Animal welfare and food service

Animal welfare can be defined as how well an animal is doing physically and mentally. It is a consideration of how much pain and suffering an animal is feeling and how often they can engage in natural behaviors. In other words, the welfare of an animal is asking the question, “how good of a life is this animal living?” In the case of animals in factory farms, there are very serious welfare concerns. Perhaps most notably is the issue of confinement and its related health outcomes. The good news is, as food service providers, you have the power to make a difference in the welfare of vast numbers of animals!

The link between food service and animal welfare

There are good reasons to believe that when individuals buy plant-based foods, they can, through collective action, have an impact on animal welfare. Imagine if food service operations across the country, who have more power and scale than individuals, made similar choices. By reducing large amounts of demand for the meat of poorly treated animals, suffering is directly reduced! Therefore, even a simple switch, like using a plant-based mayonnaise as the default mayonnaise or offering plant-based burgers alongside animal-based burgers, could have massive impacts in terms of reducing the number of individual animals that have to suffer on factory farms.

Chickens

Chickens, the farm animal most exploited for food, face significant welfare challenges due to intensive confinement and other practices like beak trimming and genetic modification. Broiler chickens (chickens raised for meat) have been bred to grow so large so fast that they often cannot support their own body weight. Battery cages, small cages that hold 5-10 birds at a time, introduce challenges such as depriving hens of their natural behaviors. Each hen has the space equivalent to the size of an iPad to live out her entire life. Dr. Ian Duncan cites the inability for chickens to engage in nesting behaviors as “undoubtedly” the largest sources of frustration in chickens. Hens in cages also face extreme metabolic disease due to the lack of opportunity for movement. Just like people, chickens can experience conditions like hypertension and heart failure!

Pigs

Intensively confined pigs on factory farms also endure extremely painful conditions. Gestation crates, small cages where mother pigs are trapped, are too small for a mother pig to turn around. Like chickens, pigs in these conditions will experience weaker bones, weaker cardiovascular systems, and more injuries than their non-caged counterparts. The suffering these pigs endure is not just physical-often they will develop abnormal behaviors like bar-biting and becoming unresponsive. These unusual behaviors are indicative of frustration, depression, and even brain damage.

Veal

Veal is meat that comes from a male calf (baby cow). Only male calves are raised for meat because female calves are raised to produce milk for dairy products. Calves raised for veal only live until they are about 18 weeks old before they are slaughtered for meat. Calves are often confined in crates that measure approximately 2.5 feet wide in which it is near impossible for them to lie down comfortably. The crates are designed to impede muscle and bone development, but they also destroy the ability for calves to interact with other calves. Cows are innately social creatures that find comfort in the touch and presence of other cattle, so calf interaction is vital to their health.

Dairy cows

The U.S. has over 9 million dairy cows. Since dairy cows only produce milk after giving birth (just like humans), they are repeatedly impregnated to produce more milk than they otherwise would naturally. The majority of dairy cows are confined primarily indoors with less than 10% primarily raised on pasture. Most cows are kept in tie-stalls where they are individually tethered by their neck which severely limits their ability to move and perform any natural behaviors. Dairy cows also typically have their tail-docked, or amputated, without anesthetic.

Data shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans support animal welfare measures and are against animal sufferings

• One poll showed that 70% of Americans have some discomfort with the way animals are used in the food industry and 69% think factoring farming of animals is one of the most important social issues in the world today.
• A Gallup Poll showed that 41% of respondents ranked concern about animal welfare as a “major reason” for eating meat less, rarely, or never.
• Another survey from 2014 showed that 69% of Americans prioritize animal welfare when deciding what foods to buy.
• According to another source, 94% of Americans agree that animals raised for food deserve to be cruelty-free.
• A survey conducted by the Animal-Human Policy Center at Colorado State University found that over 80% of Americans support measures to end confinement practices, such as cage-free laws.