Lab meat can solve this! Just like solar and self-driving and zoning reform, lab meat is a technology that has the potential to create material and moral abundance. Right now opposing lab meat is more popular than allowing it. It remains low salience because it’s unsettling and expensive but like many other abundance projects, I suspect it’s just a matter of sustained effort to change both.
Impossible meat is good, but I want people to be able to eat delicious burgers at 1/10th the cost and 1/1000th the environmental and moral impact. I think lab grown meat can do that. It might take a decade or two, but it’s worth doing!
I think we are likely to achieve clinical immortality before we achieve economically viable lab meat. It is incredibly, incredibly expensive to keep meat alive without an animal. Costs of cell culture are falling extremely slowly.
There's a couple things to do when you're in a moral minority. The first is to try to persuade more people to see your position as morally correct. The second is to change the world such that your moral position also becomes the convenient one. This is what's happened with solar energy. I'm assuming we could get there with meat engineering eventually.
"Still, asking people to improve pigs’ lives is one thing; asking them to pay a lot more for bacon, let alone give it up entirely, is another. Ending farm animal suffering would require the latter."
Kind of a strange way to shoot your own political position in the foot! I suppose the only way no farm animal can suffer is to have zero farm animals. But farm animal suffering can be greatly reduced without large costs, as the states you just listed in this article proved. In general, the cost of complying with well-structured regulations start out way smaller than the affected businesses claim and continue to fall over time. Please don't endorse Ag's false dilemma on gestation crates.
This is silly. My freezer is full of pork (and beef) from animals that were raised (and slaughtered) humanely. As the farmers say (and to which I can attest), they had one bad day. It really isn’t even that much more expensive in the grand scheme of things. It’s true people might have to eat a bit less beef and pork if were all raised this way, (and a LOT less processed meat products) but with a judicious reorientation of farm subsidy policy and a dramatic reform in the way we use farmland, no one need be “worse off.”
The difficult thing about living in a pluralistic society is that you don't get to decide for others that changing their consumption patterns doesn't make them worse off, offer no justification beyond scare quotes and accusations of silliness, and assume that you've made your point. Your comment will resonate with people who already agree with you. Those who don't agree with you hear that they'll need to pay more for already-expensive beef and pork, see your scorn, and tune out.
Welcome to the moral minority. You're allowed lots of scorn but little change. Enjoy your stay.
I never said anyone would have to pay more (at least not so much as to have to forego eating meat as the author implied). Meat (and especially pork) would probably cost roughly the same for relatively unprocessed cuts. Some products (like bologna or hot dogs) might disappear (or become much more expensive). I suppose then that you’re technically correct that some people might be “worse off” because they would either not be able to afford bologna (even though they would be able to afford the same number of ounces of something like a ham steak) or the bologna would be quite a bit more expensive. You got me. This is not as big deal as the CAFO producers and big meat packers would have us believe. We spend a LOT of money in this country to produce “cheap” food. That is money that could very easily be spent subsidizing the purchase of “real” food for folks who might not be able to afford it. And it is true that when I say “worse off” what I mean is having to choose between pork and bulk lentils or gruel. Someone foregoing bologna for a ham steak isn’t worse off in my book. Reasonable people can disagree, though.
Couldn’t disagree more (speaking as someone who has slaughtered many animals, and who has see it done to many others). There can truly be basically zero suffering. Now, you might mean that killing animals is morally wrong, full stop. Many Jains would agree. But I sure don’t.
Didn’t want to leave it hanging there but I got caught up in plans haha! I agree the argument can be made that consuming meat that is apart from the traditional factory farming system is better for the environment as a whole. I grew up in a hunting/fishing family, I’ve always held the belief that if you can’t kill the animal yourself, you shouldn’t be eating it.
This reminds me of the survey that found that people who believe climate change is real and human-caused won’t pay $75 more a year for their energy. My cynical conclusion from all of this is that most moral convictions are extremely thin, go into insofar as they cost people nothing. Most people would like to live their lives exactly as the currently do with zero sacrifice and still think that they are making the moral choice. This grim conclusion points to technology as the only viable long-term solution, because any policy to internalize the externalities will create a backlash, and vote out the politicians who asked people to make a small sacrifice, and vote in the ones who will revert to the status quo.
Okay, it's a $2 hamburger now, but in terms of wages it's a wash. Maybe the $1.50 Costco hot dog.
The point still stands. People love cheap meats. If you tell them they need to eat zee bugs, own nothing, and be happy, they will tear you limb from limb.
I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. A 19oz package of Johnsonville brats is $5.92 at Walmart. I get a 16oz package of humanely raised pork brats for $5.99. That’s ~20% more expensive, with the Johnsonville brats being HEAVILY subsidized and mine having no subsidies of any kind. It really just isn’t that big a difference, and something that can be easily adjusted for using a re-allocation of farm subsidies.
