What if I told you that the most effective way to talk to people about veganism wasn’t to aggressively dominate them with facts, figures, and logical deconstructions of their objections—but rather to patiently listen to, empathize with, and even validate them?

In what feels like an ever-increasingly polarized society wherein vulnerability and self-reflection are often weaponized as weakness, the idea of empathizing with one’s “opposition” may seem foolhardy at best.

Yet it’s precisely in interactions framed within an “us vs them”¹ expectation of one-upmanship that we have an opportunity to diffuse the “charge” of defensiveness by responding with calm curiosity.

If this concept has spiked your “this-sounds-like-it-ends-in-a-drumcircle-at-Burning-Man-semi-spiritual-red-flag-meter,” I hope you’ll stick with me. Believe it or not, research indicates that the most effective way to reach people about veganism may be to listen, truly hear them, and stop trying to make them vegan.

Why We’re So Polarized About Veganism Series Recap

This is the third article and video in my series Why We’re So Polarized About Veganism & What We Can Do About It.

In the first two (“The Science of Why People Hate Vegans” and “Why Vegans Won’t Tell You They’re Vegan“), we learned that when comes to talking about veganism, there can be a snowball effect wherein complementary defenses on both sides reduce any hope for effective communication—much less change. And that this polarization is fueled less by our differences than by the commonalities of our psychology, sociological behavior, and values.

In this article and video, we’re going to look into what exactly to do about that.

Research across multidisciplinary fields (including social, behavioral, clinical, organizational and political psychology, conflict resolution, political science, and addiction intervention) indicates that when we take the time to understand what’s behind our defenses—and connect on our commonalities—we have a chance for constructive communication about divisive issues like veganism.

Listen First. Everyone Needs to Feel Heard

Let’s start with a key commonality of human psychology: the need to feel heard.

It’s hard to listen when you don’t feel heard. It’s hard to see from another’s perspective when you don’t feel seen. And it’s impossible to be open and receptive when you’re having to defend yourself.

So while it may seem counterintuitive, the most important part of talking to people about veganism is to listen to them. We usually enter these interactions with our minds focused on what we want to say, rather than on listening to the other person.

Yet, research shows that when people are given space to safely express themselves about divisive issues—and extended empathy and confirmation they’ve been heard—they’re more willing and able to critically engage with ideas they find threatening, and even question or change their positions entirely.²

Of course, in order to non-judgmentally listen to the concerns of others, we too first need to feel heard. So if you’re struggling with the idea of empathizing with people who eat animals, you’re not alone.

At the end of this article, we’ll talk about the valid resistance to this approach, as well as the importance of practicing self-empathy⁺ so that we can preemptively address any understandable objections to extending empathy to others.

Look Under a Rationalization & You May Just Find a (Shared) Core Value

What about when it comes to the rationalizations many people use to justify eating animals? Surely that’s the time to shut down empathy, whip out your list of logical fallacies, and hammer home the harms of animal agriculture, right?

Research into advocacy messaging by the nonprofit Pax Fauna suggests this approach may be a major source of disconnect between animal advocates and the meat-eating public.³

In their review of current animal advocacy messaging and subsequent interviews with the general public, Pax Fauna found that:

“[w]hile animal advocates continue to focus their messaging on the harms of animal agriculture, much of the public’s resistance actually lies in deeper values such as culture, tradition, and naturalness, which remain largely unaddressed by animal advocates.”⁴

When we dismiss these objections, or immediately counter them with logical refutations, we’re communicating to the other person a complete invalidation of and disregard for their core values—core values that we likely share.

We thus not only increase their defensiveness, but we also miss the crucial opportunity to connect with them on any shared values⁵ underlying their objections.

In their interviews with the public, Pax Fauna found that:

“[While v]alidating these culture-based rationalizations may seem counterintuitive, […] people who received genuine empathy about their attachments to meat often responded by being more willing to question it.

When the interviewer reflected the underlying values behind this common objection, participants would often relax and show more willingness to consider how those values could be preserved without farming animals.”⁶

When our values and needs are affirmed, it creates more space for open-minded self-reflection and engagement with ideas that would otherwise feel threatening to our sense of self—a phenomenon explored within social psychology and cognitive neuroscience.⁷

Rather than jumping to refutation or probing the soundness of the other person’s logic, we can try asking questions to better understand the values and needs behind their objections.⁸

For example, in the case of culture-based objections, we may find the underlying values are honoring family, upholding tradition, or respecting other cultures.

The underlying needs may be to have a sense of belonging, community, and acceptance. All of these values and needs are valid and significant.

While we may not agree with how someone is fulfilling their needs, nor how they’re honoring their values, we can validate the needs and values themselves, opening space for discussing alternative ways to fulfill and honor them that don’t involve the exploitation of other animals.

You can find resources and guidance for using shared values in your advocacy at the base of this article—including example frameworks for effective messaging from both Pax Fauna and the organization Animal Think Tank.

Assume Good Intentions & Separate the Person from the Behavior

I’m going to propose something radical: give people the benefit of the doubt and assume good intentions.

Unless you are one of the few who were raised vegan from birth, at some point in your life, you ate animals.

Think back to why you ate animals. Was it because you were a malicious, cruel monster who delighted in inflicting pain on innocent beings? Or were you just a human raised—along with the rest of us—in a society and culture within which the use and consumption of animals is so commonplace it’s unquestioned?

When we assume good intentions, we’re better able to separate the individual from their behavior, and confront systems of oppression while connecting with the people still participating within them.

What Worked for You May Not Work for Others

As advocates, we often assume that whatever kind of messaging or tactic that worked for us will work for others. While this assumption is natural, it’s also a major contributor to entrenched polarization.¹⁶

When we frame our messaging in a way we find convincing, rather than listening to the values and concerns of the person we’re aiming to reach, we’re not only unlikely to have successful engagement, but also risk further alienating them—an outcome thoroughly evidenced by research.¹⁷

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a concept called shoshin (初心), meaning “beginner’s mind.”¹⁸ The practice of shoshin entails approaching everything—especially things we think we know the most about—with the open-minded curiosity and eagerness to learn of a beginner.

Approaching conversations about veganism with a beginner’s mind—or with what’s called “intellectual humility”¹⁹ within psychology, neuroscience, and other fields²⁰—means dropping all preconceptions and presumed “expertise,” and openly listening.

When we actively listen—and ask questions to ensure we understand—we’re able to identify what’s most important to the person with whom we’re speaking.

We can then work together to not only address their concerns, but also ground our messaging in the framework of what they value most.²¹

This is what’s called “moral reframing,”²² which—along with everything we’ve discussed thus far—can aid in my most controversial call to action: stop trying to make people vegan.

Stop Trying to Make People Vegan

No conclusion is as convincing as one we come to on our own. Most people already hold the core values of veganism: they genuinely care about animals and don’t want to harm them. But it’s precisely these shared values that can spark the strongest defenses²⁹ when facing the dissonance of both caring about and eating animals.³⁰

It’s tempting as advocates to directly confront people with the misalignment of their actions and values. To call them hypocritical and say if they really loved animals, they’d go vegan. However, research indicates that shaming people into changing is not only ineffective, but can actually backfire, causing them to double down and become even more entrenched.³¹

More importantly, when we focus on inconsistent actions, we miss the valuable opportunity to connect with and explore shared values:³² like their love of animals.

If we assume good intentions, take them at their word, and respond with curiosity, we can provide them the safe psychological space for self-reflection. And it’s within that space that they can draw the most powerful of all conclusions: their own.

In their interviews with the public, Pax Fauna found that:

“[While] participants were hypersensitive to any language…which could imply a negative moral judgment of meat consumption on the individual level[…] when invited to share their own thoughts, these same participants could deeply question the ethics of farming and slaughtering animals.”³³

In fact, when asked open-ended questions in a non-judgmental space, many participants themselves debunked the very objections they’d earlier used to justify eating animals.³³

There’s a reason that in my speeches to non-vegans, I always include some variation of the statement:

“Believe it or not, I am not here to force my beliefs upon you—to criticize your country, culture, traditions, religions, or beliefs. I’m not here to shame or shock you. I’m not even here to make you vegan. I won’t pretend to have that power. And no one really makes any lasting change through force, anyway.”

— from my speech “The Best We Have To Offer? How Ireland Exposes ‘Humane’ Farming“

Facts or Feelings: What We Leave People With

When talking to anyone about the myriad of issues surrounding veganism, it’s natural to lean into facts, figures, and logical deconstructions of objections. But what we take away from human interactions is far less about what was said than how we felt in the exchange.

As I explore in depth in “The Science of Why People Hate Vegans,” negative vegan stereotypes and the anticipation of judgment are some of the most significant barriers to engaging with the issues underlying veganism.³⁵

The power of subverting negative vegan stereotypes cannot be overstated.

When someone enters into an exchange anticipating judgment and is instead met with curiosity and genuine interest in hearing their side—it’s disarming.

Even if it doesn’t seem like they have any intention of moving away from eating animals at the end of the conversation, having an experience of safe and open dialogue around the profoundly charged topic of animal use can start to lower some of the most pervasive defenses.

Over the years of my advocacy, I’ve heard from many people who went vegan overnight after watching my videos or speeches. While I don’t have a running tally, I’d hazard a guess that the “overnighters” are far outnumbered by the people who’ve told me they watched my videos for months to years before fully moving away from eating animals.

What kept them coming back and watching more, they said, was the safety of non-judgment in my delivery. Like most people, they needed that space and time. And like all people, they had to come to that conclusion on their own.

We’ve Lost Space for Nuance, Complexity & Humanity

Another significant barrier to effective communication and driver of reactionary polarization is the loss of complexity. Meaning when we reduce each other to one-dimensional caricatures and complex matters to black-or-white oversimplifications.

Research shows that the most intractable conflicts—meaning “conflicts that stubbornly seem to elude resolution, even when the best available techniques are applied”³⁶—are those “which have lost the complexity inherent to more constructive social relations and have collapsed into overly simplified, closed patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that resist change.”³⁷

Our increasingly polarized society has been supercharged by the one-dimensionality and agitating-by-design nature of social media content, which has arguably bled into our real-life interactions as well. YouTube thumbnails, tweets, and memes don’t allow much space for nuance. And agitation-driven algorithms don’t reward content presented in de-polarizing packaging. We’ve lost any allowance for the inherent complexity of anything worth talking about. And with that, we’ve lost any allowance for any of us to be fully human.

To be fair, this is not a problem social media platforms (or, more so, the tactics of the companies behind them) have created—but it is one they’ve greatly exacerbated.³⁸

As someone who’s spent the last decade as a primarily online-based educational activist, I’ve observed and experienced the fallout of this firsthand. And to be honest—I reached points in my activism where my ability to respond to anyone with empathy or compassion was so profoundly compromised that I worried I’d snap on someone.

Why Vegans WON’T Tell You They’re Vegan: The Other Side of Vegan Stigma

My video and article “Why Vegans Won’t Tell You They’re Vegan” provides a much deeper exploration of the “cost” of being vegan in a non-vegan world, and what can bring us to a point of exhausted reactivity.

For any advocate in any social justice field—or, frankly, any vegan—this is an understandable place to reach. It’s also a dangerous one—for our own health and for our activism.

But Don’t The Animals Deserve Our Outrage?

The level of embitterment and raw-nerve reactivity I reached in my advocacy is extremely common to the point of seeming inevitability. For those of us who’ve made a deep connection to what the animals are experiencing—and especially for those of us who have witnessed it firsthand—it’s natural to harden towards anyone paying to support those atrocities.

And for those of us who’ve been on the receiving end of outright vitriol, mockery or derision for our veganism, the idea of approaching anyone with compassion, empathy, or validation can feel unjust, illogical—even weak.

These understandable feelings can be further compounded by the internal politics of social justice movements,³⁹ wherein extending compassion and understanding to the “opposition” can be cast as “betraying the cause,” and grounds for questioning an activist’s commitment and integrity.

It can seem profoundly unfair to suggest that in addition to shouldering the debilitating awareness of what the animals are experiencing, we must also be the ones to extend empathy and compassion to people still participating in systemic oppression.

After all, don’t the animals deserve our outrage? Aren’t their lives more important than people’s feelings?

This is where nonviolence and intellectual humility offer a middle ground between violence and passivity,⁴⁰ and between arrogance and servility.⁴¹ Where we actively but strategically confront injustice in order to effect radical change within entrenched systems of oppression.

But in order for us to walk that most delicate and demanding line, we must first extend empathy to ourselves before we can offer it to others. By intentionally practicing self-empathy before and after demanding interactions, we can strengthen our capacity to remain grounded and open.⁴²

After all, it’s hard to listen if you don’t feel heard.

In Closing…

I hope this article and video help encourage more impactful and productive discussions about veganism and the surrounding issues.

For help establishing a self-empathy practice and to learn more about the concepts we touched on in this video and article, see the resources below, where you’ll also find free trainings for animal advocates.

I would love to know what you think about everything we covered in the comments!

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel. To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES :

Why We’re So Polarized About Veganism & What We Can Do About It

FEATURED TOPICS:

effective advocacy

psychology

how to talk to non-vegans

The post Should Vegans Empathize with Meat-Eaters? appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

You may have heard some variation of the joke “How do you know someone’s vegan? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!” Ironically, this joke captures one of the reasons many—if not most—vegans actually won’t tell you they’re vegan. In fact, many vegans put great effort into not talking about veganism at all! tweet this

In this article and video, we’re not only going to look into some of the reasons vegans hide their veganism, but also how this self-silencing—and its causes—harms all of us—vegan or not. And the potential solutions may not be what you’d expect. Essentially, we need to evolve towards a world without vegans.

(Some of) the Many Reasons Vegans Hide Their Veganism

There are many reasons vegans hide their veganism, with diverse, complex, and even conflicting motivations and concerns. While I won’t be able to speak to every individual vegan’s experience, we’ll be exploring common pressures vegans face.

Vegan self-silencing is often motivated by experiences of being “othered,”^{<strong>+</strong>1} yet many of the reasons vegans hide their veganism spring from human needs and desires we all share. And all of those needs can be placed in jeopardy when people learn you’re vegan.

While the first few sections we’ll cover may sound like a commercial for why you should never consider moving away from eating animals, there’s evidence things may be changing. But before we can speak to the solutions and signs of hope, we need to understand the real fears vegans have of disclosing their veganism.

Vegans Can Get a Lot of Hate (Understanding the Fear of Disclosure)

Research shows that negativity toward vegans is not only widespread but also “largely accepted” and not seen as a societal problem, unlike other forms of bias.² So, while vegans face bias and even outright hate like other stigmatized groups, their experience is compounded by the fact that hating on vegans is generally acceptable—even socially encouraged.³

Documentary filmmaker Kelly Guerin’s experience of “coming out vegan” was so jarring that she focused her Honors Thesis in Anthropology on better understanding the source of the aggression she encountered:

“I expected my friends and family would mock me as they had done before when I became vegetarian. What I did not expect was the hostility I faced and the almost daily confrontations in which I found myself forced to engage. I was called “freak”, “naïve”, and was even told by one roommate “you should just do the world a favor and kill yourself”.

Shockingly, an old friend who had recently turned vegan confided that he found it much harder emotionally to tell people he was a vegan than it was to come out as a homosexual in a conservative middle school. Being an anthropology major, I found these statements both disturbing and fascinating.”⁴

— Kelly Guerin, from her Anthropology Departmental Honors Thesis
(paragraph separation added)

In my video and article “The Science of Why People Hate Vegans,” I explore what research—including Guerin’s thesis—has to say about what motivates these kinds of responses. I won’t reiterate that entire video and article here, but one of the key takeaways is that when we take the time to understand the defenses behind such negativity toward vegans, we can see that they primarily arise from a place of personal distress rather than intentional cruelty.⁵

The Science of Why People Hate Vegans

Learn what’s behind vegan stigma, stereotyping, and anti-vegan bias. This article and video review the growing scientific field of study into why people hate vegans. Interestingly, the underlying drivers of anti-vegan attitudes may point more to promising commonalities than irreconcilable differences.

At the same time, understanding the source of negativity or aggression doesn’t always make being on the receiving end of it any less distressing. Nor does it make that negativity acceptable or not worth addressing.

While it’s helpful for us to lower our own defenses in order to have more effective interactions with people, it’s equally important that we validate how painful, isolating, infuriating, and challenging it can be to be openly vegan in this world.

