The morality of food compensation

In the public eye, compensation has been criticized, and considered a modern sale of indulgence. The aim of foodoffset.org is not to increase concerned people’s consumption of low-standard food products. On the contrary, our goal is very much to make society think twice about the negative impacts and hidden costs of the food they consume, leading to restraint in consumption. In those occasions when one lacks the strength to avoid animal consumption from suboptimal places, compensating in order to improve the life of animals and ensuring that one does not have the worst net effect on the system, seems the very least animals should be able to expect from each of us.

foodoffset.org does not put the lives of animals over that of humans – instead we find it very difficult to quantitatively compare lives of various species including humans, as well as their living-conditions –, against each other. If you choose to limit your original animal food intake, and give all your wealth away for the benefit of the poorest humans of the world, we embrace your choice. Realistically, however, for virtually all in the plentiful rich world at least, the trade-off regarding the question whether to compensate or not, is between improving animal welfare vs. indulging in inessential activities for personal benefit. The fight against animal abuse and food-induced environmental problems surely stands the moral test in this case. It would be utopian to expect many people to devote most of their resources to the cause of animal welfare improvement. We thus cannot count on everyone to become a very active abolitionist in this modern way. But it should be the least to expect everyone to limit as far as possible their personal net contribution to the modern, cruel way of enslaving animals. We do not demand anyone to do this. But we offer anyone a way to voluntarily go in this direction, through our service.