80% lean ground beef is $7.23/lb at Walmart, and the humanely-raised grassfed stuff in my freezer is closer to $9. 25% more expensive, with insane subsidies/economies of scale on one hand and nothing on the other.
You're comparing prepared foods that you can get hot and ready with the cost of labor included to packaged foods at the supermarket. The actual cheap hot dogs are $1.50 a pound, like Bar S hot dogs, which comes out to about $0.20 a piece.
You cannot get a free range humanely raised hot dog at the supermarket for $0.20. If you take the cheap ones away, people will flay you in the town square.
Those bar s hot dogs aren’t going anywhere — it’s all mechanically separated chicken and fillers. We are only talking about pork (and beef). There will always be cheap processed junk made with industrial chicken (I would hope).
Okay, it's a $2 hamburger now, but in terms of wages it's a wash. Maybe the $1.50 Costco hot dog.
The point still stands. People love cheap meats. If you tell them they need to eat zee bugs, own nothing, and be happy, they will tear you limb from limb.
I am one of those Americans who heard about the "Save Our Bacon" provision and tried to share information to stop it. I eat meat but I try to balance my consumption by eating more veggies, grains, and fruits (I try to keep my meat consumption somewhere between 15% and 20% of my weekly food intake) and I try (and do not always succeed) to eat mean that is sourced from ethical producers.
I appreciate your quandary here and I enjoyed the discussion of the moral implications of eating meat while not taking a fanatical position on either side of the issue, but I think that you missed/overstated one important thing. The cost of pork would not go up substantially if the California or Massachusetts standards were implicated nationwide and would be less than the cost increases that we have seen due to the spike in fuel since our folly in the Persian Gulf began. The hidden story is the money made by giant agribusiness at the expense of animal and consumer welfare (https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/small-farmers-form-coalition-to-push-back-against-2026-farm-bill/).
Because of that, the moral stakes in opposing this act aren't as stark as they seem when you pose the question, "...would you give up meat as you know it," and that really isn't a fair question to ask.
Thanks for a great read and let's try to keep this horrible Farm Bill in our sights when Congress comes back from Summer Recess.
Why can't we put it to a market vote and pass laws that simply require meat packaging to describe what the life of the animal whose meat is in the package was like?
I'm not talking about a Portlandia farce where we need to make sure that the animals were massaged and read bedtime stories, but just to know that they were treated with decency and had a standard of living that did not put them under any duress and that when they were slaughtered they were slaughtered in a way that was instant and not traumatic.
There are many farms that already advertise that this is precisely how they treat their wildlife and many of us go out of our way to procure our meat from precisely such farms. But for whatever reason, their product has yet to reach most supermarkets where the labeling makes it explicit why the prices are substantially higher.
The cost to making this information available is negligible and then we'll let people vote with their wallet. I'm probably not that rare a consumer who cares about animal welfare and is prepared to pay a meaningful premium on meat that is sourced from animals that lived a happy life and a cruelty free death.
Are there such proposals in any states? If so, how are they doing?
The labeling that "means very little" is largely irrelevant. We already have all sorts of oversight for what can or can't be labeled as "organic" (for example) and that seems to be reasonably accurate.
I'm sure it's not perfect but in what I'm describing it's very hard to cheat - either a farm meets various criteria or it doesn't. Once a farm or ranch is the kind where animals just wander around and there's a way to slaughter them out view of other animals and in some efficient and painless manner (which presumably would require some kind of audit and certification) there's very little incentive for them to "cheat" and indeed such cheating would probably create more problems for them, in terms of their standard operating procedure, than it fixes.
Most of the resistance to these changes come from the massive cost in modifying an operation to begin with. The farms that are operating this way now (which I was referring to) have every incentive to not be exposed as doing anything nefarious - their reputations are their lifeblood and their customers are buying from them precisely because they claim to practice this kind of farming and butchery.
Anyway - I guess my pushback to your pushback is... as opposed to what? This article states (I believe quite accurately) that if we wait for the voting public to vote themselves into even less affordable meat we'll wait for ever and the animals will continue to suffer and the very slow advance of the kinds of farms I'm talking about (which are indeed slowly proliferating in places where there's a market for it) will take every longer to catch on.
My suggestion (I believe) would just make this product immediately more available to those who can afford it and then if it catches on then its popularity will necessarily bring the prices down for everyone - and perhaps after that happens we could even think of some kind of subsidies for everyone who practices this kind of farming to incentivize the entire industry (akin to how we give people tax breaks to buy electric vehicles and put up solar panels). But none of that is going to catch on until there's a groundswell of enthusiasm from the consumer base so I'm just thinking of the lowest hanging fruit to get us there.
I just noticed who I'm talking to - great work in The Bulwark!