In understanding all sides, we start to see the common threads of humanity that run throughout our discord.

Vegans Want to Be Judged for Who They Are, Not Who People Think They Are

As we’ve discussed, one of the most common reasons vegans self-silence is to avoid stigma and stereotypes.⁶ Essentially, vegans desire what most of us desire: to be judged for who we are rather than who people think we are.

Studies show that the most prominent negative perception of vegans is that they’re judgmental, self-righteous, and arrogant.⁷ Some people have had interactions with vegans where they felt judged or attacked—and, let’s be honest, they very well may have been.

At the same time, research shows that even the gentlest message from a vegan is often received as aggressive,⁸ and even just the mention of a vegan can put people on guard.⁹

People often anticipate being judged by vegans,¹⁰ which raises their defenses¹¹—and vegans anticipate being seen as judgmental, raising their defenses as well.¹²

Essentially, vegans can be prejudged as judgmental out of the fear of being judged.

If they have to disclose their veganism, vegans are put in the precarious position of trying to preemptively defend themselves from the assumption they’re judgmental while not coming across as judgmental in their defense.

Vegans may “soften” their veganism to avoid conflict, being stereotyped, and/or to make sure those around them don’t feel judged.¹³

As one study participant put it, “I have to defend myself and protect them at the same time,”¹⁴ speaking to the dual burden of “feel[ing] responsible for making others feel comfortable around her while at the same time…protecting herself from verbal attacks.”¹⁵

Many veg*ns^{<strong>+</strong>} feel they must also “balance the tension between staying true to their…beliefs…and fitting in socially,”¹⁶ emphasizing that they are proud of who they are and what they believe in.¹⁷

For some vegans, self-silencing is not so much about fitting in socially as it is the exhaustive demands of explaining themselves,¹⁸ which we’ll explore soon in a dedicated section.

Understandably, many vegans just avoid opening the door in the first place.

Ironically, the self-silencing of vegans may actually reinforce some of the very stigmas and stereotypes they are trying to avoid. After all, no one can experience a vegan positively when they don’t know they’re vegan in the first place.

You may have had many positively delightful interactions with vegans and have absolutely no idea!

This is why some vegans take the approach of letting people get to know them first before disclosing that they’re vegan.¹⁹ But this isn’t always possible and—for some of us—it’s the people who know us best that have the most painful reactions.

Vegans Don’t Want to Be Rejected, Mocked or Dismissed

Another reason vegans self-silence is due to the fear of being rejected, mocked, or dismissed. For many vegans, this fear comes from real-life painful experiences.²⁰ Rejection is something we humans take extreme measures to avoid.

The pain of rejection is significantly magnified when it’s in response to a core aspect of our identity or a firmly held core value.²¹ This adds an additional layer for vegans motivated by ethical concerns for other animals, the environment, human rights, and/or societal health.

Mockery and dismissal of their veganism feels not only like a rejection of who they are, but also like mockery and dismissal of the very real suffering and exploitation of other animals and humans alike, and of pressing issues like the climate crisis.

Perhaps the most devastating magnifier of rejection is when it comes from a central figure in our life—especially from within our family of origin. Nothing hits us quite like family does.

Disclosing veganism is often unavoidable with family, and when that disclosure is met with negativity, it often leads vegans to be vigilant about not disclosing their veganism to other people,²² or even returning to eating animals.²³

Being Openly Vegan Is EXHAUSTING

Now that we’ve covered some of the complex pressures behind vegan self-silencing with the sincerity and compassion they deserve, let’s take a moment to acknowledge a unifying thread running throughout them all: the fact that frankly, being openly vegan is exhausting.

This is a point that anyone can relate to on some level—vegan or not. One of the reasons people can be uncomfortable around vegans is that they feel they have to defend themselves. Well, for anyone openly vegan, this is a default expectation at all times—and, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Imagine having to:

• always be prepared to explain and defend every aspect of veganism

— and also —

• answer for every action of every vegan as if you are somehow responsible for whatever some vegan somewhere did

— and also —

• have data and statistics for every potential question

— and also —

• make sure your responses don’t come across as judgmental or combative—even if you were approached with aggression, and even if you’re being actively judged and preached to while being accused of being judgmental and preachy

— and also —

• make sure that your responses are suited to the exact individual and situation you’re in

— and also —

• preserve the relationship if with a friend, family member, work colleague, or boss

— and also —

• try not to bring in any emotional intensity from your previous experiences of being rejected, mocked, insulted, and disparaged for being vegan

— and also —

• make sure not to reflect badly on all other vegans and veganism itself

— and also —

• try not to betray your own convictions, the animals, the planet, or all of society

— and also —

• do all of this with the knowledge that by answering questions posed to you, you may be accused of “talking about veganism all the time.”

(for the full effect of this list, watch the video at 07:03)

Being openly vegan can feel like having to be a sociologist, psychologist, and walking encyclopedia with expert “skills in emotional and social negotiation”²⁴ and infinite patience and compassion.

Honestly, sometimes you just want to be a person around other people.

While this sounds like a list of reasons you should never consider going vegan or moving away from eating animals, there’s evidence things may be changing. But before we get to that note of hope, let’s look at how vegan self-silencing—and its causes—actually harms all of us.

How Vegan Silencing Harms Us All

As I’ve hinted at throughout this video and article, the pressures motivating vegans to self-silence—and the act of self-silencing itself—have a larger-scale impact that goes beyond individual vegans.

We as a society are becoming increasingly concerned about climate change, workers’ rights, dangers to our community’s health, food insecurity, and what happens to animals in our food system. The need for a collective evolution away from eating animals is becoming more and more evident for the well-being of our planet, our communities, and of course, the animals themselves.

At the same time, we humans are social animals, and we often look to what most other people are doing to aid in our decision-making (referred to as “social proof”).²⁵ And most people are still eating animals. So even if we feel discomfort about what animals go through to get to our plate or we’re concerned about the climate, it doesn’t look like other people are that worried.

Researchers behind the delightfully named study “”How do you know someone’s vegan?” They won’t always tell you” propose that vegan self-silencing could reinforce this perception that not eating animals is some “niche phenomenon” only adopted by a few people on the fringe of society.²⁸

While it may seem like a small matter for individual vegans to stay silent about their veganism, the study authors reference how “[s]eemingly trivial differences in the number of people that hold a certain personal preference within smaller groups can, in the long run, result in macro-level consequences for entire societies.”²⁹

From this viewpoint, “[t]he tendency to self-silence among veg*ans may prevent the onset of momentum and[…]critical mass that is needed to achieve a societal tipping point.”³⁰

At the same time, simply asking vegans to be more vocal about their veganism places them in the Catch-22 of eliciting the very stigma we’ve covered.

At the core of it, the problem isn’t so much vegan self-silencing, but rather the reasons driving that silence. As we’ve learned in this video and article, going against social norms can have social consequences.

Research shows that the fear of receiving the same treatment as vegans prevents other people from taking steps to move away from eating animals. Steps they’d be open to exploring were it not for the potential social backlash.

This may seem like an impossible gridlock of necessary yet understandably resisted change. But there is evidence that things may be shifting.

Changing Norms: Toward a World Without “Vegans”

Researchers, advocates, political leaders, and organizations are becoming aware of the importance of institutional support for a societal evolution away from farming animals.³¹ A shift in our collective relationship with eating animals has to involve more than us as individuals, and there are organizations working at a systemic level in an effort that none of us have to shoulder this alone.^{<strong>+</strong>}

For example, some universities,³² hospitals,³³ schools,³⁴ governmental bodies,³⁵ businesses,³⁶ and even fast-food chains³⁷ serve plant-based food as their default,³⁸ with the option to “opt-in” to animal-based food.³⁹

These programs have shown a significant decrease in animal food consumption, and changing attitudes about plant-based foods.⁴⁰

They’ve found that when not eating animals is the norm rather than the deviation, people—including meat-eaters—are more likely to enjoy eating plant-based meals.⁴¹

In essence, rather than moving towards a world where everyone is vegan, we need to move to a world without “vegans” at all—where not eating animals is simply our default. Where we can all collectively act on our shared values without fear of going it alone.

On an individual level, the less we stigmatize and stereotype vegans—or anyone’s effort to move away from eating animals—the more welcome people will feel to be open about their choices. And the more we see other people acting on the things we also care about, the more welcome we can feel to make our own changes.

In Closing…

I hope this article and video help to validate vegans while also offering other people an inside look at what it’s like on the other side of the stereotypes, assumptions, and stigmas. And how these biases impact our greater society and collective interests.

I would love to hear your thoughts on all we covered in the comments!

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES :

Why We’re So Polarized About Veganism & What We Can Do About It

FEATURED TOPICS:

psychology

family and relationships

societal basis for veganism

The post Why Vegans WON’T Tell You They’re Vegan: The Other Side of Vegan Stigma appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

Despite growing public awareness and genuine concern over how animals are treated in our food industry and the industry’s role in the climate crisis, vegans are still not well-received by the general public. In fact, vegans are often viewed so negatively that there’s a growing field of scientific study into why. And the reasons…may not be what you expect. tweet this

In this article and video, we’ll break down the findings of these studies and explore the surprising thread I found throughout the research: the magnitude of passion and degree of polarization between vegans and non-vegans is fueled more by what we have in common than by our differences.

In fact, if I can be so bold as to offer my own personal thesis: if you bristle at the mention of veganism and vegans, you…may just be a good person.

A Note on Terminology & Limitations

Before we dive in, I want to clarify some terminology and limitations.

1. Veg*ns:
   The studies we’ll be covering are mixed in whether they analyzed just vegetarians, just vegans, vegetarians and vegans as one group (denoted by the term veg*ns), or as separate groups. I’ve aimed to accurately relay the distinctions for each study, though this can be challenging when referring to the findings of multiple studies which varied in their grouping.
2. Omnivore/omnivorous:
   There’s no widely accepted term for people who consume animal products, as it’s viewed as the “default” way of eating (see Dr. Melanie Joy’s work for an in-depth exploration⁺ ).¹ The majority of studies covered in this article and video use the term “omnivore,” though one researcher² points out the problematic ambiguity of the term as it can be interpreted as both biological (omnivore, herbivore, carnivore) and behavioral (omnivore, vegetarian, vegan). For consistency and familiarity, I’ll retain the use of “omnivore” and “omnivorous.”
3. My use of “we”:
   Throughout this article and video, I use the term “we” liberally. I use it when referring to omnivores, despite being vegan myself. This is a conscious choice because the psychosocial dynamics explored throughout these studies are human. None are isolated to vegans, vegetarians, or omnivores. It’s actually the commonality of our psychology and sociological behavior that underpins the more visible polarization.

I read over eighty studies for this article and video, all of which speak to very complex and rich aspects of our humanity. There’s no way to account for the individuality of every person, nor the complexity of every study in a single article or video.

While I’ve done my best to present the thematic threads throughout the research, I’ve had to simplify and generalize. I highly recommend reading through the studies themselves for a more thorough understanding of the science. And I just want to acknowledge the generalization of human motivations and behaviors that results from any attempt to quantify and summarize what makes us tick.

Yes, People Do Dislike Vegans (Establishing Anti-Vegan Bias)

Before we explore why people hate vegans, let’s take a moment to establish the presence of anti-vegan bias. When researchers asked omnivores to evaluate vegans along with several “common prejudice target groups,”³ (lesbians, gay men, immigrants, asexual women, asexual men, atheists, drug addicts, Black women, and Black men) they found that:

“Strikingly, only drug addicts were evaluated more negatively than vegetarians and vegans.”⁴

The study’s authors, Cara C. MacInnis and Gordon Hodson, noted a unique aspect of anti-vegan bias:

“Unlike other forms of bias (e.g., racism, sexism), negativity toward vegetarians and vegans is not widely considered a societal problem; rather, negativity toward vegetarians and vegans is commonplace and largely accepted.”⁵

In fact, research has revealed widespread anti-vegan bias not only in the media but even within academic research itself.

A study of UK media found that 73.4% of references to vegans were negative,⁶ and a review of social science literature discovered that researchers used terms that “denigrated [veganism] and made…[it]…seem ‘difficult’ and abnormal.”⁷

There are also degrees of bias within the veg*n spectrum. Vegans were consistently rated worse than vegetarians,⁸ and their reason for being vegan also impacted the ratings: the very worst-received were vegans motivated by ethical concerns for animals, followed by environmental, and, finally, health-motivated.⁹

Given that most people care about animals and don’t want to cause them harm,¹⁰ why is there so much animosity toward people who try to cause the least harm possible? This is one of the many questions social scientists have set out to answer.

Vegans Threaten Our Identity

The first set of research we’ll look at frames anti-vegan bias as a defense mechanism against threats to our moral self-image, group identity, and way of life. These are deep-seated aspects of our humanity and can understandably result in very strong reactions when threatened.

Later, we’ll explore research that uses a social framework for vegan resentment, focusing on the impressions of vegans as judgy, self-righteous, and having an insufferable sense of superiority. While these may sound like superficial reasons, they all connect to the more profound components of our nature that we’ll discuss first.

Vegans Threaten Our Moral Sense of Self & Trigger the Meat Paradox

Some social psychologists argue that negativity toward vegans has less to do with vegans themselves than what they represent¹¹ and bring to mind.¹² We usually don’t think about eating animal products as a conscious choice. It’s simply what everyone else does.¹³

This is one of the reasons we don’t have a standard word for people who consume animals: it’s viewed as the default way of eating, so we only need words for those who deviate.

However, the mere presence of a vegan immediately shifts meat-eating from the comfort of an unexamined social norm to the disquieting reality of a choice.

This triggers what researchers call the “meat paradox:”¹⁴ simultaneously believing it’s wrong to harm animals, yet continuing to eat them.

“At the heart of the meat paradox,” explains social psychologist Hank Rothgerber, “is the experience of cognitive dissonance,”¹⁵ which is the psychological tension caused by holding conflicting beliefs at the same time, or taking actions that directly contradict one’s values. Examples relayed by Rothgerber include:

• “I eat meat; I don’t like to hurt animals” (classic dissonance theory focusing on inconsistency),
• “I eat meat; eating meat harms animals” (the new look dissonance emphasizing aversive consequences), and
• “I eat meat; compassionate people don’t hurt animals” (self-consistency/self-affirmation approaches emphasizing threats to self-integrity).¹⁶

In his research, Rothgerber identified at least fifteen defenses omnivores use to both “prevent and reduce the moral guilt associated with eating meat.”¹⁷ One of these methods is to attack the person who triggered the discomfort.

It’s human nature to lash out at anyone we perceive as a threat. And vegans threaten something we hold very dear: our moral sense of self.¹⁸ We like to think of ourselves as good and decent people.¹⁹ We also believe that good and decent people don’t harm animals.

We’re generally able to maintain these conflicting beliefs without much discomfort because the majority of society does as well. Eating animals is accepted as normal, often considered necessary and natural²⁰—even completely unavoidable.²¹ But the existence of vegans alone challenges these comforting defenses.

Because it’s so distressing to confront the moral conflict of both caring about and eating animals, people may instead defensively attack vegans to protect their moral sense of self.²² Interestingly, the source of this particular animosity toward vegans is not disagreement, but actually a shared value and belief: that it’s wrong to harm animals.

This is what I meant when I said that “if you bristle at the mention of veganism or even outright hate vegans, you…may just be a good person.” While that’s certainly an oversimplified statement designed for a catchy video intro, there is truth to it.

Most people who eat meat and animal products don’t want to hurt animals and experience discomfort about this conflict. If that’s you, you’re not alone.

We’ve all been taught not to listen to our emotions toward the animals we eat. Feeling that conflict is not something to be criticized—it’s a sign of your humanity. It’s a sign of empathy and compassion struggling against behavior, conditioning, identity, and an understandable desire for belonging.

Vegans Threaten Our Way of Life & Challenge Social Norms

Vegans don’t just pose a threat to our individual identities as moral people—they also pose what researchers call a “symbolic threat”^{23<strong>+</strong>} to group identities, cherished traditions, cultural values, and social norms.²⁴ So much of our social customs are built around food. This invariably leads to friction when someone is seen as challenging those customs.

Research shows the more firmly people associate meat-eating with their identity, the more likely they are to perceive vegans as a threat to their way of life, and thus the more they will engage in a variety of defenses, including stigmatizing and attacking vegans.²⁵

The threat vegans pose to the non-vegan majority can lead to a polarized “us” versus “them” mentality. Yet research shows that omnivores don’t have exclusively negative attitudes about vegans.

