Which meat and dairy labels can you trust?
Understanding food labels can be overwhelming and confusing.
100% Vegetarian Diet! Cage-Free! All Natural!
These labels all sound great, right? They suggest food that has been produced using sustainable and humane practices. But what do they actually guarantee? And which of these labels can you trust? Here’s a quick guide to what’s behind the label.
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), reliable animal welfare labels for food products are ones that guarantee:
Outdoor access and no usage of antibiotics, synthetic growth hormones, or cages
Frequent on-farm inspections every 12 to 36 months
Strong third-party verification
The less reliable labels do not guarantee these practices and can be misleading. For example, although the “Hormone-Free” label on chicken or pig products does mean no hormones were used, it is deceptive because the use of added hormones in hogs and poultry is already banned by the USDA. Another example is that the “Cage-Free” label does not actually indicate that chickens have spent any time outdoors or were given enough space to flap their wings or turn around.
The following are the food labels that EWG has designated as “Most Reliable” and as “Less Reliable” when it comes to decoding dairy and meat labels.
Make sure to look for the reliable labels when shopping at the grocery store to feel good about the food you are buying.
For more in depth information about food labels check out EWG’s guide to decoding meat and dairy labels or our related articles!
Kelsey O’Brion is a Stone Pier Press News Fellow based in Wisconsin.
RELATED ARTICLES
Using labels to find humanely sourced food
How to avoid eating factory-farmed meat
Progress on animal welfare labels that actually mean what they say