From what I've seen, organic is the exception - a well defined regulation. I was thinking about all the flowery labeling that currently exists that doesn't really mean anything (if i remember correctly, free range also has a real definition, although surprisingly not as strict as organic). But reading your comment again, I think I better understand what you're proposing - if companies are forced to list exactly what animal welfare they are and aren't providing (are they cutting beaks off, are they confined to a tiny cage thier entire lives, etc), rather than only farms that do things the right way list what they don't do, I think that would be quite effective. But also I think that will be forcing a lot of people to think about all the steps involved in putting meat on the table which the meat industry doesn't want you thinking about, and honestly, most people don't want to think too much about either, so I don't see that getting passed. And I say this as someone like you who is happy to eat meat that that is ethically raised (=not an overall negative quality of life). I just don't think most people like thinking about this at all - they either want to eat thier meat or are strictly vegetarian, there's not much middle ground that I see.
I'm not saying I have a better solution, I'm not very hopeful for much of a solution, kind of seems to come with the territory of capitalism-the animals don't have money, so thier needs will be ignored.
"who I'm talking to" makes it sound like I'm somebody. I'm not. Although if I wanted credit for something I'd steer (no pun intended) you towards samizdatonline.org (which wired covered thusly: https://www.wired.com/story/russia-internet-censorship-samizdat-online ) and if you want to send accolade (or better yet money!) I'll be very grateful for either (though more for the money). Either way sign up for the newsletter - you'll find it very informative.
Yes - most people aren't interested because it takes a modicum of exposure to suddenly be presented with the horror that is factory farming.
It wasn't so long ago that "organic farming" was just called "farming". There were no other options. I am not a fan of appeals to nature (nature is our enemy) but most people have the innate revulsion when forced to actually see what factory farming looks like and I don't think I'm exaggerating that the common interest in "cruelty free" (or whatever label we'd conjure up for this descriptor) meat would skyrocket if people were exposed to the fact that every piece of meat they're eating is washed in sewage before it's cleaned and presented for purchase.
Factory farming isn't substantially less gross (and for some more) than just using the sewage analogy. So - as with everything (and this ties back to Samizdat) I think information is the only thing we can control and the rest of the chips will have to fall where they might.
And I don't think we need to delve into removed beaks or other examples of cruelty specifics. An animal either lives a "normal" life or it doesn't. Yes there are zealots who will say that a chicken needs a private acre of land to live a normal life but most people (and in particular - farmers) have a pretty good grasp of what constitutes a happy life for chickens.
As it happens I'm raising some chickens - and while I'm not an expert - they have personalities and preferences and pecking orders so it doesn't take any deep expertise to know if a creature is miserable or not.
Am I an outlier in caring primarily about the life of the animal (and its final several moments)? Probably - but I avoid tribes (tribes are natural) so I'm out here looking at the problem pragmatically - and this feels like the most sensible thing to be focused on. Maybe I'm just ahead of the curve?
"It wasn't so long ago that "organic farming" was just called "farming""
Yeah, it's a bit odd to consider how the world has overall become a significantly better and more just place the last 70 years...unless you're a farm animal. I think everyone naively defaults to "there must be nothing wrong with it, because this is how things have always been done" but really it's not.
Adam - was that a reply to my comment? (This format in Substack makes it visually confusing so I'm not sure) but if it was I'm unclear on how what I said could be compared to that. How is labeling a product as "this meat was sourced from an animal that lived without undue discomfort and died without suffering" (which is the only thing I actually care about in terms of what meat I'm keen to consume) analogous to images that actively show the harm that cancer causes to the lungs. I'm not proposing labeling meat sourced from factory farms with images and facts about how creatures there suffer - although now that you mention it - that would probably be extremely effective.
It's an attempt to affect judgment by making it a more intuitive or visceral judgment. It just feels different because I think you agree with it in one case and not in the other.
Visceral judgement is redundant. All judgement is visceral. But I'm not sure how the word "force" fits here. In both cases people are presented with information. I suppose in the abortion case women would have been required to look at these images before they would be eligible for the procedure? I'm not in favor of requiring people to do things they don't want to do if it can be avoided but I didn't suggest anywhere that anyone would be required to do anything other than the meat producers to make information easily available on the package. We already do that with ingredients... I think you're conflating things and I'm not sure to what end.
Do you disagree that giving people this info could inspire more people to choose cruelty free meat?
I'm not sure what you're actually contesting in my argument. I didn't bring up the abortion example - you did. I just said that the difference between these two examples is that in one situation people would be forced to consider this information and in the other they are not and that's the principle difference. But this is a digression from the main conversation because...
"I think that taking people on a tour of a modern slaughterhouse would make a lot of them choose vegetarianism, for similar reasons"
Maybe - and if indeed there wasn't a less "modern" alternative that would be the ethical and rational choice. Which is precisely my point!
