When we choose the food we eat and the food we feed our family and friends, we need to make sure we use compassion as one of our criteria. This means we need to have compassion for ourselves, our family and friends, their health and ours, the planet, the billions of animals who are raised for food, and the billions of living creatures that are killed in the production of conventional food.
A humane diet is kinder to all the people, animals, insects and biota of the world and gentler to the environment.
It is easy to choose a humane diet and it usually doesn’t cost any more. You also don’t have to change the kind of food you eat to make your choices more humane. You may choose to eliminate meat from your diet completely, that is, all meat, flesh and products from an animal, bird, insect, fish or aquatic living organism, that the entity had to die to provide to you or had to suffer in the making or extraction. When we make that decision we then have a vegetarian diet. When we extend this decision to eating only organic plant foods, we have made one of the most humane decisions we can make in relation to our diet.
We can also choose a vegan diet in which we consume no animal products including no milk, dairy, or eggs. You can get all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients your body needs on a meat-free diet. Many medical specialists now advocate a vegetarian diet in order to remain healthy or to regain optimal health.
If you choose to have a meat-free diet and to eliminate animal products as well there are food alternatives that will give you the taste and recipe options to keep you psychologically and nutritionally satisfied.
How far your choices go depends on you the individual. Even small changes towards a more humane diet will prevent the suffering of millions of living things. If you choose to remain a meat eater, make sure your choice of meat and animal products is guided by animal welfare concerns. Choose meat from livestock production systems that are organic and where the animals are raised under humane conditions.