Tagged Animal Welfare

Slaughter Your Own Thanksgiving Turkey

Slaughtering Your Own Thanksgiving Turkey

With the holidays approaching, some are preparing to don aprons while others are preparing themselves to take the life of the animal that will grace their table. Small, local farmers are increasingly giving customers the opportunity to not only choose their own heritage breed bird, but to learn to kill and dress it as well.
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Breaking The Link Between Dairy And Veal

Many exclude veal from their diet on principle.  And vegetarians avoid meat altogether. Yet anyone consuming dairy products may still inadvertently be supporting the production of veal. Aside from a very few farmers who eschew it, veal production is, after all, a by-product of the dairy industry.  Dairy cows must give birth once a year…
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Humane Pasture Raised Heritage Breed Pork

With so many labels vying for your sustainable food dollar, it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide which is best. The labels should make it easier, but how many of us really know what the certified Organic or the various steps of the GAP animal welfare labels really entail? When it comes to pork, there…
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The Importance of Choosing Humanely Raised High Welfare Pork

Although the United Kingdom has established some of the highest animal welfare standards in Europe, meat produced under far less humane conditions continues to flood the market. In response to this proliferation of low quality meat – and the subsequent social and environmental abuses required to produce it – filmmaker and activist Tracy Worcester founded…
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Humanely Raised Eggs & Enriched Colony Housing

People pay a premium for eggs with a Humane certification, yet different certifiers have differing definitions of what constitutes a humanely raised hen. Until there is some clarity on this issue, we will be treated to more opaque, nuanced labels that may or may not represent what you think is humane.
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Feeding Candy To Cows

Candy Corn: The New Cow Feed

In the face of higher feed prices caused by worldwide droughts, some livestock farmers have resorted to less than savory alternatives to keep their cattle alive and fat.
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What Is Organic Meat?

What does the certified organic label on meat actually mean? Some consumers mistakenly assume it represents the highest standard of nutrition, humane treatment of animals and sound ecological practices.
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Choosing Chicken: The Label Game

What’s with all these labels?  Organic, free range, cage free—find out how to buy the best chicken and why it matters. I’m looking for a real chicken.  It used to be a simple affair—picking out a chicken at the market to bring home for dinner.  Now I am confronted with a raft of labels to…
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what's in pet food

How Pet Food Is Made

Pet food has become a convenient market for waste from meat and grain producers which are deemed inedible to humans. But what are these ingredients?
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humane certified eggs at Coastal Hill Farm

How To Choose The Best Eggs

Certified organic, free range, cage free. There are so many options when buying eggs, but what do they mean, other than a steep price premium? Author Eden Canon takes a closer look at labels, in search of a healthy, ethically produced egg.
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how is milk made

Where Does Milk Come From?

Over the past 50 years the answer to a simple question—where does milk come from?—has changed. We look at where most milk comes from, and then explore organic and pasture based alternatives.
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Humanely Raised Meat: How to Buy Pork

Many avoid pork because of the lurid abuses endemic in conventional pig rearing. But, with a little research, conscientious carnivores can still delight in bacon and porchetta. Ethically raised pork is becoming easier to find as small scale local producers embrace pasture-based farming.
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Drink Up, It’s Milk Season

Like everything in nature, milk has its season. We’ve grown accustomed to fresh milk year round, but at a cost. There are welfare, health and environmental consequences of turning milk into an industrial product. Changing our perspectives is the most important part of the solution.
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