"And I think you know this" implies that I'm either being duplicitous or somehow moving some goalpost intentionally. I assure you that if I'm begging any questions it's not out of some nefarious desire to confuse you or mislead you. My position is that information is the key to societal change and is ultimately the only mechanism that allows for uncoerced improvements in our social structures. I can bring many receipts to back this up.
If this move is granted then my argument feels pretty obviously common sensical. Let people know what their food is going through and let them decide if they're ok with it.
Make that information easy to reach and reliable. The rest takes care of itself.
Thank you for this piece. It does little good to note how plant-based bacon approximates the real thing when cooked just right. But this is definitely a minority position -- humane treatment of animals harvested for meat -- worth lifting higher into view. Would that we could end is consumption for good.
I think an important extension of this issue that similarly played out in the House Farm bill debate is federal preemption of pesticide and agrochemical regulation by states— most commonly known as it relates to glyphosate warning labels. Similarly, the states wanted to regulate certain [potentially] dangerous chemicals that would effectively end up setting policy for the whole country. It sets up the same states rights question but also brings the element of personal protection and an individuals ability to sue the chemical company for damages. I think this is a bit of a more high-salience issue these days especially in big ag states like Iowa but it has been wrapped up in the relatively low-salience package of the Farm Bill.
Many republicans ended up joining Dems to defeat the provisions for federal preemption, but SCOTUS stepped in to give the power solely to the feds anyway
I think federalism is a pretty solid solution to this problem. If you're a zealous minority, moving to a state you agree with is a lot, but better than having to leave the country. Although it becomes difficult when you're both a pro-life minority, and a animal welfare minority. Two cheers for capitalism where stricter animal welfare laws in a few states means that producers in other states follow them to increase thier market. I've heard of this working in other areas too, so I have a lot of skepticism about the federal government preempting state laws.
I'm so glad you care about the lives of animals. I started realizing the horror going on when I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Michael Pollen. That feeling grew after reading "Become Vegan," by Brenda Davis. Then there's "Eating Animals," by Jonathan Foer. It really is hard to fathom why dogs and cats get our love and support, but other animals don't. And not only do we help the animals by protecting them and encouraging less slaughter, we help the environment and we live longer on a plant-based diet with the proper supplements, such as B12, zinc and Omega 3s. It's a triple win!
I think it's remarkably easy to fathom. Our moral intuitions are visceral, they relate to things that we see happening in front of us. Meat doesn't look like an animal, and it certainly doesn't look cute.
It's why we cover the condemned's face in executions. It's why it's much more psychologically damaging to strangle somebody than it is to shoot them, and that's much more psychologically damaging than to sign a death warrant or give the order.
We don't have coherent moral intuitions. We have visceral reactions, and it is very easy to work around those.
Mass farming is one of those things where I've basically 180'd from thinking "oh we need massive societal behavior change" to "yep, the only way forward is a technological solution". I'm not sure if that's lab-grown meat or some sort of modifications to the mechanics of the slaughter process, but to your point low-salience/low-importance (to the relevant mass/elite populations) just does not present a viable path forward to policy entrepreneurship really.
It's up to each person to live their values. I'm agnostic but firmly believe the world would be a much better place if US-based Christians typically did as Jesus would do. But in the aggregate they voted for Trump, so they're not living their values in that respect and many others. My hope is that this disconnect creates cognitive dissonance that eventually manifests in positive behavioral change.
In February of 2025, I could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance that resulted from my views on animal rights and climate justice and my behavior of consuming animal products. I went vegan and have never looked back. I cook amazing food and genuinely look forward to my meals, there's never been a sense of sacrifice in making the change. But even if there was, it'd still be worth it to know the peace of living my values.
> there I was, realizing that I might find myself in tears if this ornery creature had so much as a hangnail. It no longer made sense to me to care so much about the welfare of this one animal without caring about others who seemed just like him.
This is a non sequitur.
If dogs, pigs, etc. are beings with moral value, it's irrelevant what emotions you have about one or any of them.
And by the same token, whatever feelings you have about one or any of them do not imbue them with moral value.
I think you're making the mistake of believing that our ideas about what does and doesn't have moral worth come from some kind of abstract thought, rather than the emotional experience of "does this creature arouse sympathy in me?".
Lab meat can solve this! Just like solar and self-driving and zoning reform, lab meat is a technology that has the potential to create material and moral abundance. Right now opposing lab meat is more popular than allowing it. It remains low salience because it’s unsettling and expensive but like many other abundance projects, I suspect it’s just a matter of sustained effort to change both.
I don't think you have to go that far. Impossible meat is pretty much equivalent to mediocre burger, which is a staggering technological achievement.
I'm just sad that apparently the market segment doesn't really exist for it. I'm doing my part, but I'm just one person.
Impossible meat is good, but I want people to be able to eat delicious burgers at 1/10th the cost and 1/1000th the environmental and moral impact. I think lab grown meat can do that. It might take a decade or two, but it’s worth doing!