A study led by researcher Ben De Groeve in which omnivores were asked to free-associate words with vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians, and other omnivores,³⁰ found that while omnivores do hold negative views of vegans, they also tend to regard them as caring, committed, empathic, and dedicated.³¹

Still, these positive traits were often overshadowed by the impressions of vegans being annoying, self-righteous, judgmental, and arrogant.³² Essentially, that vegans think they’re better than everyone.

(We Think) Vegans Think They’re Better than Everyone (and Some Do…and So Do We!)

The most prominent negative impression of vegans across studies was that they think they’re better than everyone else.³³ Research indicates there is truth behind this stereotype. Studies found that vegans tend to look down on vegetarians,³⁴ ethically-motivated veg*ns look down on health-motivated veg*ns,³⁵ and vegetarians rate other vegetarians as more virtuous than omnivores.³⁶

At the same time, omnivores also rated vegetarians as more virtuous and moral than non-vegetarians,³⁷ viewing veg*ns overall as highly moral.³⁸

And this, researchers propose, may be where the most significantly charged tension originates. Not so much from vegans thinking their actions are more moral (which they do), but rather from when omnivores—at some level—agree with them.

Research shows that the more we share the same morals with someone, the more we resent them when they’re willing to act on those morals in a way we are not.³⁹ It comes across to us as an indictment not only of our actions—or lack thereof—but of us as a person. And that is the definition of being looked down upon.

This is all the more distressing if we are personally conflicted about the behavior we feel is being criticized, and what it says about us. We are likely to become preemptively defensive and assume the person thinks they’re better than us, whether they do or not.⁴⁰

(We Think) Vegans Are Judging Us (and Some Vegans Are…and So Are We!)

No one likes to feel judged. It instantly raises our defenses and threatens our sense of self. This threat is so powerful that the judgment doesn’t even have to be real for us to react strongly.⁵⁵

This phenomenon is called “anticipated moral reproach”;⁵⁶ it’s when we assume someone is judging our morality (or we expect that they would). This can lead to us preemptively attacking and disparaging them in order to protect our own self-image.⁵⁷

The more we think we’re being judged, the more we resent the source of that presumed judgment. A study led by Julia Minson found that omnivores rated vegetarians more negatively if they were first asked to imagine how vegetarians would judge them.⁵⁸

Studies indicate that omnivores tend to overestimate the degree of actual judgment from vegans⁶⁰ and, at times, create it entirely. Even the mere mention of a theoretical person being vegetarian or vegan was shown to prompt defensive reactions.⁶¹

As we’ve discussed, some researchers propose that this heightened defensiveness has less to do with the actual judgment of vegans than the self-judgment they trigger.⁶² This is true for all of us. We react most strongly to external judgments when they hit the pain points of our internal uncertainties and insecurities.

At the same time that omnivores anticipate being judged by vegans, vegans anticipate being seen as judgmental by omnivores and take their own defensive measures.⁶³

The anticipation of judgment on all sides only escalates everyone’s defenses, making meaningful communication challenging.

But before you think it’s hopeless, I want to highlight a particular study that will lead us into what we can learn from all of this.

(We Think) People Would Hate Us if We Were Vegan (and Think of Us How We Think of Vegans)

A fascinating study by Kelly Markowski and Susan Roxburgh held separate focus groups of vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous students to talk about their perceptions of vegans and veganism.⁶⁴ They found that:

“when imagining what it would be like to be…vegan, non-vegans largely imagined they would be viewed and treated in the same way they view and treat vegans: negatively in a stigmatized fashion.”⁶⁵

When asked what challenges they’d face if they were to go vegan, the non-vegans imagined scenarios that were nearly identical to real-life painful experiences vegan participants had described, such as rejection and mockery from friends and family.

Markowski and Roxburg concluded that the fear of receiving the same treatment as vegans was a strong deterrent to ever going vegan or even associating with vegans—so much so that both omnivores and vegetarians further judged and stigmatized vegans to create more distance from the very kind of judgments they projected.⁶⁶

While these findings certainly highlight social barriers between non-vegans and vegans, I think there’s something promising in what the study participants shared: evidence that we can see from each other’s perspective.

But…We Can See from Each Other’s Perspectives

With all the bias, judgment, self-righteous stereotyping, and social stigmatization that we’ve covered, it may be hard for vegans and non-vegans to think the other group could see from their perspective. Especially if someone is actively voicing a negative opinion of them. But the students in Markowski and Roxburgh’s study demonstrated that we may not be as polarized as we seem.

When asked what it is that people assume about vegans that makes them seem so unlikeable, the very same vegetarian who earlier cast vegans as preachy said:

“I think it’s that people just assume that vegans look down on others. So, you don’t have to be in someone’s face about it, but just knowing they’re vegan, I think people think, ‘If I eat a cheeseburger in front of them, they are definitely judging me.’”⁶⁷ (emphasis added)

— Vegetarian study participant who earlier cast vegans as preachy

Similarly, an omnivore who described vegans as “militant, self-righteous, [and] overzealous” expressed that if he went vegan, he’d have to learn to ignore people’s negative opinions of him because “they’d kind of think differently of me and treat me differently than they did before.”⁶⁸

With just a shift in questioning from what they thought about vegans to what they thought people assumed about vegans or would think about them were they vegan, the same students who were critical of vegans were quickly able to empathize with their experience.

What Can We Learn from This?

Whether omnivore, vegetarian, or vegan, most of us want to be seen as good people. We don’t want to harm animals. We don’t like being judged or looked down upon. We fear rejection, isolation, and mockery. We often defensively inflict upon others what we fear experiencing most ourselves.

This is what I mean when I say it’s often what we have in common that paradoxically drives our polarization. tweet this

Social psychologist Hank Rothgerber proposes that the more we can understand what’s underlying the strain and tension between non-vegans and vegans, the better we can navigate our interactions.⁶⁹ He suggests that even seemingly combative quips from omnivores “are not likely motivated by personal cruelty but by personal distress.”⁷⁰ (emphasis added)

In the final study we covered, when asked what would help them transition towards veganism, omnivores and vegetarians alike emphasized the need for supportive friends and family, and for people, in general, to be more open-minded.⁷¹

Essentially, to know they’d be accepted and not have to fear being hated.

The more open-minded we as a society can become about transitioning away from eating animals, the more welcome people will feel to make a change. The less we fear rejection and judgment from one another, the more we can connect on our shared values and with all that makes us human.

In Closing…

I hope this article and video can be a part of helping vegans and non-vegans better understand one another. You can see the links below and throughout this article for more content on the psychology of eating animals and effective communication between non-vegans and vegans.

I would love to know what you think about everything we covered in the comments! Please share this post to help other humans better understand our shared humanity.

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES :

Why We’re So Polarized About Veganism & What We Can Do About It

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psychology

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The post The Science of Why People Hate Vegans appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

Most people are simultaneously animal lovers and animal eaters. They don’t want to harm animals or see them harmed, but they also continue to eat meat, leading to what scientists have dubbed “the meat paradox.”¹

Studies² have found that people navigate the resulting discomfort of this cognitive dissonance with a number of coping strategies, including dissociation, detachment, and “othering” of non-human animals. Essentially, a selective severing of their empathy.

In this interview with philosopher and author John Sanbonmatsu, we explore how this societal detachment can mirror psychopathy, an argument John makes in his forthcoming book The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and the Nature of Moral Life. 

Introducing John Sanbonmatsu

A scholar in the interdisciplinary field of Critical Animal Studies, John Sanbonmatsu teaches ethics and philosophy at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

John is the editor of the award-winning book Critical Theory and Animal Liberation and is the author of The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject.

His forthcoming book The Omnivore’s Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and the Nature of Moral Life reframes the question of animal agriculture from one of “sustainability” to one of existential and moral purpose, presenting the most powerful case yet for the total abolition of the animal economy

John’s writing has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Detroit Free Press, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Huffington Post, among others.

You can connect with John at his website and on Twitter.

Interview with John Sanbonmatsu

The following transcript of my interview with John Sanbonmatsu (from the video above) is edited for clarity. I’ve also employed subheadings to provide navigational markers of topical and thematic divisions beyond a pure question/answer grouping.

John’s Use of the Terms “Psychopathy” & “Sociopathy” & the Concept of Societal Psychopathy

Emily: “Psychopath” and “sociopath” are very loaded terms. We tend to see psychopathy— especially in regard to harming animals—as a rare, aberrant, and sadistic.

However, you suggest that on a societal level, we exhibit sociopathic and psychopathic attitudes and behaviors toward other animals. Could you explain your argument on the ubiquity of psychopathy?

John: I’m using these, as you said, “loaded” terms in mostly…as a kind of metaphor, but also [as] something more than a metaphor to describe the way that we as a society and as human beings treat the other beings of the Earth.

We grow up in a society that acculturates us to suppress our empathetic response. And that naturalizes and normalizes violence and aggression against other animals. It’s what happens when we see other persons as things. That almost dissociation, a kind of inability to access the interior experiences of the other, is characteristic of anti-social personality disorders.

The term “sociopathy” and the term “psychopathy” are not in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). They’re not formal clinical diagnoses, so they tend to be used a little bit more informally.

Without going into too many details about this, we can say that people with sociopathy and people with psychopathy express a kind of diminished empathetic response. And most people in society exhibit these qualities: they’re selective in their empathy. They have empathy for this animal or this group of animals, but not these animals. And the [animals] that fall off the radar of their empathetic concern are the ones who, coincidentally, we exploit and want to keep on exploiting.

So…I’m using “psychopathy” as…something between a metaphor and an actual description of our behavior and our psychology. Not everybody wants to hurt animals. Most people don’t want to see other animals harmed. And yet, at an unconscious level they’re participating—we’re participating—in a system of violence, and we know that.

If you think about the levels of extreme violence and the extensiveness of the violence in human civilization…human civilization is based on the equivalent of genocide—on mass killing of literally up to one to three trillion marine animals every year and maybe sixty billion mammals and avians and other animals, reptiles, amphibians, on land.

That’s every year. And not only is it considered normal, not only is it considered ethical—it’s actually seen as the best way to live a human life! And if anybody has the temerity to say, “Excuse me, maybe we shouldn’t do this,” then everyone jumps on them, ridicules them, and hates on them.

As someone who used to eat meat, you know, I wouldn’t have thought of any of that, but the truth is, if we really get down to it, you know, we should be disturbed by our participation, because it does show a moral callousness that is very similar to psychopathy.

That’s kind of how I’m using these terms. I’m really interested in how society structures our experiences through language and power relations so that we act as though we had psychopathy—as though we were afflicted with this towards other animals.

Is It More Ethical to Kill Animals Yourself than Buy Meat?

Emily: Activists often emphasize that our unwillingness to confront the reality of what other animals experience in the animal products industries creates a fundamental barrier to understanding the true nature of our complicity as consumers. The assumption is that if consumers had to kill animals themselves, they’d stop eating animals.

However, you discuss a growing “do it yourself” culture of people who do kill and butcher animals on their own, and the social perception of this being a more virtuous, authentic, and honest relationship to animals and food. Would you discuss the comparative ethics of killing animals oneself versus the detached denial state most consumers inhabit?

John: There’s been this “meat renaissance”…around this idea of “authenticity” and developing a direct relationship with nature or animals. And the way to do that…in the “locavore movement” is to kill and butcher the animal yourself.

As you said, there’s a kind of ethos around this, such that the person who…kills chickens themselves, butchers their own hog, or hunts their own meal is engaging in a more “authentic” and more morally sound practice.

The thing is, the ideology of meat and the ideology of human supremacy…it’s just so powerful. That’s why people are able to kill animals with their own hands—because they already see them as beneath our contempt and as having lives that are worthless.

These are ideas that are prevalent in society: the idea that animals just don’t matter, their lives don’t matter.

In my view, people who deliberately seek out opportunities to harm animals, to kill animals, to control, dominate, and kill animals—have far less moral character than people who just unthinkingly, unwittingly buy their food at the supermarket.

The Psychological Health of Hypocrisy (Not Wanting to See Others Harmed)

John (continued): When we go into the supermarket and just buy a commodity without thinking about where it comes from or what went into its production, you could say there’s…a kind of hypocrisy in that because we don’t want to know… On the other hand, I think there’s something psychically healthy about a kind of instinctual desire to avoid—not to want to see other beings being harmed.

The argument of the “do-it-yourself” slaughterers is that that’s a more morally virtuous behavior to actually see it: you go to a slaughterhouse workshop, you see someone else kill the animal, or you get to do it.

I think it’s very healthy on the contrary to not want to do that, to not want to see that. So it’s a little psychically or psychologically complicated because, as they say, we have a moral failing insofar as we just hide certain ugly truths from ourselves. But the very fact that we find such truths ugly is healthy.

Emily: I think that is something that is, not purposefully, but sometimes perpetuated by animal activists. [We can] focus so much on the hypocrisy, the avoidance, and the denial… [Those] are there and it is important [for people] to recognize what’s being done in our names…

But, as you’re saying, it’s also good to recognize that that denial and that hypocrisy [are] coming from a healthy avoidance within us. And that is actually a huge indicator that we know this [killing animals] is not an okay thing to be doing, and it’s not something that we are okay with.

John: Absolutely. When I show my students footage of animals being harmed, everybody is upset. Everyone is very upset and some of the students cry every time I show it. And these are all meat eaters. These are all people who, before they came into my classroom, would have just kind of laughed at it—at veganism—and made vegan jokes and thought the whole thing was ridiculous and silly.

But when they see it with their own eyes, and when they feel it with their own mammalian senses—because we are mammals and we have evolved this capacity for empathy—it changes their way of understanding the meat system and their relationship to it.

Unfortunately, there are just so many forces and pressures working as disincentives to changing behavior that very few of them then become vegetarian or vegan. But every single one of them understands after seeing the stuff that it’s wrong. No one ever, almost no one in my experience, will say, “Well this is okay.”

We Have Every Incentive Not to Look & Every Disincentive to Get Others to Look

Emily: I think that fact that they have that connection—that I think the vast majority of people do when they see this happening—but then they don’t change their behavior or their actions,…that really speaks to the “systemic psychopathy” in relation to other animals.

It’s not that each of us is a psychopath, but the fact that we can watch footage like that and make that empathetic connection, but then go right back to consuming those animals because it is reinforced systemically by a “societal psychopathy” when it comes to how we’re relating to these other animals…it’s very powerful.

John: It’s so much easier for us to turn the other way and not look, not see what’s there. We have every incentive not to look. We have every disincentive to look. And we have every disincentive to try to get others to look.

There’s that joke about…”Well how do you know when there’s a vegan in the room? Because they’ll tell you.” Why do vegans feel the need to tell? They want to take others and turn their heads…to this and say, “See?” And people don’t want to see.

And it’s particularly damaging in a context in which it’s normalized—it’s seen as healthy to hurt animals and in which people demonize and vilify anyone who tries to turn their gaze to look at the object of oppression.

How Culture Shapes Our Selective Empathetic Responses

Emily: I wanted to circle back briefly to the very first question where we were talking about the ubiquity of psychopathy—the societal psychopathy. I don’t know if we ever really talked about that essentially being down to a separation of our empathy.

I think we’re able to recognize the societal psychopathy when we’re looking at cultures outside of ourselves. Americans, for sure, can look at whale hunting or dolphin hunting or killing and eating dogs and that’s where we can [say], “Oh my gosh, this is psychopathic behavior.”

It’s that selective application of empathy and the selectivity that we have of what we see or don’t see, and what we connect to or don’t connect to, based on what we’ve been conditioned into within our own societies. But we’re able to see it in what other people are doing but not in the very same things that we’re doing, just to maybe a different species or these different applications.

John: Absolutely. And this is where racism, speciesism, misogyny, and other ways of viewing the world can get in the way of even…that direct apprehension of the suffering of the other, or the distress, the vulnerability of the other.

Empathy makes it possible for me to perceive a situation requiring moral remedy. It’s a way of seeing what’s there. If I don’t have that empathy, that response, then I’m not going to see that there’s a morally relevant situation requiring remedy.

I’ve seen interviews with people with psychopathy when they’re confronted with the suffering of a human—it could be a human that they’re killing or a non-human animal they just happen to see drowning in their swimming pool—[and they exhibit] nothing. They don’t feel…they don’t feel anything.

