high protein diets. Other people seem to do well on higher carbohydrate diets and lower fat diets. I don't think there's a right and wrong answer to that. I think the secret is to try different dietary strategies and see which ones make you feel best."

Correction 01/11/23, 11:00 a.m ET: This article was updated to correct the spelling of Glen Burrows' name.

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References

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Gerber, P.J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. & Tempio, G. 2013. Tackling climate change through livestock – A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome

Poore J, Nemecek T, Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers, Science, June 1 2018, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaq0216

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