This saves dozens of cows or hundreds of smaller animals.
I think we are likely to achieve clinical immortality before we achieve economically viable lab meat. It is incredibly, incredibly expensive to keep meat alive without an animal. Costs of cell culture are falling extremely slowly.
There's a couple things to do when you're in a moral minority. The first is to try to persuade more people to see your position as morally correct. The second is to change the world such that your moral position also becomes the convenient one. This is what's happened with solar energy. I'm assuming we could get there with meat engineering eventually.
Regarding animal welfare, an emphasis on the environmental impact should always be included. Eating meat way more impactful than data centers.
"Still, asking people to improve pigs’ lives is one thing; asking them to pay a lot more for bacon, let alone give it up entirely, is another. Ending farm animal suffering would require the latter."
Kind of a strange way to shoot your own political position in the foot! I suppose the only way no farm animal can suffer is to have zero farm animals. But farm animal suffering can be greatly reduced without large costs, as the states you just listed in this article proved. In general, the cost of complying with well-structured regulations start out way smaller than the affected businesses claim and continue to fall over time. Please don't endorse Ag's false dilemma on gestation crates.
This is silly. My freezer is full of pork (and beef) from animals that were raised (and slaughtered) humanely. As the farmers say (and to which I can attest), they had one bad day. It really isn’t even that much more expensive in the grand scheme of things. It’s true people might have to eat a bit less beef and pork if were all raised this way, (and a LOT less processed meat products) but with a judicious reorientation of farm subsidy policy and a dramatic reform in the way we use farmland, no one need be “worse off.”
The difficult thing about living in a pluralistic society is that you don't get to decide for others that changing their consumption patterns doesn't make them worse off, offer no justification beyond scare quotes and accusations of silliness, and assume that you've made your point. Your comment will resonate with people who already agree with you. Those who don't agree with you hear that they'll need to pay more for already-expensive beef and pork, see your scorn, and tune out.
Welcome to the moral minority. You're allowed lots of scorn but little change. Enjoy your stay.
I never said anyone would have to pay more (at least not so much as to have to forego eating meat as the author implied). Meat (and especially pork) would probably cost roughly the same for relatively unprocessed cuts. Some products (like bologna or hot dogs) might disappear (or become much more expensive). I suppose then that you’re technically correct that some people might be “worse off” because they would either not be able to afford bologna (even though they would be able to afford the same number of ounces of something like a ham steak) or the bologna would be quite a bit more expensive. You got me. This is not as big deal as the CAFO producers and big meat packers would have us believe. We spend a LOT of money in this country to produce “cheap” food. That is money that could very easily be spent subsidizing the purchase of “real” food for folks who might not be able to afford it. And it is true that when I say “worse off” what I mean is having to choose between pork and bulk lentils or gruel. Someone foregoing bologna for a ham steak isn’t worse off in my book. Reasonable people can disagree, though.
Slaughtered humanely is an oxymoron
Couldn’t disagree more (speaking as someone who has slaughtered many animals, and who has see it done to many others). There can truly be basically zero suffering. Now, you might mean that killing animals is morally wrong, full stop. Many Jains would agree. But I sure don’t.
Didn’t want to leave it hanging there but I got caught up in plans haha! I agree the argument can be made that consuming meat that is apart from the traditional factory farming system is better for the environment as a whole. I grew up in a hunting/fishing family, I’ve always held the belief that if you can’t kill the animal yourself, you shouldn’t be eating it.
If you tell people that they will not be worse off even though they can no longer get $0.99 hamburgers, they will burn you in the streets.
Where can I get a $0.99 hamburger? Those days are long gone!
This reminds me of the survey that found that people who believe climate change is real and human-caused won’t pay $75 more a year for their energy. My cynical conclusion from all of this is that most moral convictions are extremely thin, go into insofar as they cost people nothing. Most people would like to live their lives exactly as the currently do with zero sacrifice and still think that they are making the moral choice. This grim conclusion points to technology as the only viable long-term solution, because any policy to internalize the externalities will create a backlash, and vote out the politicians who asked people to make a small sacrifice, and vote in the ones who will revert to the status quo.
Okay, it's a $2 hamburger now, but in terms of wages it's a wash. Maybe the $1.50 Costco hot dog.
The point still stands. People love cheap meats. If you tell them they need to eat zee bugs, own nothing, and be happy, they will tear you limb from limb.
I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. A 19oz package of Johnsonville brats is $5.92 at Walmart. I get a 16oz package of humanely raised pork brats for $5.99. That’s ~20% more expensive, with the Johnsonville brats being HEAVILY subsidized and mine having no subsidies of any kind. It really just isn’t that big a difference, and something that can be easily adjusted for using a re-allocation of farm subsidies.
80% lean ground beef is $7.23/lb at Walmart, and the humanely-raised grassfed stuff in my freezer is closer to $9. 25% more expensive, with insane subsidies/economies of scale on one hand and nothing on the other.
