6 Reasons to Avoid Factory Farmed Meats

I first began avoiding meat from factory farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), when I learned that meat from pastured animals raised by a farmer you trust is not only safer, but much more nutritious too. Later when I dug in more, it also made me crazy to learn how CAFO animals are treated! Here’s more about why you really REALLY need to know where your meat comes from.

Why Avoid CAFO Meat?

Reason 1: Inhumane

Animals from CAFOs are raised in conditions that are horrible and inhumane. They’re unable to move around freely, sometimes packed in so tightly that they can barely move at all. They have little or no time outside in the fresh air and sunshine, let alone access to the natural pasture grasses that their ruminant stomachs were made for.

Reason 2: Antibiotics Overuse

They’re often very sick due to these conditions and receive more antibiotics in their food and water. These antibiotics are then ingested by those who eat that meat. They also receive “nontherapeutic antimicrobials” or "growth promoters"—more antibiotics, to stimulate growth. No wonder many of us are overweight too and resistant to antibiotics when we might really need them. (Source)

Reason 3: Hormone Use

Animals in CAFOs may be given hormones to stimulate faster growth. (Source). More estrogen from our meat, added to the estrogens in our environment from plastics, personal care products, and in our milk and water cause weight gain, cancer, depression, gender issues, infertility, and developmental delays in our children. (Source)

Reason 4: What Your Eat Eats

Since they’re not outside eating pasture grasses, what ARE they eating? CAFO animals are fed genetically engineered feed—mostly corn and soy. Both of which are NOT their natural diet and are heavily sprayed with herbicides like Roundup (which has glyphosate). Genetically modified seeds are used because it allows them to douse the crop with these chemicals that kill the weeds but not the plant. Then you'll be ingesting those dangerous toxins along with the frankenfood that the GMO created, and not surprisingly, they’re also linked to many diseases.

Reason 5: Cheap Food

Low cost production is the name of the game and they want the animals to get fatter faster.

Reason 6: Animal Health

As you could probably guess, CAFO livestock live shorter, unhappy lives compared to those on pasture-based farms where they're raised naturally and ethically.

Now you know why “meat” at the grocery store is so cheap. We always, always get what we pay for. Here’s a favorite Joel Salatin quote: “Pay the farmer now or the doctor later.” Or this one, “You think healthy food is expensive? Have you priced cancer lately?”

Why Choose Pasture-Based Regenerative Farms?

When you know and trust your farmer who raises happy cows, pigs, sheep, or chickens out on pasture, not only do you not have to worry about any of the above issues, but you also get the gift of knowing this… Healthy animals on healthy pastures grown in healthy chemical-free soil provide us with meat that is LOADED with nutrition for raising strong, healthy, resilient families.

Once I visited a farm where we buy meat and when my farmer friend stepped outside and yelled, “Sheeeeeep! Sheeeeep!”, they all stopped chewing the grass and came running over to him from the other side of the pasture.

There’s something so right about a farmer who knows his animals and they know him.

Want to learn more? These movie trailers are older, but still good: Food, Inc. and Fresh the Movie.

Let’s all support our food hero farmers with our food dollars and vote with our forks at every meal.