If we can’t feel our way into the feelings of others, then we are really kind of messed up… When empathy is either suppressed or absent, you have the potential for limitless violence. You have the potential for enormous harms.

The Pleasure of the Perpetrator vs Systemic Violence (Bestiality and The Nazi Problem)

Emily: I have a video and article where I take on the taboo topic of bestiality. I argue that, much like you have with psychopathy, bestiality is not only commonplace, but actually paid for and supported by the vast majority of humanity.

When we look at the practices within the animal products industries, many on their face are the same sexually violating acts we’d classify as bestiality. The only difference is the perceived pleasure of the human perpetrator. That seems to be where our disgust lies.

Similarly, when we look at violence against non-human animals, we’re more than comfortable classifying it as psychopathic when the human perpetrator takes pleasure in the infliction of harm. Yet, we’re reticent to view systemic violence against animals as psychopathic—or even problematic. Could you speak to this distinction we make and what it is we actually find objectionable if it’s not the act itself?

John: That’s a great question and I think it’s a little complex. I’m thinking back to the Nazi experience and the fact that the Nazis…in some of their internal communications…talked about…different methods for killing Jews. And they would, in some cases, refer to “more or less humane methods.”

It was kind of taken for granted within the SS that you weren’t supposed to “get off” on it…that you were “just doing your job” and you’re going to be professional about it and so forth. In fact, of course, many in the SS were very sadistic and engaged in horrific, horrific, intentional cruelties…but the point I guess I’m trying to make is the apparatus.

At the Wannsee Conference, once the logistical details of the Holocaust had been arranged and the policy had been handed down for execution, all of the qualities of suffering and unspeakable suffering of the victims of the Nazis followed from the decision to kill.

This is the thing that really bothers me about a film like Schindler’s List, where the Nazi commandant in the film is portrayed as…a sadistic lunatic. If only that had been the Nazi problem! But the Nazi problem is that it was ordinary people. It was ordinary people who engaged in extraordinary forms of atrocity.

The human character is such that it’s very easy for us to be part of a bureaucracy or a process, a normalized routine and practice where we engage in really horrible forms of behaviors but as you point out where because they’re not intelligible within the frame of individual agency or individual effect…like whether I’m getting pleasure from this or not…we have a harder time seeing that systemic violence as just as bad.

Emily: I think also there’s the fact that what we label as sadistic and psychopathic doesn’t have the sheen of being “necessary,” which is what we can apply to killing and eating animals. It’s this concept that “Well, but it’s necessary, because how else are you going to feed the world?” And I think that can also provide this distinction in our minds.

John: Again, the curious compartmentalizing feature of our minds is that the most horrible things become acceptable the moment they become normal—taken for normal.

Psychopathy vs Psychopathic Behavior & Our Capacity to Change

Emily: It’s well known that most serial killers torture and kill non-human animals in their youth before moving on to humans. However, not all children who torture animals become serial killers. You actually share a story from your youth of how you tormented ants. Could you speak to the distinction between psychopaths versus psychopathic behavior? And what this means for our ability to change our behavior in relation to other animals?

John: Yes, when I was a boy, I’m very sorry to say, I killed a lot of different insects. I tortured ants—killed them in the hundreds. And in reflecting on why, I mean…I don’t want to get too much in my own personal psychology per se, but I mean it really was a kind of displaced aggression.

So, I guess, in reflecting on this part of my own personality—I would say that my behavior towards the ants was…it was both psychopathic, and I’d go further and say that it was also sadistic. I mean, I actually took an active pleasure, I’m very sorry to say (because now I don’t kill any insects), but I took pleasure in harming them.

It’s disturbing to think about, but it does give me a kind of insight into the psychology, I think. But in my case—in the case of many people—young people might engage in these kinds of behaviors. It’s very clear…you can connect the dots to see how I got there, through cultural influences, familial influences, my own psychology…

But now, if there’s an animal trapped, a little insect or something trapped in my home, I’ll just take the insect outside. So, it shows that we can change. We can behave in these ways that really do resemble psychopathy: lack of empathy, lack of remorse, lack of guilt, extreme cruelty even—and that isn’t hardwired into us (most of us). Most of us can change. It’s clear that there’s a potential for unlearning these behaviors.

The Moving Story of Harold Brown

John (continued): A very moving example of someone who had the shift, this change in consciousness, is Harold Brown. Harold Brown was brought up on a farm in Iowa. Later he became a dairy farmer himself. He felt a connection to the animals at some level, but he also butchered them and or sent them to slaughter for years.

Then, he had a heart attack. It created a kind of hiatus…it was like a break in the way he’d gone about living his life. And he began to rethink his relationship to all these animals that he had been raising for slaughter for years. And with that distance and that break, he developed a sensitivity to animal ethics and became a vegan.

Well, sometime after this, he adopted a young male cow at an animal sanctuary. The cow’s name was Snickers, and he had visited Snickers once or twice, I think, and then he went away for six months or so and then came back.

And he was curious to know if Snickers would recognize him. So kind of almost half-jokingly, Harold opened his arms and said “Hi, Snickers!” And the cow immediately ran to him and put his head up against Harold’s chest—gently but firmly put his head against Harold’s heart…and Harold burst into tears.

And he realized in that moment [that] all of these years of acculturation as a boy and a man, he’d been taught—like practically every boy in every culture—to suppress his feelings, to be tough…especially in a rural working-class white community.

And that just kind of melted away. And from that point on, he realized, as he describes it, that he had a “compassion switch”—we might call it an “empathy switch”—and that he’d been able to turn it on or off his whole life. So that he had been able to have empathy for people…and for certain kinds of animals maybe—maybe his dog—but then he could turn off that switch in order to butcher animals.

And when he had that epiphany, it was just mind-blowing to him. And he tells the story because what he felt in that moment with Snickers was this moment of connection—of relationality. It was just being present with this other.

And that is what is so sad, I mean tragic—is the fact that all these people like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver…all these people are killing animals in the name of “authenticity.” They’re missing out. They’re doing something that’s wrong, evil, but they’re also missing out on a more spiritually elevated way of being human—which is to be in a connection with love, with others, and with all of these wonderful creatures that we live alongside of.

And if you go through life treating all of these beings as “its,” as just objects, you’re missing out on this kind of huge dimension of being human…and animal.

How We Reconnect With Our Empathy

Emily: You propose, and as we saw with Harold Brown, that we aren’t lost causes when it comes to reconnecting with our empathy and altering our relationship to other animals. Could you speak to how we may as a society and individuals, make that shift?

John: It can’t just be at the individual level. There has to be a movement that’s challenging the structure of violence and the ideas that go into the making of it…challenging the meat industry’s propaganda to create an opening where people could get in touch with their empathic selves.

Part of that is educating people about what animals are and who they are because we see them as just these degraded, stupid, irrational beings—which they’re not. And then part of it is learning to think about a new kind of civilizational order where we are actually glad to have other beings we’re sharing the Earth with.

So that we stop burning rainforests and enslaving animals and putting them in zoos and circuses…that’s the whole broader picture…

But the takeaway is that it’s clear that we can change, and that while we may have these behaviors that are in some way like that of someone with psychopathy, we can unlearn them.

In Closing…

I hope you enjoyed hearing from John on this thought-provoking and complex topic. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. You can connect with John at his website and on Twitter.

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

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The post The “Psychopathy” of Eating Meat | Interview with Philosopher John Sanbonmatsu appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

Of all of the controversial topics I’ve covered, nothing has generated as much passionate feedback as questioning the ethics of horseback riding. In the years since, I’ve realized that my original video and article focused heavily on the physical harm of riding—neglecting to delve into the broader ethical concerns surrounding the use of horses.

Additionally, I’ve heard from many horse riders in the intervening years and wanted to respond to their feedback more thoroughly. So, I decided to revisit this “powder keg” of a topic more comprehensively and in much greater depth.

The More Important Question: Are Horses Meant to Be Ridden?

Before we discuss whether horse riding is cruel, I want you to think about another question entirely: are horses meant to be ridden?

The question of whether horse riding is cruel tends to result in heated debate over which methods or schools of riding are best, with riders insisting that horse riding is not harmful if done “correctly.”

I have received lengthy comments detailing how any physical or emotional harm caused by riding horses is due to inexperienced riders, poor use of equipment, or any other number of factors.

But all of this debate over how to ride horses “properly” presupposes that there is an acceptable way to use another being for our own purposes. Even the very question of whether horse riding is cruel risks implying that the only problem with riding horses is whether they suffer.

The foundational ethical issue with horseback riding isn’t whether it hurts horses—it’s the presumption that they are ours to use in the first place. That horses are meant to be ridden.

We’ll explore this further throughout this article but I wanted to plant this seed before we get too lost in the weeds

Common Arguments in Defense of Horse Riding

Let’s start by addressing head-on four common arguments in defense of riding horses:

1. Riding provides good (and necessary) exercise for horses
2. Riding provides an enriched environment and stimulation for horses
3. Horses like to be ridden
4. Riding creates an emotional bond between horse and rider

What’s fascinating—and rather telling—about these arguments is that they all focus on how riding benefits horses. I point this out because the nature of how we defend our actions can reveal a great deal about our underlying—and even subconscious—insecurities about those actions.

By stressing how good riding is for horses, proponents of riding inadvertently expose their anxiety about its potential harms. Such arguments also serve to close off any further debate—if horses like being ridden, what’s the problem?

I want to note that, in addition to answering these arguments below, we’ll be revisiting them in more detail throughout the section covering arguments against horse riding.

Is Horse Riding Good Exercise for Horses?

The most basic argument in defense of riding horses is that horses need exercise. This also comes with the most basic refutation: so do dogs, cats, and human children—yet we’ve somehow found a way to provide such necessary physical activity without mounting any of them.

Yes, horses—like all animals—need exercise. And if riding them is the only way they are allowed to receive that exercise, then yes—it’s more beneficial than being stuck in a stall all day every day.

But the choice of being ridden or receiving no exercise at all is a human-created false dichotomy.

The reason horses even need humans to provide them with exercise is that we have confined them in the first place.

Does Horse Riding Provide an Enriched Environment & Stimulation?

A second argument is that riding provides horses with an enriched environment and stimulation. As with exercise, these are valid needs of any living being—and fully achievable without being mounted by a human.

Again, if horses weren’t deprived of enrichment and stimulation by humans in the first place, they wouldn’t need to be given enrichment and stimulation by humans.

Do Horses Like to Be Ridden?

The assertion that horses enjoy being ridden comes in many forms, but almost always starts with “but my horse loves…” and insert: being ridden, going to shows, wearing a bridle, having a bit, running the barrels, and what have you.

Horse riding advocates describe how excited their horses are when they see it’s time to go for a ride, listing behavioral signs of enjoyment versus those indicating distress.

Rather than debate the meaning of equine body language, let’s assume—for a moment—that a horse does show excitement about being ridden. This excitement has to be viewed within the context of the limitations we’ve placed upon the horse.

What else do they have to look forward to? When your options are staying in a stall or getting to go outside—albeit while being ridden—which would you choose?

Adapting to the limits of confinement is a survival mechanism in all animals—humans included.

Think of how imprisoned people find ingenious ways to fulfill the need for social and communal interaction, intellectual stimulation, and physical activity. They may very well come to enjoy any time they have outside their cell and excitedly anticipate things that, to non-imprisoned people, seem trivial or even unappealing. But within the limited framework of confinement, they adapt to stay sane.

This re-frames the issue entirely to the ethics of domestication itself —something poignantly explored by former horse trainer, trader, and rider Ren Hurst in my interview with her:¹

“Most people have no idea that the animals they are spending time with are in an absolute state of learned helplessness, of conditioning, that doesn’t even allow you to experience their true nature. What you are experiencing is like this empty shell version…of the animal in front of you.”

— Ren Hurst, author/mentor & former horse trainer/rider
from our interview

Even if we could accurately determine consent from other species, true consent cannot be freely given under unequal power dynamics and constraints.

Does Horse Riding Create an Emotional Bond?

This leads us to what I think may be the most painful defense for riders to confront: the love they feel for their horses, and the deep emotional bond formed through riding.

To those of you who ride horses: I do believe that you love them. I do believe that you feel a deep emotional connection to them.

And I believe that the depth of that love is precisely what makes it so profoundly painful to question the true nature of your relationship with them.

I also understand the resistance to having that bond questioned by me—someone with no background in horse riding.

So, I’ll again defer to Ren Hurst, who, in her book Riding on the Power of Others: A Horsewoman’s Path to Unconditional Love, relays with brutal honesty and unflinching self-examination the progressive realization that what she believed to be love for horses was actually—for her—a love for power and control:

“You have to almost experience a truly free horse to walk away from [riding]…otherwise, your perception of what horses are and how they behave is really skewed. We really don’t know the essence of what love really means.

This is a being you have placed in your control and in your care, and then you call that “love.” I mean, there’s nothing “loving” about using someone for your own personal benefit. That’s not a loving relationship, and it’s not an equal relationship.”

— Ren Hurst, author/mentor & former horse trainer/rider
from our interview

Riding horses involves using non-human animals for entertainment, emotional fulfillment—even love. But using someone for love is still using someone.

Common Arguments Against Horse Riding

Now that we’ve touched on some of the principal defenses for riding horses, let’s explore the main arguments against horse riding. I’ll be honest: the most common arguments against horseback riding—which I myself focused upon in my original video and article on this topic—all center on the physical harm riding inflicts upon horses.

Yes, it’s important to address the physical consequences horses endure from being ridden. However, focusing exclusively on their physical suffering as the reason to stop riding horses misses the greater ethical issues entirely.

Instead of questioning our use of horses in the first place, we end up nitpicking the appropriate terms of their exploitation: arguing about the best and worst methods of riding, the proper and improper use of equipment, et cetera.

It is the very same trap of all animal welfarism, like humane, free-range, and cage-free labels. Our right to use these beings is seen as a foregone conclusion—the only thing we question is the “acceptable” ways in which we can use them.

With that caveat stated, let’s look at the physical impact of horseback riding on horses before further exploring the vegan animal rights perspective.

Does Horse Riding Hurt the Horse Physically?

The short answer is yes, horse riding does hurt horses. The exact nature and degree of the harm, the precise causality, and proposed methods by which such harm may be mitigated is a long-standing contentious debate that shows no signs of resolution.

A major problem with the scientific and medical literature is that it is conducted through the lens of minimizing the harm of horse use in order to prolong that use. It is also framed within the unquestioned constraints we’ve placed upon horses.

For example, many studies conclude that horses benefit from entering training at a younger age, which is used to justify starting them early in horse racing. One recent research review’s conclusion stated that “it has been shown in numerous studies that confinement and the subsequent lack of loading, lead to weaker tissues and potential loss of function of bone, articular cartilage, and tendons and that exercise during growth aids in the longevity of animal health and performance.”²

What this essentially means is that exercising horses is better than confining them to stalls. Of course movement is better than confinement. But once again—movement and exercise can happen without mounting and without rigorous training for competition.

Additionally, if we weren’t forcing these horses into competition in the first place, there would be no need to try and determine the “right way” and “right time” to start them in training.

A Question for Riders

Before we get into more detail on whether riding hurts horses, I want to again urge you to take a step back and think about another question entirely: if so much has to be done “correctly” to minimize the harm of riding horses, and no one can actually agree on what that “correct” formula is, and riding horses is entirely unnecessary in the first place—why are we still so insistent on doing this to them?

For the horse racing industry, the answer is clear: money. But for the individual rider—for the horse lover—stop to question why you feel you need to ride. The majority of blog posts and informal articles I came across discussing whether riding hurts horses were written by riders. People who obviously have concern that their actions are adversely impacting the beings they love.

Yet those posts went on to catalog—sometimes in extensive detail—how, exactly, to make the riding experience as enjoyable as possible for your horse. How to minimize injury and distress.

Some echo the journey of Ren Hurst, progressively using less and less horse tack and adopting more gentle methods, all in an effort to find a justifiable way to still use horses. So, let’s follow this path and start with the harm of horse tack.

The Harm of Horse Riding Tack: Bits, Bridles, Whips & Saddles

Horse tack refers to the equipment and accessories used on domesticated horses. This includes things like saddles, bits, bridles, and whips.