You're comparing prepared foods that you can get hot and ready with the cost of labor included to packaged foods at the supermarket. The actual cheap hot dogs are $1.50 a pound, like Bar S hot dogs, which comes out to about $0.20 a piece.
You cannot get a free range humanely raised hot dog at the supermarket for $0.20. If you take the cheap ones away, people will flay you in the town square.
Those bar s hot dogs aren’t going anywhere — it’s all mechanically separated chicken and fillers. We are only talking about pork (and beef). There will always be cheap processed junk made with industrial chicken (I would hope).
Okay, it's a $2 hamburger now, but in terms of wages it's a wash. Maybe the $1.50 Costco hot dog.
The point still stands. People love cheap meats. If you tell them they need to eat zee bugs, own nothing, and be happy, they will tear you limb from limb.
I am one of those Americans who heard about the "Save Our Bacon" provision and tried to share information to stop it. I eat meat but I try to balance my consumption by eating more veggies, grains, and fruits (I try to keep my meat consumption somewhere between 15% and 20% of my weekly food intake) and I try (and do not always succeed) to eat mean that is sourced from ethical producers.
I appreciate your quandary here and I enjoyed the discussion of the moral implications of eating meat while not taking a fanatical position on either side of the issue, but I think that you missed/overstated one important thing. The cost of pork would not go up substantially if the California or Massachusetts standards were implicated nationwide and would be less than the cost increases that we have seen due to the spike in fuel since our folly in the Persian Gulf began. The hidden story is the money made by giant agribusiness at the expense of animal and consumer welfare (https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/small-farmers-form-coalition-to-push-back-against-2026-farm-bill/).
Because of that, the moral stakes in opposing this act aren't as stark as they seem when you pose the question, "...would you give up meat as you know it," and that really isn't a fair question to ask.
Thanks for a great read and let's try to keep this horrible Farm Bill in our sights when Congress comes back from Summer Recess.
(More reading from small farmers and ethical producers can be found here: https://www.ciwf.com/public-policy/defeat-the-save-our-bacon-act/)
I would also recommend Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy which is about the aftermath of colonization in some really interesting ways
Why can't we put it to a market vote and pass laws that simply require meat packaging to describe what the life of the animal whose meat is in the package was like?
I'm not talking about a Portlandia farce where we need to make sure that the animals were massaged and read bedtime stories, but just to know that they were treated with decency and had a standard of living that did not put them under any duress and that when they were slaughtered they were slaughtered in a way that was instant and not traumatic.
There are many farms that already advertise that this is precisely how they treat their wildlife and many of us go out of our way to procure our meat from precisely such farms. But for whatever reason, their product has yet to reach most supermarkets where the labeling makes it explicit why the prices are substantially higher.
The cost to making this information available is negligible and then we'll let people vote with their wallet. I'm probably not that rare a consumer who cares about animal welfare and is prepared to pay a meaningful premium on meat that is sourced from animals that lived a happy life and a cruelty free death.
Are there such proposals in any states? If so, how are they doing?
How do we hold producers to the accuracy of such statements though? There is already a lot of labeling that from what I've heard means very little
The labeling that "means very little" is largely irrelevant. We already have all sorts of oversight for what can or can't be labeled as "organic" (for example) and that seems to be reasonably accurate.
I'm sure it's not perfect but in what I'm describing it's very hard to cheat - either a farm meets various criteria or it doesn't. Once a farm or ranch is the kind where animals just wander around and there's a way to slaughter them out view of other animals and in some efficient and painless manner (which presumably would require some kind of audit and certification) there's very little incentive for them to "cheat" and indeed such cheating would probably create more problems for them, in terms of their standard operating procedure, than it fixes.
Most of the resistance to these changes come from the massive cost in modifying an operation to begin with. The farms that are operating this way now (which I was referring to) have every incentive to not be exposed as doing anything nefarious - their reputations are their lifeblood and their customers are buying from them precisely because they claim to practice this kind of farming and butchery.
Anyway - I guess my pushback to your pushback is... as opposed to what? This article states (I believe quite accurately) that if we wait for the voting public to vote themselves into even less affordable meat we'll wait for ever and the animals will continue to suffer and the very slow advance of the kinds of farms I'm talking about (which are indeed slowly proliferating in places where there's a market for it) will take every longer to catch on.
My suggestion (I believe) would just make this product immediately more available to those who can afford it and then if it catches on then its popularity will necessarily bring the prices down for everyone - and perhaps after that happens we could even think of some kind of subsidies for everyone who practices this kind of farming to incentivize the entire industry (akin to how we give people tax breaks to buy electric vehicles and put up solar panels). But none of that is going to catch on until there's a groundswell of enthusiasm from the consumer base so I'm just thinking of the lowest hanging fruit to get us there.
I just noticed who I'm talking to - great work in The Bulwark!
