Park Slope Food Coop Animal Welfare Committee

The Thanksgiving Guide, including both animal welfare information for turkeys and plant-based roast options, is available at the co-op and online. You can find the Thanksgiving at the Coop Guide here online . It is also listed on the AWC Guides tab on this blog, where you can find all of the guides the Animal Welfare Committee creates.

By Piper Hoffman Do you want to know whether the meat, dairy, or eggs you are buying came from animals who were treated humanely? You won’t find the answers on the packaging. Recent revelations about the conditions Perdue’s chickens suffer illustrate the problem: their “labels carry a seal of approval from the Department of Agriculture asserting that the bird was ‘raised cage free,’ and sometimes ‘humanely raised,’” Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times. (“Abusing Chickens We Eat,” December 3, 2014.) Those descriptions are misleading at best. Coop members, however, can get reliable, detailed information that shoppers at conventional grocery stores don’t have. The Animal Welfare Committee publishes Guides for members about a number of product categories that detail the treatment of animals by the Coop’s vendors. With a Guide in hand it is easy to choose the most humane option the Coop offers and to avoid the others. The Members’ Guide to Coop Chicken is the latest example. ...

It's that time of year again! Thanksgiving is a little over a week away and turkeys are starting to appear in the Coop's meat case. Check out our  2015 Thanksgiving Guide  to learn more about the welfare of the turkeys we have available this year - as well as plant-based Thanksgiving options!

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Animal Welfare Committee's 2013 Turkey Guide is here! We contacted the Coop's turkey vendors and interviewed them about  the conditions their birds live in, then organized the information in a handy chart for members. The Guide also explains the labels commonly found on meat products, like free-range and pasture-raised, and describes the festive turkey alternatives that the Coop carries. The Turkey Guide is laminated next to the turkeys, and take-home versions are also available there. You can find a larger version of the Guide online by clicking on the AWC Guides tab at the top of this page, and then clicking on Buying Turkeys at the Coop. Piper on behalf of the Animal Welfare Committee