It’s worth noting that most horse tack is made from the skin of other non-human animals, further compounding the exploitation. I cover the leather industry in depth in my video and article “Is Leather a Byproduct of the Meat Industry?“

Do Saddles Hurt Horses?

In addition to general wear and chafing, saddles run the risk of causing vascular occlusion—meaning the restriction of blood flow—which can, if prolonged, lead to “necrosis of the under-lying tissues”³ —meaning the horse’s skin and muscles die.

Riding bareback (without a saddle) isn’t the answer, as it may actually increase the risk of injury by putting more concentrated pressure on a horse’s back than with a saddle.⁴ To avoid severe consequences such as necrosis, much industry, and scientific research goes into designing and educating riders about “proper” saddle fit and use.

The option of just not riding horses at all never even enters the discussion.

Do Bits & Bridles Hurt Horses?

I have a video and article covering bits, so I’ll keep this brief. Bits cause pain and damage a horse’s complex cranial nerves, as well as their teeth, tongue, and palate.⁵ Facial nerves are very close to the skin and thus extremely sensitive.

Bits provide a perfect example of the incremental negotiation of acceptable exploitation that occurs when viewing a horse’s pain as the only problem. Rather than question the domination and control of another being, more and more riders adopt and advocate for bitless bridles.

Then, when research hints that perhaps even bitless bridles cause pain,⁶ there’s another school or device or approach ready to take its place.

For more about the types of bits used on horses and the physical and psychological effects of bits, see “Horse Riding Cruelty: Effects of the Bit“

Horse Riding Cruelty: Effects of the Bit

Do Whips & Crops Hurt Horses? New Findings on Horse Pain Perception

Riding advocates emphasize that whips and crops should not be used as punishment—only as encouragement—the primary benefit being “additional control over your horse.”⁷ As with all horse tack, there is unending debate over their “proper” use, with much focus given to the potential physical and emotional harm of misuse.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider that we’re now debating the proper way to whip a being we love.

The most widespread controversy about whips is their use in the horse racing industry, which I’ve covered in a dedicated video and article.

While the way whips are used within horse racing differs from how they’re used in non-competitive riding, recent research into horse pain perception from whips is applicable to the larger issues we’ve been exploring.

There’s a long-standing misconception that horses have “thicker skin” than humans, and thus, whips don’t hurt them. A 2020 study comparing the capacity of horse and human skin to detect pain found this not to be the case:

“The results revealed no significant difference between humans and horses in either the concentration of nerve endings in the outer pain-detecting layer of skin (epidermis) or in the thickness of this layer… The collagen layer (dermis) of skin which is not involved in pain detection was significantly thinner in humans than in horses.

These findings show that, although horse skin is thicker overall than human skin, the part of the skin that is thicker does not insulate them from pain that is generated during a whip strike, and that humans and horses have the equivalent basic anatomic structures to detect pain in the skin.”⁸

— Lydia Tong et al., “A Comparative Neuro-Histological Assessment of Gluteal Skin Thickness and Cutaneous Nociceptor Distribution in Horses and Humans” (emphasis added)

Six years before this study, one of the authors, Paul McGreevy decided to whip himself while taking thermographic imaging, saying:

“My view is that – because there is no evidence to the contrary – we must assume that, just as I felt pain and distress from the impact of the padded whip, similar whipping in a horse would also cause pain and distress.”⁹

— Paul McGreevy, “Whips Hurt Horses – If My Leg’s Anything to Go By”

While it’s validating to now have the scientific verification, I wanted to highlight McGreevy’s point: why not assume that other sentient beings feel pain as we do, rather than continue to harm them unless we’ve proven to ourselves that it is harm?

Horse Racing Exposed: From Cradle to Grave

For more about Paul McGreevy’s findings, the use of whips within horse racing, and the profound exploitation of the horse racing industry, see “Horse Racing Exposed: From Cradle to Grave.”

Skeletal, Muscle, and Tissue Damage from Riding

Now that we’ve addressed horse tack, what about the act of riding itself? There is an astounding lack of consensus and ongoing controversy regarding horse skeletal maturation and growth plate closure rates,¹⁰ diagnosis and treatment of injuries, and the relationship of riding and training practices to injury rates.

Even a veterinary manual explaining “the most common cause of back soreness in the horse” is soft-tissue damage to the muscles and supraspinous ligament in a horse’s back, which “are strained while the horse is being ridden” is sure to point out that “there is considerable controversy over the diagnosis and treatment of back problems in horses.”¹¹

It’s acknowledged that “[a]cross all equestrian disciplines, the single largest reason for wastage”—also euphemistically referred to as “loss of horses”—”is musculoskeletal injury,”¹² Yet horse skeletal maturation rates and damage from riding remain particularly contentious.

Many studies and sources declare horses “skeletally mature” at 2–3 years of age based either on the growth plates closing in their legs, or their having reached their full height and weight.¹³

None of these factors speak to the maturity of their axial skeleton, which includes their vertebral column—y’know, the part you sit on—nor parts of the pubis that don’t fuse until 4.5–5 years of age¹⁴, long after they’re already being ridden.

I spent days delving into horse skeletal development, and I’ve included more on my research process and findings within the supplemental section below.

But honestly, those hundred or so hours I spent only highlighted the utter insanity of how much time, energy, and effort we humans put into justifying our use of other animals.

In the end, the industry, scientific, medical, and even lay-rider literature doesn’t really refute the harm of riding—it just strives to determine the best way to reduce that harm and prolong the use of horses.

A Note on Researching the Skeletal Maturation & Growth Plate Closure in Horses

Horse growth plate closure rates and overall skeletal development and maturation are still being debated, with ongoing controversy over how early to “start” horses. There is a saying that a horse is ready to ride when their “knees close,” referring to waiting to ride horses until the growth plates in their limbs have closed.

As I mentioned in the previous section, studies on growth plate closure seem to focus exclusively on the appendicular skeleton (horses’ limbs), which typically close by 2–3 years of age.¹⁵ However, as plates close from the ground up, those latest to close are in the axial skeleton (skull, vertebral column, sternum, and ribs).¹⁶

I spent days searching for peer-reviewed data on growth plate closure and skeletal maturation of a horse’s axial skeleton, only to hit wall after wall. What I came across time and again was a widely-circulated document by Dr. Deb Bennett, who has a PhD in Vertebrate Paleontology.¹⁷ (I actually cited this very paper in my original video and article.)

Dr. Bennet argues that the last growth plates to fuse are in the vertebral column, stating this does not occur until the horse is at least five and a half years old. While Dr. Bennett cites select sources for her schedule of growth plate fusion (including her own research), the specific sources for each value in the table are not clear.¹⁸

I was able to finally chase down the 5^th edition of The Anatomy of the Domestic Animals (1975)—first published in 1910¹⁹—which states that “the epiphyseal parts [of the pubis] fuse with the main mass at four and a half to five years of age,”²⁰ a finding made as early as 1897 (see second highlight in Table 1).²¹

Additionally, within the text from 1897, a table of welding times of the epiphyses of horses appears to list the anterior physis of the vertebral body (within the spine) as fusing between 4–5 years of age (see first highlight in Table 1).²² I was also able to verify that the proximal end of the humerus fuses as late as 3.5 years of age.²³

As I spent hours looking for growth-plate closure rates and finding countless regurgitations of Dr. Bennett’s schedule, I kept struggling with the question: does this matter?

Dr. Bennett’s paper, if fully relied upon, could be used as compelling reasoning for why riding horses under the age of five or six could cause skeletal damage. Yet Dr. Bennett’s primary goal in this paper is not to decry horse riding, but rather to advocate for the appropriate age at which to commence riding.

I decided that affording a significant portion of my video and article to getting lost in so much minutia would essentially contribute to the very problem I’m attempting to highlight: that this focus on and debate about the degree and nature of physical harm distracts from the real ethical issue at hand—the exploitation of sentient beings for our own purposes.

The Incremental Negotiation of “Acceptable” Exploitation

The warring approaches to riding, endless studies on training practices, and progressive bargaining of using less and less tack are all manifestations of the same incremental negotiation of exploitation we perform with all non-human animals.

Battery cages are too cruel for layer hens, so we give them slightly larger cages. Still problematic? How about a crowded shed? Still too grim? Let’s raise backyard chickens.

We barter and bargain and give ourselves happy-sounding labels, doing anything we can to keep using animals—but feel good about it.

Within the horse world, a poignant example of this mentality is the United States horse racing industry patting itself on the back for a 23.5% decrease in fatalities over a decade of voluntary data collection by The Jockey Club.²⁴

The mentality is that: of course there are going to be fatalities. But, as The Jockey Club’s senior counsel said, the fact that slightly fewer horses died of fatal injuries while racing “indicates that the Thoroughbred industry’s commitment to equine safety is paying dividends.”²⁵

Not only do we fail to question what we’re doing to these beings, but we actually congratulate ourselves for being the heroes in the disasters of our own creation. We swoop in to make their abbreviated lives slightly less miserable—lives that we’ve made abbreviated and miserable in the first place.

Is Horse Riding Vegan?

By this point, you can probably guess the answer to whether horse riding is vegan. The question “is horse riding vegan” is quite different from the question “is horse riding cruel.” Veganism and animal rights oppose any exploitation of sentient beings

It’s evident that horses do not need to be ridden. When a horse’s basic needs are met without being ridden, horseback riding solely benefits the rider. Whether that benefit is financial gain, entertainment, emotional fulfillment, or even a presumed expression of love—it is exploitation.

There is no way to take advantage of someone’s captive dependency without exploiting them.

Underlying all of the debates over the “proper” way to train and ride horses is not only the tacit acknowledgment that some degree of harm is acceptable but also the deeply entrenched and unquestioned presumption that horses are ours to use.

Confronting the exploitation of horse use is—I’m sure—profoundly painful.

It’s likely as traumatic as confronting what we do to animals in the food industry—and elicits just as strong defenses and justifications, even from vegans who continue to ride horses.

I again will encourage those of you who ride horses to ask yourself: why? Why do you insist on doing this to them? As much as I’m sure you love them, is this how you express love for any other being in your life?

This isn’t about shame—it’s about learning to love horses truly unconditionally. Unconditional love means allowing them to be their full selves—outside of the constraints of who we need them to be.

In Closing…

I’ll be honest—revisiting the ethics of horse riding has been an exhausting, challenging, and somewhat maddening experience. My hope is that this video and article will reach those of you who are still riding—and that you’ll find a way to work through your defenses and take an honest look at your relationship with horses.

I highly recommend watching my interview with Ren Hurst—hearing from someone who has been where you are is no doubt more powerful than anything I can say.

Please share this video and article with others who ride. And, as much as I joked about “passionate feedback,” I do want to hear from you! What are your thoughts on the ethics of horse riding? Let me know in the comments!

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES:

Horse Riding Ethics

FEATURED TOPICS

domestication

animals in entertainment

horse riding

Editor’s notes (from Emily): This article (along with the first video) was originally published September 24, 2014. As I’ve stated within this new article and video, I focused primarily upon the physical harm of riding in my first post. I am moved that my original video and article reached so many people. I am also grateful that I’ve now been able to re-address this issue in much greater depth and with a more comprehensive ethical perspective. I have still included my original video below.

I would also like to provide an explanatory note on the structure and wording of the subheadings on this article. You may notice that many are phrased as questions rather than statements. (For example, “Do Horses Like to Be Ridden?” rather than “Horses Like to Be Ridden” under the section “Common Arguments in Defense of Horse Riding.”) This is for the sake of “searchability”—by phrasing subheadings in the question format, people searching for answers online are more likely to find this article. While I’m not a fan on this awkward presentation, accessibility of this information is of great import. Having an ethical veganism and animal-rights-based answer amongst the search results for horse riding ethics is worth a little awkwardness.

The post Is Horse Riding Cruel? Is It Vegan? appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

Technical Notes: I’ve included some select portions of the video transcript below, along with resources I mention to the commenters. There are far more comments in the video than in the article, but I did include a note on “appearance critics” that is not in the video.

Overall, this video is truly meant for watching/listening, not reading. You’ll not only miss out on the comments I haven’t included below, but also you’ll be deprived of my brilliant comedic delivery (nailed it), my excessive gesturing, and the magnificence of the various commenters’ profile photos.

A “Gotcha” Comment (the hilarity of undeserved anger)

I thought I’d share a “gotcha” comment that someone posted under my video “Can Veganism Solve World Hunger?” (at 01:08 in the video):

My response: If you watch the full video, everything that he talked about, comes out of my very vegan face!

So, your “gotcha” moment is actually something that I say in the video that you’re telling me is “full of wrong information.” (Maybe just give it a full watch next time.)

This is one of my favorite things, you guys, about the internet and about YouTube—is when people get really upset about what you said or didn’t say in a video that they have not watched.

And sometimes, my very favorite—oh I love it!—is when they’ll actually tell me that they didn’t watch the video, but that they’re so angry about what I said in the video that they just had to comment and they had to tell me.

That’s my favorite: “I was too angry to watch this, but I’ve just had to comment to tell you how angry I am about what you said in this video that I did not watch.”

Hate Comments About My Appearance

I highly recommend watching the “lightning round” of comments about my appearance (at 02:21 in the video). Here are a few select gems:

My Giant Vegan Head

This is a double-barrel insult starting with one comment from Shota Burduli, to which Hugo Anderson then helpfully replies:

My response: I would think, if anything, that might mean that I have like amazing brain nutrition and I’ve grown my brain so much, as a vegan, that my skull has expanded to fit my brilliance.

Thank you, veganism!

Don’t Sugarcoat It

This is one where you really need to watch/listen to the video for the timing/delivery of my response. I’ll do my best to reproduce it by breaking down my reply to what I say as I read each part of this comment.

My response(s) as I read the comment: “I won’t sugarcoat this” — Thank God, because, let me tell you…my biggest issue with YouTube and the internet is people sugarcoating their comments. I’ve had enough of it!

“You look unhealthy and anything but beautiful (body-wise).” — What does that mean? I must look beautiful inside! (That really means a lot.)

“This is coming from a vegan.” — Oh! (That makes it mean even more…)

Expect to Lose Your Eyebrows

To understand the brilliance of this one, you need to know the video that it was posted on. This is on my video “What to Expect Emotionally When Going Vegan“:

My response: Oh, I see…that’s a comment on my eyebrows.

Well you know, Oswurth, eyebrows are the emotional curtains of the windows to the soul, so absolutely you should expect that..of course.

The Common Theme of Appearance Critics

In the video, I point out a common theme about almost everybody who comments on my appearance, saying, “Let’s take a look at their profile photos.” Shockingly, they are just avatars or generic letters.

As I say in my reply to the first “appearance” commenter, Dan Renter, who creatively said, “she looks unhealthy” — I see you’ve really gone out on a limb to showcase your appearance on the internet, Dan…

When you’re “publicly vegan” online, you will get comments on your appearance. I’ve been (simultaneously!) too skinny, too fat, too muscly, too weak (non-muscly), etc.

It’s not really about me. There are plenty of reasons why things “come out sideways” when it comes to veganism.

Check out “How Smart People Think Their Way Out of Veganism” and other content about justifications and rationalizations for more about the inherent resistance to veganism.

For me personally, these kinds of comments do not phase me in the slightest. As you can (hopefully) tell in the video, I find them hilarious.

However, I know they can be very painful for many people who receive them. So, if you ever have someone online criticizing your appearance or your personality—just know that most people don’t have the guts to truly put themselves out there, much less take a public stand for anything of true import.

This isn’t anything I say in the video, but to everyone out there fighting for a cause and dealing with the built-in vulnerability of doing so—I see you, I appreciate you, and you are made of Damascus steel.

Vegans, Nazis & Communists

Now we’ve come to a heavy-hitter, everyone: “Nathan Talks” (his username).

And Nathan…does…talk.

This is another one that I highly recommend watching/listening to, as I cannot possibly convey in written form my delivery of Nathan’s utterly fascinating thought processes. (at 04:55 in the video) But I have included below most of my response, and the resources I recommend to Nathan (which he will never reference…)

My response (in part): Oh Nathan, you do talk. First off I feel like the beginning of this: “Vegans Nazis and Communists”—is that you started a joke that you forgot to finish.

But you’re totally cool with vegetarians—so it seems that it’s specifically someone who chooses not to eat cheese. That’s where the heart…of Nathan’s anger…is seated.

That’s what brings vegans…to the level…of Nazis and Communists—is not eating cheese. And the reason is because cheese is “the only joy left in a terrible, terrible world.”

