Pasta Companies Serve Up Concern for Animal Welfare

by Annie Hartnett · 2011-01-18 12:00:00 UTC
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What do lazy vegans eat? We can't exactly hit the drive-thru. So when I felt slothful last night, I simply boiled water and threw in a package of butternut squash ravioli made by Rising Moon Organics. The pasta company is completely vegetarian, and largely vegan. The ravioli caught my eye in the grocery store because the package was stamped "Vegan Certified," and their website reassured me: "No animals even came near this creamy creation."

The pasta business as a whole is getting kinder to animals. You may have already read on the Sustainable Food blog that Barilla, the world’s largest pasta making company, announced that it is switching 45 percent of its eggs to cage-free by the end of 2011.

Barilla's decision is an important move for animal welfare. Battery cages are still the most common form of egg production in the United States, with U.S. factory farms confining about 280 million hens in cages so small they can't even spread their wings. According to the the Humane Society of the United States, cage-free hens have about two to three times more space per bird than caged hens.

In a letter to the HSUS, Barilla wrote that its new egg policy is meant to “take into consideration not only the health and well-being of people, but also the health and well-being of animals.”

The HSUS applauded Barilla's decision, but also pointed out that cage-free doesn't mean cruelty-free. Cage-free hens are still de-beaked and de-toed, kept crammed together in an indoor space, and are slaughtered at less than half of their natural lifespan.

Many pastas, including some made by Barilla, aren't made with eggs, so please consider making your next pasta dinner a vegan one. But as long as eggs remain listed in the ingredients of some pastas, those eggs should at least be cage-free.

Barilla now shines against its competitors. New World Pasta, the leading dry pasta manufacturer in the U.S., is no friend to animals. The pasta giant still sources eggs from battery-caged hens for its pasta companies, which include popular brands Ronzoni and Prince. And, unlike Barilla, New World Pasta's website doesn't have a list of vegetarian recipes. That's nonsense, especially since pasta is a naturally vegetarian food.

As long as New World Pasta uses eggs from battery-caged hens, there's a whole lot of animal suffering in a Ronzoni spaghetti dinner. Sign our petition to ask New World Pasta to join the cage-free egg movement.

Photo Credit: Annie Hartnett

Annie Hartnett is a writer and animal advocate who has worked for several wildlife rehabilitation centers and environmental programs.

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