You care about animals, and you eat food. This can create some challenges. The reality is that more than 95% of the meat, eggs and dairy on supermarket shelves and restaurant plates is from factory farms — industrial facilities packed with stressed and suffering animals. These mega-farms are cruel and unhealthy for animals, and they’re bad for public health, our environment and rural America. People are hungry for more humane options and there are farmers across the country who are raising animals with respect. We are here to help connect the dots.
Our Recommendations
Best choice:
Buy plant-based protein or pasture-based animal protein products, ideally from farms audited by an independent certification that addresses the major sources of suffering for each species.
Second-best choice:
Buy meat, eggs or dairy from welfare-certified farms or brands offering animals outdoor access or significantly improved living environments (compared to factory farms) which address each animal’s major sources of suffering.
See the More Humane Meat, Egg and Dairy Criteria section to understand what specific farming practices make different products a first, second-best or third-best choice for animal welfare.
How Do I Find More Humane Products?
Step 1. Check out ASPCA® ShopKind™. This is the ASPCA's ultimate shopping tool that tells you where you can find best choice and second-best choice products from stores, farms or online retailers.
Step 2. Find more humane products at your famers market or additional pasture-based farms that aren’t listed on ASPCA ShopKind. There are four questions we recommend you ask to understand farms’ practices and online directories you can use.
Step 3. Understand common labels. Knowing the real meanings of food labels can save you from spending money on products that might have fancy marketing but are still produced through factory farming. Some terms are truly hogwash when it comes to animal welfare. Claims like natural, naturally raised, farm-raised, fresh, humane (without a certification), vegetarian fed and local don’t offer any assurances of better-than-factory-farming conditions for animals. See the Certification and Label Guide for more on what matters for each species and the true definitions of common terms you’ll find on meat, eggs and dairy.
Explore our Recommendations for Finding More Humane food
How to Shop for More Humane Products at the Farmers Market
More Humane Meat, Egg and Dairy Criteria
Select a product to discover the key welfare issues for each animal, and see which farming practices are best choice, second-best choice or third-best choice for animal welfare.
ChickenEggsBeefPorkTurkeyDairy (cow)Other
Pasture + Plants: A Path to Better Farm Animal Welfare
Why pasture, or at least outdoor access? Outside is where animals belong — with sun on their backs and dirt under their feet, pecking, wallowing, rooting, grazing, foraging — not crowded and sealed in sheds. But we don't have the land to raise the number of animals currently consumed on pasture.
Plant-based proteins and meals don’t involve animals, so they’re always a safe choice from an animal welfare perspective and a better option for the environment than factory farmed meat. Plus, we could all benefit from eating more plants.
If we want more animals raised outside the walls of factory farms, we must reduce how many animals are raised and consumed in this country.
Did you know? Eating plant-based and pasture-raised isn’t just better for animal welfare, it can be better for your health, too.
According to research compiled by the Food Animal Concerns Trust: compared to food from animals raised on factory farms and fed grain, food from pasture-raised animals has more nutritional value. Pasture-raised meat, eggs and dairy typically have lower levels of saturated fat, healthier ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and higher levels of some vitamins and nutrients.
Reducing overall consumption of factory farmed food and making plant-based swaps may have health benefits, too. Compared to meat-heavy diets, plant-based diets have been shown to be associated with lower risk of diabetes and heart disease [PDF]. A review of plant-based meat alternatives found that they are generally lower in saturated fat and higher in dietary fiber than meat.
We encourage you to reflect on this information and determine if reducing your factory-farmed meat consumption is the right path for you.