Well ,you know, I don’t mean to be a bummer, Nathan, but I’m a vegan and as you know— we’re as bad as Nazis…

You seem to be okay with someone saying, “I don’t want to take the life of a sentient being and eat their flesh.” You’re okay with that.

Choosing not to consume dairy is actually just a further extension of choosing not to consume the flesh of sentient beings because cheese and dairy products are also killing and taking the life of a sentient being.

Dairy cows are sexually violated over and over to produce babies the babies are taken and killed for veal if they’re male. If the baby’s a girl, she sometimes is killed—or she’s just put into service like her mother to become a milk machine because her mom’s body is gonna crap out in about four-to-five years, even though cows can live twenty-plus years.

I know that there’s a lot of serious stuff that I could bring up about Nathan Talks, but I’m still just fascinated by the way his brain works.

I’ll link to a bunch of stuff that you can watch about the realities of dairy but, Nathan, I don’t think you’re gonna watch it. (I don’t think you’re watching this.)

Pigs Going to University

This comment (and it’s a long one) was on one of the videos in my “Live at a UK slaughterhouse” livestream, where I was filming pigs at a UK slaughterhouse. (at 07:27 in the video)

My response (in part): That’s a lot to unpack, Ian. You have blessed us with one of the longest sentences—that is a single sentence. That’s too much. We need a paragraph break…or something.

I’m gonna try to actually reply to some of Ian’s points (I think). I think part of the mockery here is that “Oh if we didn’t eat them, it’s not like they were gonna go have a home and a white picket fence and a university education.”

Does that mean that any human being who doesn’t get a white picket fence and doesn’t have a University education doesn’t have a right to live? I’m not really sure what we’re going for here, Ian.

As far as “quit interfering with people trying to do their jobs” I’m assuming you might mean the slaughterhouse workers? I actually have a video about how traumatic work in a slaughterhouse is but Ian, I don’t know if you’re really wanting that kind of sincerity, from me.

I do have a video, Ian, all about amazing facts about pigs. You might enjoy it—you won’t. You won’t watch it, Ian.

Closing Thoughts…

I hope that this video gave you a laugh. Being vegan can be intense—even traumatic. We’re aware of so much suffering and injustice.

It’s important—vital, actually—to decompress and practice self-care. Now, to be honest, this is coming from someone who is perhaps the worst at following this advice. But that is a huge reason why I made this video.

I just spent a few weeks totally overhauling my core speech for non-vegans (among many other things), and my brain needed a break! I hope this gave you one! If you need an even bigger break, check out more vegan humor content!

Which was your favorite “hate comment” from the video? Let me know in the comments! If this did give you a laugh, please share the joy with others—we all could use it!

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE VEGAN HUMOR:

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FEATURED TOPICS:

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The Dark Side of Dairy

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The post Responding to Weird Vegan Hate Comments appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

Technical Notes: As this article is a speech transcript, the written version will reflect a spoken delivery and also may not properly relay the speaker’s pace, tone, and emphasis.

This speech was originally published on June 15, 2016. Reasons for republication.

What would you do if you found out that everything you know, everything you believe, everything you’ve been told since you were a child was a lie?

And not just any lie, but one carefully crafted, finely tuned, expertly executed, and deliberately designed with the express purpose of assuring you that wrong was right, that bad was good, and that violence was love.

A lie powerful enough to manipulate you into taking part in horrific and barbaric acts you’d otherwise find appalling. Powerful enough to wash blood from your hands; to alter your perception so severely that murder appears mundane and compassion becomes extreme. tweet this

You Deserve to Know the Truth

Hello, my name is Emily Moran Barwick. I’m an animal liberation activist, an artist, an educator and a vegan. I created BiteSizeVegan.org, where I educate people about veganism through a wide array of content styles while covering a diverse range of subjects.

In our time together today, I’m very likely going to challenge some of your life-long beliefs. I’m going to ask you to set your preconceptions aside and try to look at the ordinary with a fresh set of eyes.

I am aware that this is a great deal to ask of you, especially coming from a total stranger. I’m asking for your trust when I haven’t even earned it. But believe it or not, I am not here to force my beliefs upon you. Or to make you vegan. I won’t pretend to have that power. And no one really makes any lasting change through force anyway.

I’m simply here to show you what is really going on every second of every day all around the world behind closed doors. To present evidence—for your consideration—that things may not be as they appear.

Undoing a life-long belief is no easy task. But in order to make informed decisions, to look ourselves in the mirror and ask if we are truly living the values we purport to have, we must know the truth. We must educate ourselves about what is really going on, not rely on what we’ve been taught. We must make decisions based on facts, not fantasy.

I’ll want to preface this talk by saying that I’m going to be transparent with you, and I’ll even tell you if I don’t know something. I’ll also be providing citations throughout this post for every fact I state, along with a bibliography below so that you can dig deeper. I’ll only be able to scratch the surface in this brief window of time we have together.

Is Veganism an Extreme Way of Living?

So let’s get started. Veganism is often viewed as an “extreme” way of living. Vegans do not eat, wear, or use anything that comes from someone else’s body.

We don’t eat meat, drink milk or eat cheese. We don’t consume eggs or honey. We don’t wear leather, wool, silk, or down. We don’t use products that were tested on animals or contain byproducts from their slaughter.

We don’t attend circuses, zoos, aquariums, or any other event that exploits living beings for our entertainment and pleasure.

From the outside, such rigorous exclusions and avoidances can easily appear extreme. But remember: today is about challenging appearances and assumptions of extremism and normality.

Today is a lesson in unlearning.

The Truth About Dairy

What better way to unlearn than to start our journey at the end and work our way back to the beginning?

And what better way to question what’s accepted as good and normal than with something as wholesome and everyday as a glass of milk?

The source of milk is no big secret: it comes from cows. But that’s about as far back as most people trace milk’s journey to our refrigerated grocery case.

Milk Production Requires Repeated Pregnancies

Most of us grow up thinking that cows are made to be milked. We may think they have a constant supply of milk—even that they need to be milked to relieve the pressure.

Well let’s look at this critically for a moment. Cows are mammals, just like us. And mammals produce milk for one reason: to feed their babies.

Cows carry their babies for nine months—just like we do; they lactate to feed their babies—just like we do; and after weaning, they stop producing milk—just like we do.

So, in order to have a constant supply of cow’s milk for human consumption, we need a constant supply of pregnant cows.

In the dairy industry, cows are repeatedly inseminated—which is a nice word for raped. The restraining apparatus used to secure the cows is referred to—at least in America—as a “rape rack.”¹

What Happens to the Male Calves of the Dairy Industry?

Once a cow gives birth, we face another roadblock to our milk’s journey. Babies, after all, drink their mother’s milk.

So, to make sure there’s a constant supply of milk for us, the babies must be taken away soon after birth. This is precisely what occurs in the dairy industry.

If the calf is a male, he is sent to a veal farm where he is tied down, unable to move, or locked in a cage where he cannot even turn around until he’s slaughtered while still only a few weeks old.

Veal—an industry that even many meat-eaters oppose—wouldn’t exist without dairy. Every cup of yogurt, every scoop of ice cream, and every glass of milk is directly connected to the deaths of those baby calves.

The Toll of Separating Mother & Child

But we’re not quite done tracing milk’s path to our cereal bowls. While the slaughter of babies is certainly horrific enough, we cannot forget the mothers left behind.

Cows bond intensely with their calves and will cry out for days when they are taken.

When residents of Newbury, MA called the police to report disturbing noises emanating from the Sunshine Dairy farm at all hours of the day and night, the police explained that the mother cows were “lamenting the separation from their calves”—but not to worry as “the cows are not in distress and that the noises are a normal part of farming practices.”²

This is not anthropomorphizing. It is a mother’s grief and it’s utterly heartbreaking to watch.

The bodies of dairy cows generally give out at age four or five—at which point they are regarded as “spent”—despite their natural lifespan of twenty years or more. They are sent to slaughter for cheap meat and pet food—deemed unfit for human consumption.

The Final Separation: Slaughter of Fetal Calves

At the slaughterhouse, many of these mothers face their final and most brutal separation from yet another child.

While formal statistics are difficult to obtain as most studies focus on the economic cost of “fetal wastage,” approximately 10%-70% of cows arrive at the slaughterhouse pregnant.³

In fact, there are entire industries that rely upon the slaughter of pregnant animals.

A wide array of scientific experiments use what’s called fetal serum from a range of animals—with bovine fetal serum being the most widely utilized.⁴

Bovine fetal serum is obtained by cutting a living fetus out of the mother’s womb, piercing the heart and draining the blood. The process can take up to 35 minutes while the fetal calf remains alive.⁵

But this most horrific and final separation of mother and child was just the last in a cycle of pregnancy after pregnancy and loss after loss.

Infection Is the Norm: The Physical Demands of Dairy

In addition to this extreme psychological and emotional trauma, the physical demands of repeated milkings and the crowded and unsanitary living conditions lead to frequent infections and sores.

Dairy cows are pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, all of which seep into their milk.⁶

In fact, there’s an official number of pus cells allowed in milk, euphemistically referred to as the “somatic cell count.”

In the United States, around 22 million [22,177,500] pus cells are allowed per single fluid ounce of milk [750,000 cells/mL], with global allowable limits ranging from just under 12 million [11,828,000 cells/fl. oz. in Canada & the EU (400,000 cells/mL)] to 29.5 million cells/fl.oz. in Brazil [1,000,000 cells/mL].⁷

What Happens to the Female Calves of the Dairy Industry?

When we push onwards through to our dairy cow’s beginning, back past the first pregnancy, before she became the broken, hollowed-out shell eventually collapsing under the insane demands of her short life, we come to her birth. The moment she emerges into the world, wide-eyed and brand new.

The moment she is taken from her own mother.

You see, we talked about what happened to the male calves who are sent off for veal. The daughters of the dairy industry are still separated from their mothers.

They’re kept around to take their mother’s place and keep the money machine going. Keep the milk flowing.

So that every grocery store, every corner shop, every gas station will be sure to stock this wholesome, normalized, entirely ordinary product.

The Greatest Magic Trick Ever Performed

The animal products we perceive as mundane, when reverse-engineered, reveal a perversely complex and—to put it lightly—an ethically challenging journey from genesis, through processing and production, to the end product.

That is to say: from the animals’ birth, through confinement, abuse, slaughter, and denigration of corpses to the shiny, happy, store-ready products that we literally eat up without even a single thought as to what the animals went through.

We are being sold the pus-filled ultimate outcome of rape, enslavement, kidnapping, abuse, disease, torture, infanticide, and murder—whitewashed into an image of wholesome nutrition.

As vegan activist Gary Yourofsky has said, it’s the greatest magic trick ever performed. tweet this

And people say veganism is extreme.

The Truth About Eggs

Unfortunately—or perhaps you may feel fortunately—we don’t have time to take this reverse journey in such depth with all of the products we create from living beings.

But let’s at least take an abridged look at another seemingly harmless item. One consumed all over the world and with which most Americans start their day.

One lovingly mixed into baked goods for birthdays and other special occasions. One decorated in celebration of peace and new life: the incredible, edible egg.

Layer Hens: Living Beings Treated as Machines

Like milk, the source of eggs is clear: they come from chickens. Unlike milk, chickens do not have to be impregnated to supply them.

But any time we make a living being into a machine—a supplier of inventory—the bottom line will always be profit. And increasing profit means increasing output and increasing efficiency.

Just like the mothers of dairy, the bodies of layer hens give out prematurely from the extreme demands of production.⁸ Hens lose vital nutrients every time their body forms an egg.

Every aspect of their lives is regulated to ensure maximum output.

From controlling their laying cycles with days and days of persistent light, followed by long periods of complete darkness, to starving them for weeks at a time in an effort to force yet another egg cycle from their worn-out bodies—a process benignly referred to as “induced molting”⁹—to the outright manipulation of their very genetic makeup.

What Happens to the Male Chicks of the Egg Industry?

We’ve optimized our machines, you see, and bred one kind of chicken for meat, and another kind for eggs.

Because of this, the egg industry produces billions of unwanted male baby chicks every year. Just like male dairy calves, who are unable to produce milk, male layer chicks can’t lay eggs. So they are of no use.

Male baby chicks are either painfully gassed, slowly suffocated in plastic bags, or they are ground up alive—referred to as “maceration” within the industry. We’re talking about the cute, fluffy yellow baby chicks we adore come Easter time.

This is standard practice all around the world, with the United States and European Union specifying that chicks must be less than 72 hours old when they are killed.¹⁰

They are not even granted three days of life.

What Happens to the Female Chicks of the Egg Industry?

The sisters of the egg industry’s discarded sons get to live out their short lives in cramped battery cages, unable to even extend their wings.¹¹

Of course, you’ve likely heard about the rise of free-range and cage-free facilities.¹² But in truth, the only comfort these labels bring is to our own conscience.¹³

Cage-free birds are crammed into tiny sheds and have twice the mortality rates of battery-caged hens.¹⁴

Layer hens are generally good for 1–3 cycles, each lasting roughly a year. In countries where induced molting (again, the industry term for starvation) is illegal, they’re simply killed around their first birthday.

The Power of Packaging

I hope you are starting to see the power of this lie.

Of presenting cruel confinement, starvation, abuse, the barbaric murder of day-old babies, and the slaughter of one-year-olds—themselves still children—as something completely normal and kind. Packaged in perfect little orbs.

And we have the audacity to decorate them in celebration of new life.

To fawn over the very chicks who were ground up alive for their production. To mix them into treats for our children and loved ones. To start our day with the products of abject misery and call it “sunny side up.”

We might as well start our day by throwing chicks in a blender.

Animal Lovers Eating Animals

We could spend all week reverse-engineering the paths of the seemingly endless number of animal-derived products we encounter on a regular basis.

In fact Dutch artist Christien Meindertsma spent 3 years tracing and cataloging all of the products made from a single pig: PIG 05049.¹⁵

This brings us to the next layer of our collective self-deception: the systematic erasure of individual identity.

You see, this is where the lie is most vulnerable. Because beneath the years of indoctrination, we still believe ourselves to be animal lovers.

We go to the movies and root for Babe the pig, cheer for the chickens of Chicken Run, and pull for Nemo the fish to find his way back to his father.

Then we go home and eat bacon and eggs and make chicken fingers and fish sticks for the kids.

The only way to maintain this most glaring dissonance—this duality of our professed values and our daily actions—is to ensure that the animals we eat and use have no names, no faces, and no identities.

So we give them inventory numbers.

The Systematic Erasure of Individual Identity: Animals as Inventory

To mark these living beings as inventory, we brand them with hot irons or freeze their skin off. We tattoo and tag them, inject electronic transponders under their skin, or strap them to their necks or ankles. We even give them barcodes.¹⁶

The important thing is that they are clearly identified as property. And that they are treated as such.

Because as soon as we see them as individuals, we threaten the very foundation of the lie upon which we so desperately depend.

Standard Mutilations in the Meat, Dairy & Egg Industries

If their bodies don’t conform to our desires, we alter them at will.

Baby pigs have their teeth cut out, their ears notched, their tails cut off, and their testicles ripped out—all without anesthetic.

Chickens, turkeys and other birds in the meat and egg industries have their sensitive beaks cut or seared off.

Cows have their horns cut or burned off and are also castrated without anesthetic.

And with some of our most impressive mental gymnastics—which would be admirable if it weren’t so horrific—we say this barbaric mutilation, this conversion of living beings from someONES to someTHINGS is for their own good.

Because if we don’t clip their teeth or cut their beaks or slice off their tails, they’ll attack and chew on each other.

What we fail to mention is that these behaviors are stress responses to confinement in overly-crowded, insanity-inducing conditions. That if we didn’t put them in these abusive conditions, they wouldn’t react the way they do.

But we humans love to play the role of savior in the disasters of our own creation. We swoop in to milk the cow and relieve the painful pressure of her swollen udder. Pressure that wouldn’t exist had we not taken her child away.

Humane Legislation: Defining the “Right Way” to Kill

We amass mountains of paperwork, conduct thousands of studies, spend untold amounts of money, form governmental, institutional, and industry panels, all to decide, define and decree the right way to kill.

You can pour through the documents from the USDA,¹⁷ or the European Union,¹⁸ or any country for that matter, to learn the legal speak that makes taking the life of a living being acceptable.

