Steering Clear Of Factory Farmed Products -- Why and How?

Are you concerned about how your food was raised prior to its arrival on your local grocery store shelves? According to the World Society For The Protection Of Animals (WSPA), the majority of all eggs, dairy and meat products that consumers purchase at today's major supermarket chains are generally produced via animals raised in a factory farms. The United States' highly mechanized agricultural system -- in place since the early 1920s -- was initially developed to support a growing global population with a steady supply of affordable-to-the-masses food. As technologies advanced -- including altering diets, incorporating growth hormones, supplements and antibiotics -- the volume of output continued to increase, in turn affording Americans the low cost meat and dairy supplies that we've all grown to know and love. Everyone loves cheap eats, right?

In effect, one could easily argue that factory farming has yielded good things for our population, but at what real cost? There are two major debates against it, suggesting that fattening up animals at warp speed and running them through a conveyor belt processing system is a moral issue that also comes at great cost to our environment. Just watch the movie "Food Inc." for all of the dirty little details. While there are a complex collection of points to consider, the issue of animal treatment in factory farming systems can be distilled as follows:

• animals are treated as units of production rather than living beings
• unnaturally large numbers of animals are confined closely together
• they are often treated cruelly, inhumanely, and subject to abuse
• the pens and cages that they live in are often so constricting that they cannot move
• overcrowded, unsanitary conditions make them highly susceptable to diseases (think avian & swine flu)
• diets are often far removed from what nature intended in order to bulk them up faster
• health complications often arise from a combination of diet, stress level, injury, and exposure to other sick animals

The environmental consequences of our factory farming system have long been documented, such as the development of vast ocean dead zones from the agricultural and sewage run-off of major livestock operations as well as the constant release of pollutant gases into our atmosphere. While both are notorious eco-issues, there are a long list of additional environmental problems to take into account:

• 8% of global water is channeled toward livestock production
• high volumes of methane contribute to climate change
• increasingly larger areas are cleared to support crop foods (deforestation)
• excessive fertilizer and pesticides are used to grow the grain and other crops that animals are fed
• agrochemicals end up polluting soil, water and air
• chemical, bacterial, and viral compounds from animal waste may travel in the soil and water
• man-made liquid animal waste lagoons a major source of water pollution
• nutrients and bacteria from waste leaches into groundwater
• factory sewage also contaminates waterways, disturbing aquatic ecosystems and killing sealife.
• the misuse of antibiotics may create antibiotic-resistant pathogens
• foul smells pollute areas where large scale factory farming operations exist

Bear in mind that I haven't even addressed the quality or health complications that can arise with food products that are raised in a highly industrial factory process. If any of the points cited above disturb you enough to want to implement one small change in your life to support more humane farming standards, the WSPA says that purchasing goods from smaller local stores and farmer's markets is a step in the right direction. Those places tend to carry products from animals that have been raised under more natural conditions. In an effort to offer consumers better insight into the origins of their food, the WSPA recently ranked America's leading "humane" supermarkets, giving top honors to the following stores: Whole Foods Market, Shaw's Supermarket (Supervalu, Inc.), Publix Super Markets, Hy-Vee Inc., Ralphs (Kroger, Co.), Trader Joe's, Kroger Co., Giant Food Stores (Ahold USA, Inc.), Stop & Shop (Ahold USA, Inc.), Vons and Safeway Inc. When you patronize any of those stores, the WSPA says that they uphold the most honest labeling standards by carrying the highest percentage of “Certified Humane,” “American Humane Certified,” “Animal Welfare Approved,”“USDA Organic,”“Pasture raised,” and “Free range” products than other mainstream retailers.