From what I've seen, organic is the exception - a well defined regulation. I was thinking about all the flowery labeling that currently exists that doesn't really mean anything (if i remember correctly, free range also has a real definition, although surprisingly not as strict as organic). But reading your comment again, I think I better understand what you're proposing - if companies are forced to list exactly what animal welfare they are and aren't providing (are they cutting beaks off, are they confined to a tiny cage thier entire lives, etc), rather than only farms that do things the right way list what they don't do, I think that would be quite effective. But also I think that will be forcing a lot of people to think about all the steps involved in putting meat on the table which the meat industry doesn't want you thinking about, and honestly, most people don't want to think too much about either, so I don't see that getting passed. And I say this as someone like you who is happy to eat meat that that is ethically raised (=not an overall negative quality of life). I just don't think most people like thinking about this at all - they either want to eat thier meat or are strictly vegetarian, there's not much middle ground that I see.
I'm not saying I have a better solution, I'm not very hopeful for much of a solution, kind of seems to come with the territory of capitalism-the animals don't have money, so thier needs will be ignored.
(thanks!)
"who I'm talking to" makes it sound like I'm somebody. I'm not. Although if I wanted credit for something I'd steer (no pun intended) you towards samizdatonline.org (which wired covered thusly: https://www.wired.com/story/russia-internet-censorship-samizdat-online ) and if you want to send accolade (or better yet money!) I'll be very grateful for either (though more for the money). Either way sign up for the newsletter - you'll find it very informative.
Yes - most people aren't interested because it takes a modicum of exposure to suddenly be presented with the horror that is factory farming.
It wasn't so long ago that "organic farming" was just called "farming". There were no other options. I am not a fan of appeals to nature (nature is our enemy) but most people have the innate revulsion when forced to actually see what factory farming looks like and I don't think I'm exaggerating that the common interest in "cruelty free" (or whatever label we'd conjure up for this descriptor) meat would skyrocket if people were exposed to the fact that every piece of meat they're eating is washed in sewage before it's cleaned and presented for purchase.
Factory farming isn't substantially less gross (and for some more) than just using the sewage analogy. So - as with everything (and this ties back to Samizdat) I think information is the only thing we can control and the rest of the chips will have to fall where they might.
And I don't think we need to delve into removed beaks or other examples of cruelty specifics. An animal either lives a "normal" life or it doesn't. Yes there are zealots who will say that a chicken needs a private acre of land to live a normal life but most people (and in particular - farmers) have a pretty good grasp of what constitutes a happy life for chickens.
As it happens I'm raising some chickens - and while I'm not an expert - they have personalities and preferences and pecking orders so it doesn't take any deep expertise to know if a creature is miserable or not.
Am I an outlier in caring primarily about the life of the animal (and its final several moments)? Probably - but I avoid tribes (tribes are natural) so I'm out here looking at the problem pragmatically - and this feels like the most sensible thing to be focused on. Maybe I'm just ahead of the curve?
"It wasn't so long ago that "organic farming" was just called "farming""
Yeah, it's a bit odd to consider how the world has overall become a significantly better and more just place the last 70 years...unless you're a farm animal. I think everyone naively defaults to "there must be nothing wrong with it, because this is how things have always been done" but really it's not.
This feels remarkably similar to attempting to force people attempting to get an abortion to look at horrifying pictures of bloody miscarriages.
Adam - was that a reply to my comment? (This format in Substack makes it visually confusing so I'm not sure) but if it was I'm unclear on how what I said could be compared to that. How is labeling a product as "this meat was sourced from an animal that lived without undue discomfort and died without suffering" (which is the only thing I actually care about in terms of what meat I'm keen to consume) analogous to images that actively show the harm that cancer causes to the lungs. I'm not proposing labeling meat sourced from factory farms with images and facts about how creatures there suffer - although now that you mention it - that would probably be extremely effective.
It's an attempt to affect judgment by making it a more intuitive or visceral judgment. It just feels different because I think you agree with it in one case and not in the other.
Visceral judgement is redundant. All judgement is visceral. But I'm not sure how the word "force" fits here. In both cases people are presented with information. I suppose in the abortion case women would have been required to look at these images before they would be eligible for the procedure? I'm not in favor of requiring people to do things they don't want to do if it can be avoided but I didn't suggest anywhere that anyone would be required to do anything other than the meat producers to make information easily available on the package. We already do that with ingredients... I think you're conflating things and I'm not sure to what end.
Do you disagree that giving people this info could inspire more people to choose cruelty free meat?
I think that taking people on a tour of a modern slaughterhouse would make a lot of them choose vegetarianism, for similar reasons.
I think there's a difference between judgment made in a calm way and judgment made in response to strong imagery or experience.
And I think you know this, given the "make a woman look at bloody pictures before she is eligible for an abortion" example.
