What Does Ethically Treated Actually Mean?

This is the fourth post on the subject of Animal Care, one of the five spheres of a Christian ethic of eating. This post is a bridge between thinking about eating meat to dealing with the thorny issue of sacrifice, which will take several posts to unpack. After a discussion of sacrifice we will move into a discussion of a “rule” to eat ethically.

It seems to happen more and more often.

I’ll be sitting to eat with some co-workers or friends, and they notice I don’t eat any meat. They’ll ask, “are you vegetarian?” And I inevitably reply, “it’s complicated” (see my previous post “How Was Your Thanksgiving Turkey Treated?” for the full story).

Lately, people have been more than willing to hear about my values: what “ethically treated” actually means, how this is accomplished, and why it is so important.

So before digging further into the Christian basis for ethical treatment of animals, I wanted to share a bit about the basics of ethical treatment.

What does “ethically treated” actually mean?

The short answer is “depends on who you ask.” There is no uniform definition of ethical treatment of animals, and people have different perspectives on the minimum. It can be a very personal and emotional decision. My wife and I have chosen as our minimum definition of ethical treatment that an animal has the ability to actually live like an animal and not a prisoner. This is what Joel Salatin has described as “the pig-ness of a pig or the chicken-ness of a chicken.” What my wife want is an opportunity for an animal to have a normal life and not be confined in a small cage and injected with hormones and antibiotics like it is a lab rat. There are others who take a more radical approach. I know someone who is a vegan but will eat meat when it is hunted, because she does not like the way animals are slaughtered and butchered, but respects the necessity of people feeding themselves by providing for themselves by hunting. I know others who will only eat meat if it is certified organic or humane. There are tons of certifications out there though, and it only serves to muddy the picture, not define it better. Because of this, my wife and I are okay buying something that is not certified as long as we know how the farmer has treated the animals and are comfortable with that. So don’t be shy, go talk to your local farmer or butcher about how the animal was treated.

The point is, whether we can ever agree on a definition or not, the fact that you begin to actually think about the life and welfare of an animal is vitally important. We can’t just be idle consumers who eat whatever is put in front of us. Caring about the meat we eat is to enter into the conversation about “ethical treatment.”

The next post in this series will be on how ethical treatment is actually accomplished.