Diet Offsets: Why Going Vegan Isn’t the Only Way to Fight Factory Farming

Thom Norman, co-founder of NGO FarmKind, believes people going vegan may not be the best way to fight factory farming. His solution? Diet offsetting.

Here’s a radical proposition: the best way to fight factory farming isn’t to go vegan.

Is this some Joe Rogan-inspired bunk about how, actually, vegans kill more animals than meat-eaters? No, sorry Joe, you’re still wrong.

Factory farming – how we produce 99% of the animals we raise in the US – is unarguably wrong: it’s destroying the planet, inflicting industrial-scale cruelty on animals, and risking human health through antibiotic resistance and zoonotic diseases. But for those of us who want to do something about it, we’re invariably told that step one is to stop eating animal products.

Listen, I’m a vegan. I’ll be the first one to say: I wholeheartedly agree. Reducing or eliminating your meat consumption is an important way to fight factory farming. Being vegan is an important part of who I am and how I try to live out my compassion for animals. However, as a former meat-eater and a current proponent of the animal welfare movement, I will say that promoting veganism as the only way forward is actually hurting our cause. 

That’s because changing your diet isn’t the only way to fight factory farming – and it might not even be the best way.

Instead of beating themselves up for not quite being able to give up cheese (and then doing nothing about it), what if any omnivore could do just as much good to fight the factory farming system for about the same cost as a streaming service subscription?

This isn’t theoretical. It costs the average omnivore just $23 a month to do as much good for animals as going entirely vegan. How? Because the most effective charities fighting factory farming have figured out how to create massive change for pennies on the dollar. Think of it as carbon offsets, but for animal welfare (let’s call it ‘diet offsetting’) – which is far more impactful than most people realise.

What is diet offsetting?

Diet offsetting is less complicated than it sounds: anyone can make a rough inventory of the animal products they eat and which animals those products come from. Then find charities working to improve those specific animals’ lives by tackling factory farming. Animal Charity Evaluators can help you identify the most effective charities that won’t waste your donations. Or, for an even simpler approach, you can use FarmKind’s offset calculator that handles the math and charity selection automatically, and lets you make a direct donation (100% of which goes directly to the chosen charities).

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that for most people (and animals), diet offsetting is a better option than going vegan. Despite decades of campaigns like Meatless Mondays and Veganuary, only about 5% of US adults identify as vegetarian or vegan – a number that hasn’t budged since 2012. Underneath that headline number lies a revealing pattern: 84% of people who’ve tried a plant-based diet report having given up, most commonly within the first year.

It would be an exaggeration to say that it’s impossible to persuade people to make dietary changes. Interventions based on appeals to preventing animal suffering have, at least a self-reported, impact on how much people eat animal products. Despite the fact that most of the discourse around animal agriculture focuses on environmental issues, it seems that, at least in the UK, the most prominent reason people go and stay vegan is animal welfare.

The big problem is that, overall, trends are definitely in the wrong direction. Per capita meat consumption in the US, with a few blips along the way, climbed from about 113 kgs per person in 1971 to about 126 kgs by 2021. While the global average is tiny by comparison, 43 kgs per person, it has risen much more sharply over the same 50-year period (from 27 kgs).

While some climate consolation can be taken from the fact that beef is no longer the most commonly eaten meat in the US, this has been a welfare disaster.

This is because cheaper poultry has replaced beef. Relatively speaking, beef cows have far fewer bad lives than chickens, which are almost exclusively farmed in highly concentrated operations. It also takes far more individual chickens to feed people the same amount as a cow. So, we’ve swapped raising a smaller number of cows with higher welfare for raising billions of chickens in some of the worst conditions experienced by land animals on the planet.

The evidence is clear: individual diet change is not delivering the kind of transformation we need to end the moral atrocity that is factory farming. On the contrary, things are getting worse.

Stressing individual action holds movements back

But here’s the good news: while the strategy of individual dietary change has failed to deliver, a different approach has been quietly revolutionising how animals are treated in our food system. Strategic advocacy organisations have made huge gains here.