I'm not sure what you're actually contesting in my argument. I didn't bring up the abortion example - you did. I just said that the difference between these two examples is that in one situation people would be forced to consider this information and in the other they are not and that's the principle difference. But this is a digression from the main conversation because...
"I think that taking people on a tour of a modern slaughterhouse would make a lot of them choose vegetarianism, for similar reasons"
Maybe - and if indeed there wasn't a less "modern" alternative that would be the ethical and rational choice. Which is precisely my point!
"And I think you know this" implies that I'm either being duplicitous or somehow moving some goalpost intentionally. I assure you that if I'm begging any questions it's not out of some nefarious desire to confuse you or mislead you. My position is that information is the key to societal change and is ultimately the only mechanism that allows for uncoerced improvements in our social structures. I can bring many receipts to back this up.
If this move is granted then my argument feels pretty obviously common sensical. Let people know what their food is going through and let them decide if they're ok with it.
Make that information easy to reach and reliable. The rest takes care of itself.
Thank you for this piece. It does little good to note how plant-based bacon approximates the real thing when cooked just right. But this is definitely a minority position -- humane treatment of animals harvested for meat -- worth lifting higher into view. Would that we could end is consumption for good.
I think an important extension of this issue that similarly played out in the House Farm bill debate is federal preemption of pesticide and agrochemical regulation by states— most commonly known as it relates to glyphosate warning labels. Similarly, the states wanted to regulate certain [potentially] dangerous chemicals that would effectively end up setting policy for the whole country. It sets up the same states rights question but also brings the element of personal protection and an individuals ability to sue the chemical company for damages. I think this is a bit of a more high-salience issue these days especially in big ag states like Iowa but it has been wrapped up in the relatively low-salience package of the Farm Bill.
Many republicans ended up joining Dems to defeat the provisions for federal preemption, but SCOTUS stepped in to give the power solely to the feds anyway
I think federalism is a pretty solid solution to this problem. If you're a zealous minority, moving to a state you agree with is a lot, but better than having to leave the country. Although it becomes difficult when you're both a pro-life minority, and a animal welfare minority. Two cheers for capitalism where stricter animal welfare laws in a few states means that producers in other states follow them to increase thier market. I've heard of this working in other areas too, so I have a lot of skepticism about the federal government preempting state laws.
I'm so glad you care about the lives of animals. I started realizing the horror going on when I read "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Michael Pollen. That feeling grew after reading "Become Vegan," by Brenda Davis. Then there's "Eating Animals," by Jonathan Foer. It really is hard to fathom why dogs and cats get our love and support, but other animals don't. And not only do we help the animals by protecting them and encouraging less slaughter, we help the environment and we live longer on a plant-based diet with the proper supplements, such as B12, zinc and Omega 3s. It's a triple win!
I think it's remarkably easy to fathom. Our moral intuitions are visceral, they relate to things that we see happening in front of us. Meat doesn't look like an animal, and it certainly doesn't look cute.
It's why we cover the condemned's face in executions. It's why it's much more psychologically damaging to strangle somebody than it is to shoot them, and that's much more psychologically damaging than to sign a death warrant or give the order.
We don't have coherent moral intuitions. We have visceral reactions, and it is very easy to work around those.
Mass farming is one of those things where I've basically 180'd from thinking "oh we need massive societal behavior change" to "yep, the only way forward is a technological solution". I'm not sure if that's lab-grown meat or some sort of modifications to the mechanics of the slaughter process, but to your point low-salience/low-importance (to the relevant mass/elite populations) just does not present a viable path forward to policy entrepreneurship really.
It's up to each person to live their values. I'm agnostic but firmly believe the world would be a much better place if US-based Christians typically did as Jesus would do. But in the aggregate they voted for Trump, so they're not living their values in that respect and many others. My hope is that this disconnect creates cognitive dissonance that eventually manifests in positive behavioral change.
In February of 2025, I could no longer tolerate the cognitive dissonance that resulted from my views on animal rights and climate justice and my behavior of consuming animal products. I went vegan and have never looked back. I cook amazing food and genuinely look forward to my meals, there's never been a sense of sacrifice in making the change. But even if there was, it'd still be worth it to know the peace of living my values.
> there I was, realizing that I might find myself in tears if this ornery creature had so much as a hangnail. It no longer made sense to me to care so much about the welfare of this one animal without caring about others who seemed just like him.
This is a non sequitur.
If dogs, pigs, etc. are beings with moral value, it's irrelevant what emotions you have about one or any of them.
And by the same token, whatever feelings you have about one or any of them do not imbue them with moral value.
I think you're making the mistake of believing that our ideas about what does and doesn't have moral worth come from some kind of abstract thought, rather than the emotional experience of "does this creature arouse sympathy in me?".
Great article, and some great discussion in the comments.
One of the things you should do with your epiphany about animal welfare is stop slandering PETA, though. PETA were right all along.