Reply #51: As an omnivore, I am very conscious of my food choices

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I belong to a food co-op, and purchase all my meat and dairy from there. Why? Because I know that it comes from small (mostly local) farms where the animals are raised as humanely as possible and that the farmers are fairly compensated for their efforts. I don't eat a lot of meat (maybe one meal every other day) and have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian in the past, yet I am still quite aware of where my food comes from. When I was married, we got all our meat from my ex-in-laws, who were family farmers, and knew the pedigree of EVERY animal we ate for food.

I think everybody has an obligation to make smart decisions regarding their diets, whether they are vegetarians, vegans or omnivores. It's important to support non-corporate and non-exploitive farmers where possible, and the best way to do so is with our food choices. Just as there are unhealthy factory hog farms, there are factory vegetable farms that mistreat their workers and are unethical to their customers, too.

IMHO it's more about scale and knowing what's in your food and knowing its impact on the planet, as well as your diet. Granted, a vegetarian diet is more efficient in terms of plant resources, but at the same time how much sense does it make to buy produce from a farm that was carved out of the desert and is watered by environmentally destructive dams?