Sodexo, Starbucks, and Subway—have made public commit-
ments vowing to ensure by the year 2022 that the pork they
buy does not come from pigs raised in gestation crates. Some
chains, like Panera and Chipotle, are already 100 percent
gestation-crate-free.
Before you eat at a chain restaurant or large food-service
company, check how it fares with respect to these issues of
cage-free eggs, chickens that are slower growing and have more
space and better lighting, and gestation-crate-free pigs. The
following websites track companies’ progress toward reaching
their commitments on specific animal welfare policies:
Cage-free eggs: ciwf.com/eggtrack
Animal welfare standards for broiler chickens:
welfarecommitments.com/broiler
“Gestation crates food company policies”:
Entering this search will bring you to a summary of
major food companies’ commitments to eliminate
gestation crates for pigs.WORKERS
The person behind the register at the average fast food joint is
most likely barely scraping by. Minimum wage is the norm, and
employer-provided health insurance is a luxury benefit enjoyed
by only a minority of these workers. One in seven workers in
America works in food in some capacity—from farms to pro-
cessing to distribution to retail or food service. In the words of
the Food Chain Workers Alliance, these people are “the hands
that feed us.” According to Diners United, the consumer arm
of the advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC)
United, an estimated 14 million people work in the restaurant
industry as a whole, and nearly 4 million work in fast food
alone. They face many challenges in this line of work, like
wage theft, fewer hours than they might like (part-time statusSt u f f t h at’s made in restaurant kitchens 233Conscious Eater_04 PT_4th patches2.indd 233 10/28/19 12:58 PM