And you don’t have to look too far to start finding caveats and loopholes. Religious slaughter without any form of stunning gets a pass.

Birds and fish are excluded from humane slaughter regulations—the very name of which is a perfect embodiment of our desperate attempt to simultaneously be animal lovers and animal killers. To be their protectors and their tormentors.

I mean it really is absurd when we step back and think about it. Do we have manuals on how to humanely rape? Or how to compassionately kidnap? Or ethically rob? Of course not, because those are oxymorons. They cannot coexist.

But when it comes to killing animals, we will bend over backwards and create massive paper trails of regulations to feel good about what we are doing.

Again, I must ask— is veganism really the extreme choice here?

Look at what we have to go through to make eating animals acceptable.

What Happens Behind Closed Doors

Before we move into issues of the environment and health impacts of diet, I’m going to play brief video.

The portions of the footage where the location is known will be labeled as such. But it doesn’t mean that the same thing isn’t happening in other parts of the world. I trimmed down hours of footage into a 3-minute clip.

It will not be pleasant, but I’d implore you to watch anyway. You can’t make an informed decision without having all the facts.

If you feel you must turn away, I’d just ask you to think on the question: “If I can’t watch the process, do I have a right to eat the product?”

In my years of being vegan and speaking with many, many non-vegans, I have yet to ever hear one reason that even comes close to justifying putting a sentient being through what we just saw. Not one.

You cannot watch that and say that the animals we kill for our food don’t know any better. That they die peacefully and humanely.

They can sense the fear. They can smell the blood. And they fight. They fight to the end.

This Is Happening All Over the World

And you can’t say that it’s happening in some far away place because it’s happening all over the world.

The CO2 chambers you saw—those were the medieval devices lowering pigs to an extraordinarily painful death of burning from the inside out—that is seen as the most humane method of slaughtering pigs.

It’s employed worldwide, including here in the United States.¹⁹

The Environmental Impact of Animal Agriculture

Thus far, I’ve focused primarily on the ethical truths behind the mask of normality.

But the wake of our destruction is littered with far more than the trillions of beings we kill every year.

The environmental, health and societal impact of what (whom) we put in our mouth is astounding.

There is no way I’ll be able to cover these areas today in the depth they deserve, so I encourage you to refer to the resources linked throughout and at the base of this article. But let’s try to take a bird’s eye view of our impact on this planet.

When it comes to the environment, we usually hear about conserving water, cutting down on emissions, halting deforestation.

Environmental protection agencies encourage us to take shorter showers, carpool or ride our bikes, go paperless, and recycle more.

Our governments hold international conferences to address climate change and seek solutions.

All the while the single most devastating force behind our planet’s environmental collapse remains not only unspoken, but actually actively denied by the very organizations charged with saving our planet.²⁰

Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change.²¹

It’s responsible for up to 51% of greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 13% of all global transportation.²²

It uses a third of the earth’s fresh water,²³ up to 45% of the Earth’s land,²⁴ and is responsible for 91% of Amazon rainforest destruction—with 1–2 acres cleared every second.²⁵

It is also a leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, and habitat destruction.²⁶

The efforts we make to recycle and take shorter showers are rather insignificant in comparison.

The Water Footprint of Animal Products

Accounting for variation in production system, the global average water footprint for a single pound of beef is 1,847 gallons/lb, with numbers ranging all the way to 8,000 gallons/lb.²⁷

Without fail, plant-based products have the smallest water footprints based on weight.²⁸

Of course weight doesn’t necessarily mean sustenance. Still, global averages show that “when viewed from a caloric standpoint, the water footprint of animal products is larger than for crop products” with “the average water footprint per calorie for beef [being] twenty times larger than for cereals and starchy roots.”²⁹

Animal Protein Requires More Water Than Plant Protein

With protein being one of the greatest nutrition concerns for people considering veganism, it’s worth noting that “the water footprint per gram of protein for milk, eggs and chicken meat is about 1.5 times larger than for pulses,” with beef’s footprint being 6 times larger.³⁰

Leading to the conclusion that “it is more efficient to obtain calories, protein, and fat through crop products than animal products.”³¹

Our Food & Water Are Going to the Animals We Eat

But we don’t really need studies to tell us that eating animals requires more energy input and creates more waste than eating plants. How can it not?

Eating animals is incredibly inefficient. We are filtering our nutrients, water, and resources through someone else’s body.

Globally, we’re feeding close to 40% of our grain to our food animals.³² How can that not be worse for the environment than simply eating the plants ourselves?

The United States alone could feed 800 million people with the grain we feed to our livestock.³³ That’s more than the estimated 795 million people going hungry in the world today.³⁴

Ninety-eight percent of the massive water footprint for animal agriculture we just covered goes to growing feed crops for the animals we eat.³⁵

I’m not suggesting that a global shift to veganism will automatically result in the proper redistribution of our crops to those in need, nor address the issue of unnecessary food wastage, but it’s the only way we can have enough food to feed everyone.

Can Veganism Solve World Hunger? An Honest Answer

For an in-depth (and updated) look at the inefficiency of animal products, the diversion of our resources, and the necessity of a global shift to plant-based diets, please see “Can Veganism Solve World Hunger? An Honest Answer“

The Land Usage of Animal Agriculture

This is where many people point to small, local farms, and sustainable practices. Like grass-fed beef. Or free-range, cage-free eggs.

The thing is, we don’t have the land. There’s simply not enough land for the number of animals we eat every year.

The amount of land that it takes to produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based foods will only yield 375 pounds of meat.³⁶

The land required to feed one vegan for one year is 1/6th acre. It takes three times as much for a vegetarian (someone who consumes dairy and eggs but no meat) and eighteen times as much for a meat-eater.³⁷

You can grow fifteen times more protein on any given area of land with plants versus animals.³⁸

On top of all of that, studies show that pasture-raised cows emit 40%–60% more greenhouse gases than grain-fed cows.³⁹

The Environmental Impact of Fishing

I could talk about the environmental cost of animal agriculture all day and we would only just be scratching the surface.

I do want to speak briefly to fishing and ocean health before moving on. I produced a video report, “Empty Oceans: Is The World Running Out Of Fish?” encompassing the most recent research (at the time of production) on the state of our oceans, which you may refer to, but I’ll summarize some main takeaways.

Whether you eat fish and marine life or not, this matter impacts all of us. The ocean, or rather the phytoplankton within the ocean, provides somewhere between 50%–80% of our oxygen,⁴⁰ and the oceans’ ecosystems store carbon in massive quantities.⁴¹

Since we tend to go for the “biggest fish” first, only 10% of predatory fish species remain,⁴² which could leave the unchecked species to feed on the ocean’s vegetation, releasing the stored carbon.

If we lost just 1% of these blue carbon ecosystems, it would be equivalent to releasing the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Australia.⁴³

We pull 90-100 million tonnes⁴⁴ of fish from our oceans each year,⁴⁵ with some sources even estimating 150 million tonnes.⁴⁶ There is no way for the marine populations to replenish themselves.

Our industrial fishing methods are incredibly inefficient, with some operations throwing 98% of their catches overboard, dead,⁴⁷ because they aren’t the targeted species.

Animal Agriculture & Ocean Health

As I said earlier, land-based animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones, which are areas in the ocean starved of oxygen such that marine life suffocates and dies.

So the animals we are raising for food on land are killing the animals we are ripping from the ocean.

And to add a further layer of perversity, we are feeding the fish we catch to the cows, pigs, chicken, and other land animals—and to the fish we farm.

The Extremism of Eating Animals

And people think veganism is extreme?

When humanity is decimating habitats, consuming land and resources, polluting the oceans, destroying the rainforest, driving species after species into extinction, feeding plants that we could eat to animals, and feeding other animals to animals that aren’t supposed to eat animals—all so that we can eventually eat the animals ourselves.

But of course as a consumer, we don’t see the trail. We see the pretty packages and sleek advertising.

We see these ordinary, innocent, everyday products. And we find comfort in the fact that most people eat the way we do—that most people don’t seem to be concerned.

And we continue to believe the lie that this is the way it’s supposed to be.

Beyond Personal Choice

Ethics aside, we have environmentally reached the point beyond personal choice—beyond “you eat how you want to eat and I’ll eat how I want to eat.” This is a global crisis, and it’s not about you or me anymore.

We say that children are our future, but what future can they have when we are eating the planet to death?

The world cannot sustain meat, dairy, and egg production. It simply can’t. We have to start aligning our actions with our values.

The Health Impact of Animal Products

I’m going to speak very briefly to the impact that animal consumption has on our health.

We take drugs by the truckload, undergo dangerous surgeries, spend trillions of dollars on health care every year,all in our stubborn refusal to acknowledge the simple fact that diet is the number one cause of disability and premature death.⁴⁸

That the vast majority of deaths in the United States are entirely preventable if we would simply change the way we eat.⁴⁹

The denial of this truth is so pervasive, our desire to maintain the system we’ve constructed so strong, that only one quarter of medical schools in the United States teach even a single course in nutrition.⁵⁰

The doctors in whose hands we place our very lives aren’t even educated about the number one cause of disease and death in our country.

Heart disease, the number one killer in the United States, is a dietary disease that can be and has been reversed with a vegan, plant-based diet.⁵¹

But instead, we take handfuls of medications and have doctors crack open our chests to roto-rooter our arteries rather than stop eating animals.⁵²

After all, a vegan diet is too extreme, right?

We Are Living the Greatest Lie Ever Told

Once we look at it objectively, from the outside, our behavior is baffling.

We serve meat, dairy, and eggs at climate change conferences—supporting and consuming the very source of the problem that the conference was created to address.

We train doctors to save lives with years of expensive education covering every drug on the market while never addressing the true cause of disease.

We run our resources and nutrition through someone else’s body, squandering astronomical amounts of food and water and creating an astounding amount of waste.

We genetically manipulate, breed, confine, abuse, rape, torture, denigrate, mechanize, and murder sentient individuals under our self-created codes of conduct that bring comfort to consumers.

All to avoid facing the fact that we are living the greatest lie ever told.

The Good News: You Can Choose to Live Your Values

But here’s the good news. We have the power to open our eyes. We have the choice to break the cycle and refuse to sell this lie to the next generation.

To realize that veganism—far from being an extreme lifestyle—is the most sane and rational way to live.

It’s the most powerful tool we have for saving our planet, for improving our health when we eat health-consciously, and for regaining our compassion—for becoming the people we believe ourselves to be: good people.

And good people don’t destroy the planet, leaving our children without a future. Good people don’t throw newborn babies into grinders.

Good people don’t rip day-old babies away from their mothers. Good people don’t rape, torture, and murder.

Yet “good people” everywhere are doing all of these things with every bite of every meal.

But that’s the beauty here. You no longer have to buy into the lie.

You decide what goes into your body. You decide whether you want to continue to have others kill for you. You decide whether you want to continue consuming death, terror, and heartbreak.

You have the information at your feet. The responsibility now lies in your hands.

You decide. And my hope is, you’ll decide to go vegan.

If you found this speech impactful, please SHARE it with others.

If you would like to support Bite Size Vegan in creating free, educational resources about veganism, please see the support page.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES:

Life-Changing Speeches

FEATURED TOPICS:

ethical basis for veganism

environmental basis for veganism

societal basis for veganism

Reasons for re-publication & other editor notes (from Emily): This speech was originally published June 15, 2016 under the title “The Extremism Of Veganism | Exposing The Greatest Lie”. At the time of publication, and for many years thereafter, this article was purely a straight transcript of the speech (essentially a massive “wall of text”).

In a long-held desire to increase the accessibility of this (and all) Bite Size Vegan resources, I have completely overhauled the formatting and structure of this article: adding subheadings, images, pullquotes, and more useful links to updated and additional information. I also decided to re-name the speech to be more approachable for a general audience.

While I am generally hesitant to alter the publication date of an article on my website, I have chosen to in this case due to the degree of change. However, I want to be clear that while I have updated linked resources within the text, and addressed broken links within the citations and bibliography, all of the statistics and figures remain as they were in 2016—they have not been updated to current data.

The post This Speech Will Change How You See Everything appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

As a chronic over-thinker myself, prone to over-intellectualizing literally anything, I thought perhaps I could offer some input on how and why intelligent people can think their way out of veganism.

So let’s get to it: Why do smart people stop being vegan?

A note on tone: Within this article (and far more so in the video), I’m using a more informal, conversational—and, at times, admittedly snarky—delivery style than my more typical “academic presentation” approach.

This is not to be dismissive of questions, concerns, or challenges in regards to going or staying vegan. Rather, I’m highlighting the absurdity of rationalizations and justifications that lead to the “ethical acceptability” of using non-human animals.

For anyone struggling to go or stay vegan, or facing issues of access to plant-based food, please check out my How to Go Vegan guide.

Veganism Isn’t a Matter of Intelligence

First off, I think we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that intelligence and veganism are directly linked.

Being vegan doesn’t mean you’re more intelligent. Being intelligent doesn’t mean you’re more likely to go vegan.

How Intellectualizing Can Work Against Veganism

Sometimes, our intellect actually gets in the way of grasping the most basic core concepts of veganism.

Much of my job as a vegan activist is helping people remember fundamental truths we’ve all known since childhood—like it’s not okay to hurt others.

The individuality of non-human animals is not a deep intellectual concept. It doesn’t take scholarship, it doesn’t take research, it doesn’t take anything but just opening your eyes and looking at them.

You don’t need to have a high level of education. You don’t have to be a medical doctor. You don’t have to have any of that.

If you’ve watched my videos, and read my articles, you’ll know that I do greatly value solidly-sourced educational presentations. I do believe that facts, figures, logic, and transparency are vital in vegan outreach.

However—when we connect with the ethical concepts of veganism purely on an intellectual level, we risk reducing sentient beings to conceptual abstractions. Nonhuman animals can end up relegated to faceless data points just as much as they are within the animal products industries.

This is where intellect can become a problem by helping smart people think their way out of veganism.

The Mental Gymnastics of Justified Exploitation

Now, everyone—regardless of their intelligence or education—can find plenty of rationalizations for not being vegan.

But it’s all just the same mental gymnastics our intellects perform to justify what we know at an instinctive level is unacceptable.

If we set aside the tragic consequences, it’s actually quite amusing to observe how far we humans will bend over backward to justify our use of animals.

Take, for example, the PR disaster of male chicks being ground up alive in the egg industry. Every time an undercover video makes headlines, the public gets pretty pissed (though they don’t understand that grinding up babies is not only standard practice but is actually the animal-welfare-dictated method for chick “disposal”).¹

Anyways, the egg industry knows this looks bad. So, governmental entities, universities, and tech startups banded together to find a way to sex eggs before they hatched into cute fluffy baby chicks that even the egg-eating public didn’t like seeing ground-up alive.²

(To be clear—despite this innovative idea, male chicks are still ground up alive in the egg industry to the tune of around 3.2 billion a year.)⁴

Just take a moment to imagine the brain trust roundtable discussion on the whole “chick-blending alternative” issue. In considering what to allocate an insane amount of money, governmental resources, time, effort, and technology to, I know one option that was never raised:

What if we just don’t eat what comes out of the back end of a chicken?

The Absurdity of Appropriate Exploitation

This is the absurdity that arises from simultaneously recognizing the sentience of nonhuman animals while also holding the necessity of their use as a foregone conclusion.

It’s the result of reducing living beings to data points, with their value calculated down to the cent.

It’s the exact driver of animal welfare and humane legislation.

It’s the very same abstraction of their individuality and inherent rights that can allow one’s intellect to shift from advocating for them to haggling over the “appropriate” terms of their exploitation.

I’ve spoken in great depth about how welfare regulations and the approach of “reducing suffering” are actually harmful to non-human animals. Please see the following speeches and posts:

• The Best We Have to Offer
  (in-depth speech primarily for non-vegans)
• Are You Advocating Cruelty?
  (In-depth speech primarily for vegans and activists)
• More on the humane myth

The Power of the Greatest Lie Ever Told

Still, I don’t think the intellectualization-to-the-point-of-abstraction fully addresses why smart people stop being vegan. Now stick with me on this, because I’m gonna get a bit existential myself here.

I think to truly understand how someone expressing firm ethical conviction can fall back into irrational justifications, we need to understand the sheer power of what I’ve long referred to as “the greatest lie ever told.” (I even made a slam poem about it.)

Think, for example, about how many well-educated, intelligent people make it into adulthood believing that cows spontaneously make milk.