Take The Humane League’s cage-free campaign as an example of what strategic advocacy can achieve. In just 15 years, it has convinced more than 2,400 companies – including corporate giants like Walmart, KFC, and Taco Bell – to commit to cage-free eggs. The result? The percentage of US hens living cage-free has skyrocketed from 4% to around 40%.

Let that sink in: billions of chickens will no longer spend their lives confined in wire cages so small they can’t even spread their wings – spaces literally smaller than a sheet of printer paper. And here’s the kicker: achieving this transformation costs just 85 cents per chicken. This is what effective systemic change looks like.

This is where the real opportunity lies: instead of the uphill battle trying to get people to cut back on their meat or go plant-based, we could channel that energy into supporting the organisations that are already transforming the system.

Of course, some animal advocates bristle at this suggestion. I’ll admit, when my co-founder and I first had this idea, I had a moment of pause. There’s something that feels wrong about being able to simply write a check to absolve ourselves of responsibility. Shouldn’t we be asking people to engage more deeply with the ethics of their food choices, not less? After all, many activists believe that changing individual diets is the gateway to deeper engagement with animal welfare.

But, historically, emphasis on individual action has often held movements back, not helped them.

Consider this revealing parallel: in the early 2000s, one of the biggest promoters of the ‘carbon footprint’ – the idea that we should all obsessively measure and reduce our personal impact on global warming – was none other than oil giant BP. By shifting the conversation from corporate responsibility to consumer choice, BP masterfully deflected attention from the real drivers of climate change.

The meat industry is playing from the same playbook. While we debate the ethics of holiday dinners, they’re spending millions lobbying against basic animal welfare laws, pushing through “ag-gag” legislation to criminalise whistleblowers, and running sophisticated PR campaigns that paint factory farms as idyllic family operations. They’ve even tried to make it illegal to call plant-based products “milk” or “meat” – not because consumers are confused, but to maintain their monopoly on how we think about food itself.

This is why we need to shift our focus to systemic change. Instead of letting the industry keep us arguing about personal food choices, we should be supporting the organisations that are pushing for better regulations, fighting harmful agricultural subsidies, and holding these companies accountable for their practices.

The best part about offsetting? People will actually do it

Some critics argue that pushing for incremental welfare improvements, like cage-free eggs, actually entrenches factory farming by making it seem more acceptable. They say we need to push for complete abolition, not small changes that might make people feel better about eating meat.

This strategy inevitably draws criticism from abolitionists within the animal rights movement. They argue that pushing for incremental welfare improvements – like cage-free eggs – actually entrenches factory farming by making it more palatable to consumers. Better conditions, they say, just ease people’s consciences while leaving the fundamental system intact. We should be pushing for complete abolition, not compromises that might make people feel better about eating meat.

But this argument ignores how successful social movements actually work. Take child labour: it wasn’t eliminated in the US overnight. The path to abolition began with seemingly modest reforms – limiting working hours, requiring breaks, and restricting the most dangerous jobs. Each small victory built momentum for bigger changes.

Moreover, while we work towards evolving the food system away from cruel and destructive practices like factory farming, incremental changes make an immediate and meaningful difference for animals suffering right now. A hen who can spread her wings, scratch in the dirt, and dust bathe isn’t living in ideal conditions – but she’s significantly better off than one confined in a tiny cage. To dismiss these improvements as mere window dressing is to ignore the very real suffering we can prevent today.

But, the strongest argument for offsetting is also the most simple: people will actually do it.

For most of us, writing a check is a much easier ask than changing your entire diet – which means more people will actually help. The numbers bear this out: about 14% of Americans already donate to animal causes each year – almost three times as many people as identify as vegetarian or vegan. Imagine what organizations like The Humane League could achieve if we channelled more of our energy into funding their successful campaigns instead of arguing about personal food choices.

Right now, billions of animals are suffering in factory farms while we debate what’s on our plates. The fastest path to ending their suffering isn’t waiting for everyone to go vegan – it’s empowering everyone who cares about animals to make a difference, whether they eat meat or not. The system won’t change because we all become perfect ethical consumers. It will change because we organised, funded, and fought for that change.

Whether you’re reading this as a vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, omnivore, or total carnivore – remember, you don’t have to change your diet to make a difference in the systemic fight against factory farming (which hurts us all). Just make sure you’re putting your money where your mouth is.