Such a glaring blind spot in basic logic is not down to a lack of intelligence. It stems from something so deeply ingrained within us that it crosses all countries, cultures, social classes, and education levels. Something fixed into our psyche so early and so firmly that it easily overrides all reasoning.

Concepts that we take in as children are integrated very differently than things we learn later in life.

Think about a child who grows up multi-lingual. They aren’t consciously learning the grammar and declensions of the languages like an adult would have to. They likely won’t even remember the process of learning the languages at all.

Now, let’s consider something more tied to identity and sense of self—like a belief system, whether religious or not, that we are raised within. This belief system is integrated into not only our sense of self but our sense of reality itself.

When that belief system is later challenged—whether by other people, or even by our own doubts—it can feel like a threat to our very life. After all, what are we without our sense of self and understanding of reality?

The Drive to Preserve Sense of Self & Reality

So, what does this have to do with veganism and the “greatest lie ever told” concept I ominously dropped earlier with zero explanation?

Well, imagine that rather than a belief system taught and reinforced by your family, we are dealing with a belief system taught and reinforced by nearly the entirety of humanity.

This is what I mean by “the greatest lie ever told.”

If there is one thing that unites humanity, it is our collective non-questioning of the necessity of using non-human animals.

Sure, we may disagree about which animals we can do what to, and we certainly spend a lot of time on how we can do things to them.

But questioning their use at all—much less examining the reality of that use—that is a profound threat to our sense of self.

We like to think of ourselves as good and decent people—animal-lovers, even.

Most people don’t want to cause the suffering and death of innocent beings. Most people would not slit the throat of a pig or cow standing in front of them.

In fact, most people won’t even watch slaughterhouse footage. Yet, most of those very same people will passionately and vehemently defend their participation in the systematic brutalization of trillions of animals, justifying the very atrocities in the footage that they cannot bring themselves to watch.

There’s a reason that we keep our slaughterhouses so far from our tables and pay other people to kill on our behalf. The distance allows us to maintain our self-image of good, decent animal-lovers.

The drive to preserve this concept of ourselves is so strong, and the prospect of confronting the brutality we’ve actually been participating in is so horrifying, that we will use anything to defend ourselves—no matter how irrational.

But unlike less universal belief systems, our reasons don’t even have to be good for us to be in good company. Most of the world agrees with us, and we’re more than willing to reassure each other within our collective delusion.

In Closing…

I believe that the power of this collective belief—and the extreme threat posed by challenging it—may help explain how even profoundly intelligent people who have made an ethical connection to the tenets of veganism can be pulled right back into justifications and rationalizations.

In the end, rationalizations and justifications—no matter how eloquently stated—are just that.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. If this has stimulated your intellect, please share it with others.

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES:

Humane, Free-Range & Cruelty-Free

FEATURED TOPICS:

justifications and rationalizations (for eating and using animals)

individuality of non-human animals

animal welfare

The post How Smart People Think Their Way Out of Veganism appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

The claim that veganism can solve world hunger provides an extremely persuasive argument for dietary change that bypasses more controversial issues like animal rights and lands squarely in the heart of our humanity.

As such, it’s a common declaration used within vegan activism. (I myself made this exact statement in the fourth video I ever made.)

As good as this claim looks for veganism, making such a sweeping proclamation does a disservice to the true complexity of world hunger. Let’s take an honest look at some of the primary drivers of food insecurity, and what it really takes to solve world hunger. tweet this

Do We Have Enough Food to Feed the World?

Before we dive into the question of whether veganism can solve world hunger, let’s address a common misconception. On its face, world hunger would seem to be a matter of food scarcity (not having enough food).

However, we already have more than enough food to feed the entire world’s population.

In theory, we currently produce enough food for between 10 and 14 billion people¹—exceeding the current population of around 8 billion (as of this writing)² and even eclipsing the United Nations‘ population projection of 9.7 billion by 2050.³

Our global agricultural production continually outpaces population growth. Yet the number of people going hungry continues to rise.⁴

Prompting the question: where is all the food going? tweet this

Why People Think Veganism Can Solve World Hunger

The paradox of food scarcity in the face of an overabundance of food comes down to—in large part—how that food is distributed.

The answer to “where is all the food going?” is one of the primary reasons people think veganism can solve world hunger.

Our Food Is Going to the Animals We Eat

Over a third of our crop calories are fed to the animals we eat.⁵ Less than half of the world’s cereals are eaten directly by humans.⁶

Overall, more than half of the plant protein we grow goes to the animals we raise for food instead of directly to humans.⁷

In fact, the United States alone could feed every person facing hunger in the world today⁸ with the grains we feed to farmed animals—with a surplus left over.⁹

Eating Animals Is Extremely Inefficient

Consuming animals is a profoundly inefficient means of gaining nutrition. For example, the World Resources Institute found that “beef” passes on only 1% of the calories and 4% of the protein from the feed used to produce it.¹⁰

Even the most “efficient” animal product addressed in the report (eggs) passed along a meager 13% of calories and 25% of protein.

So if you’re wondering where vegans get protein, we simply remove the inefficient “middle animal” and get it directly from the plants.

Animal Agriculture Requires More Water, Energy, & Land Than Plant Crops

Our food crops are not the only resources diverted to the animals we raise for food. Compared to crops with equivalent nutritional content, animal products demand significantly more water, land, and energy.¹¹

For example, the average per-calorie water footprint of beef is twenty times higher than that of cereals and starchy roots.¹²

Half of our planet’s habitable land is used for agriculture.¹³ Astoundingly, “more than three-quarters of this [land] is used for livestock production, despite meat and dairy making up a much smaller share of the world’s protein and calorie supply.”¹⁴

Plant-based diets require significantly less land. In fact, if everyone in the world went vegan, we could reduce land use for agriculture by 75%.¹⁵

An emerging field of harnessing microorganisms to grow our food could free up even more land, with one method using bacteria requiring 1,700 times less land than soybeans to produce the same amount of protein.¹⁶

Unfortunately, we are going in the opposite direction with our demand for land. While the human population growth rate has actually slowed, the farmed animal population growth rate continues to rise¹⁷—and with that, a need for more land we do not have.

We’re facing an overpopulation crisis not of humans, but of the animals we raise for food. tweet this

Climate Change Is a Leading Cause of World Hunger

Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change,¹⁸ which in turn is one of the leading causes of increasing global hunger.¹⁹

In fact, in their report outlining the most effective means of mitigating climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared:

“The greatest Shift potential would come from switching to plant-based diets.”²⁰

Please see my video and article “Everything Wrong With Environmentalism in 11 Minutes or Less” for more information on climate change and animal agriculture.

The intricacies of climate change’s effect on food insecurity are far beyond the scope of this video and article. Please see the linked sources for more information.²¹

In short, with our current food system and global dietary trends, we’re not only unable to feed the world’s hungry, but—more importantly—our planet simply cannot sustain the way we are eating.

Why Veganism Alone Cannot Solve World Hunger

The stark reality of our profoundly unsustainable food system certainly points to a dire need for a global shift to plant-based diets. Why then is veganism not the solution to world hunger?

• Inequitable distribution:
  One key reason is inequitable distribution. It’s not only that we’re diverting resources to the animals we eat—it’s also that we’re diverting those calories away from the people who need them most to the animals who will be consumed by the people who can afford the animal products.²²
  
  As Richard Oppenlander writes, “82 percent of the world’s starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, which are then killed and eaten by more well-off individuals…”²³ Simply having more land and food doesn’t mean that land and food will suddenly be distributed in an equitable manner.
  
• Animal agriculture isn’t the only cause of food diversion:
  Additionally, animal agriculture isn’t the only cause of food diversion.
  • With the increasing demand for biofuel, we’re literally burning around 11% of the world’s cereals.²⁴
  • Further down the supply chain, food waste accounts for the loss of existing nutrition.²⁵
  • Another driver of food insecurity is political and institutional conflict, including resource and trade wars.²⁶
    
• It’s not a simple matter of substitution:
  It’s also important to note that the crops we feed to non-human animals aren’t always suitable for human consumption, so it’s not as simple as shifting them directly to people. In the same vein, land used for grazing farmed animals isn’t always suitable for growing crops.²⁷
  
• Food insecurity occurs at many levels:
  Lastly, food insecurity is not just an issue at a country-by-country level: it includes factors like the unavailability of food due to food deserts and even the “unequal distribution of food between household members.”²⁸
  

How Do We Solve World Hunger?

If we were to take the issues of scarcity and distribution in isolation, the main “solutions” would seem to be that we:

1. need more food and
2. need more wealth for those unable to afford access to food.

However, as we’ve learned, we already have more than enough food. And in regard to increasing wealth, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) points out that:

“While poverty has decreased considerably–from 36 per cent in 1990 to 10 per cent in 2015–efforts to reduce hunger have been comparatively less successful.

In fact, after decades of modest but steady decline, hunger began to rise again in 2015…Many countries now face a “double burden” that includes both undernutrition and overweight or obesity.”²⁹

— the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on hunger increasing as poverty decreases

A reason for this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is explained by Bennett’s Law—a well-established fact that as people’s income rises, so does their consumption of nutrient-dense foods like animal products.³⁰

While animal product consumption in some countries has slowed or even slightly decreased, the majority of the world population’s consumption is increasing with improving living standards.³¹

Why Veganism Is Necessary to Solve World Hunger

World hunger is a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted solution.

As we’ve learned, the consequences of animal agriculture impact each of these facets in some way.

While veganism alone cannot solve world hunger, world hunger cannot be solved without a global shift to plant-based diets.

Such a shift would increase the food supply, free up land, water, and other resources, help lower food prices, increase access, and allow for movement towards sustainable farming and more equitable food distribution.³²

If you think about it, the ripple effect of increased land, water, and other resources would theoretically reduce the prohibitive cost of and access to farmland—and even the need for conflict over limited resources. It would also reduce the mounting pressures of the climate crisis—which is arguably the most pressing issue of our time.

In Closing…

To learn more about this complex topic, I highly recommend checking out the nonprofit A Well-Fed World, which “highlights the ways in which shifts towards plant-based foods increase the available food supply — and how this shift improves distribution, access, equity, and sustainability.”³³

Don’t forget to take the free eCourse to test your knowledge about veganism and world hunger!

Please share this article to help inform others.

You can also download this world hunger infographic to share on social media.
Be sure to link to this article & tag Bite Size Vegan!

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE IN THIS SERIES:

societal basis for veganism

FEATURED TOPICS:

world hunger

social issues

environmental basis for veganism

The post Can Veganism Solve World Hunger? An Honest Answer appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.

While I did finally respond to the comment, I wanted to make a proper reply not only to Ed but also to every activist out there fighting this fight every day and wondering if they’re making an impact.

This is more than a message to Ed. It’s a message to everyone trying to make a difference for the animals, the planet, and our society. It’s a message I believe we all—myself very much included—need to hear.

Ed’s Comment & Why I’m Making a Response Video

Let me say upfront that making a response video is not something I do. But as uncomfortable as this makes me, I decided to make one this time in hopes of reaching other activists who may be struggling and doubting themselves.

I found Earthling Ed’s comment on my 2016 Draw My Life video, “Never Known Hunger.” He said:

“Emily I have taken so much inspiration from your work! Your videos have inspired me to make my own educational content – which I hope also further educates others in veganism. Never stop what you’re doing!”

How surreal to see Earthling Ed, someone so profoundly influential, hoping his content will further educate about veganism! Having no idea the impact he would make in the six years it took me to finally see his comment (sorry about that, by the way, Ed!)

My Reply to Earthling Ed

So Ed, if you do see this, I cannot possibly tell you what this comment meant to me. It’s come to me at a time when I am doubting my efficacy and whether I’m making a difference for the animals. Learning that I had even the slightest part in inspiring your work means more to me than I can ever express.

More importantly, I want to thank you for deciding to educate. It’s astounding to see all you’ve accomplished in these six years. It’s beyond anything I could ever imagine. So thank you for following that kernel of hope.

My Message to Other Activists

Now I’d like to speak to all activists out there. Before anything else, I want to thank you as well. Thank you to everyone out there who is trying. Thank you to everyone who is fighting this battle. Thank you to everyone who also hopes to educate about veganism.

Please hold onto that hope. Because you never know whom you may reach. You never know where your work is going to go or whom it’s going to inspire.

And the reality is, you may never know. You may never hear from the people whose lives you change.

This fight is draining. It can be debilitating. What we see and face as vegans and activists is devastating. It can feel insurmountable.

I’ve spoken in the past about what I call “the pain of awareness.”

As challenging as it can be to go vegan, being vegan is traumatic.

We are aware of so much suffering. So much injustice. But I, for one, would never trade the pain of awareness for the comfort of denial.

Are We Making A Difference?

As activists, it’s easy to doubt whether we’re even making a dent. If, like me, your activism is primarily online, this doubt is compounded by the uncertainty and inscrutability of social media and Google algorithms. You may become consumed by the numbers, chasing virality to the point of possibly losing yourself.

Speaking for myself, finding this comment from Earthling Ed was bittersweet. It was remarkable to see Ed at the start of his online activism, hoping he’d make a difference, knowing now what he’s accomplished in the last six years. At the same time, it was heartbreaking to look back at my own last six years.

In 2016, I was at the peak of my activism’s reach. But I was running myself into the ground to keep it all going. I paid dearly for pushing myself the way I did. These past six years have been the most challenging years of my life. I never stopped working, but I had to halt content production.

I’ve now been back in active content production for a year. My reach certainly isn’t what it used to be, and I struggle profoundly with whether what I’m doing even matters. While I often feel so very alone, I know I can’t be the only one out there who feels this way.

So I’m saying this to myself as much as I am to everyone else who may be facing similar doubts and struggles: what you do matters. The fact that you are even trying matters.

The Trap of Comparing

Try not to gauge your efficacy by comparing yourself to others. When doing this, we compare our insides to other people’s outsides.

For example, if you compared yourself to me when I was at the peak of my reach and growth, you may have felt like I had it all together. But you would have only been seeing my outside. You’d not have known that inside, I was utterly destroying myself to keep up.

When fighting this fight, it feels like nothing is ever enough.

I’ll speak from my own experience in hopes that being open and vulnerable will help those of you out there with similar struggles.

I can’t help but feel I am constantly failing the animals. I believe they deserve everything from me. And I know that nothing I experience will ever come close to what the animals are experiencing.

But I have used that reality to negate my health and push myself to extremes that nearly killed me.

I still try to bargain: “if I just pushed harder, tried harder, worked harder..” But I must continually remind myself: while I may be able to reach more people if I “just pushed harder,” I can’t reach a single person if I destroy myself.

Yes, I’d possibly reach more people during that time of pushing. But once I burn out again, I’ll be of no use to the animals or anyone.

It’s difficult to accept that my brain works differently than other people’s brains. As an Autistic, many things that seem simple to manage for others are debilitating for me.

I’ve had to learn the hard way that I have limits other people may not have. And so may you. But I also have strengths that others may not have. And so do you. Your unique voice is valuable.

My Cynical Message of Hope

I’ve been called a pessimist, but I always say I’m a realist. I don’t believe I’ll see a vegan world in my lifetime. I honestly think the environmental crisis we’ve created with animal agriculture will force a change long before we’d have a global shift of consciousness.

With this seemingly cynical stance, you may wonder why I even try. The “why” is the message I most want to leave you with—my cynical message of hope.

I try because the alternative of doing nothing is unacceptable to me.

Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it seems insurmountable. Yes, we may not know if we’re having an impact. But I can tell you one thing. If we don’t try—if we don’t do what we can, however small it may seem—we absolutely won’t make a difference.

So, please don’t give up. But do honor yourself in the process.

You never know whom you may reach.

In Closing

If you are struggling, I have gathered some resources for activist self-care and support below.

I hope that this message has been helpful in some way. Again, to Ed—thank you for taking action and for sharing that comment with me all those years ago.

To stay in the loop about new Bite Size Vegan content and updates, please sign up for the newsletter or follow the Telegram channel for the most reliable notifications.

To support educational content like this, please consider making a donation. Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.

— Emily Moran Barwick

MORE CONTENT FOR ACTIVISTS:

vegan activist

FEATURED TOPICS:

motivation for activists

hope

effective advocacy

The post Are We Making a Difference? Earthling Ed & a Message to Activists appeared first on Bite Size Vegan.