A Compassionate Feast for Thought: Rethinking Veganism This Thanksgiving

As we gather around the table this Thanksgiving season, it’s the perfect time to reflect not only on gratitude—but also on the impact of our food choices. In this special replay of one of our most thought-provoking episodes, we explore the ethical, environmental, and deeply personal dimensions of veganism with Dr. Matthew Halteman, philosopher and author of Hungry Beautiful Animals.

Dr. Halteman challenges the rigid, rule-bound approach to veganism and instead invites us into a more compassionate framework—one centered on flourishing for both humans and non-human animals. Through philosophical insight, personal reflection, and practical wisdom, he helps us reimagine veganism not as deprivation, but as a joyful, ethical commitment to a better world.

Whether you're vegan, veg-curious, or simply seeking a more mindful approach to the holidays, this episode offers a powerful lens through which to consider how our plates reflect our values.

In this episode, we explore:

·      The intersection of animal ethics, food systems, and personal health

·      Why flourishing—not perfection—should guide our food choices

·      How veganism can be a joyful, evolving journey rather than a rigid identity

·      The myths of scarcity and sacrifice in plant-based living

·      How small, intentional shifts can ripple into global change

Listen on Apple, Spotify or your favorite listening platform; visit us on our YouTube channel Find everything "One More Thing" here: https://taplink.cc/beforeyougopodcast

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, one more thing before you go.
Have you ever considered howyour food choices impact not just
your health, but the worldaround you?
I talk about it all the timeon the show.
Or how living a veganlifestyle could be a profound expression
of philosophy and ethics.
Stay tuned because we're goingto explore living life as a vegan,
discovering the intersectionof animal ethics, food systems and

(00:21):
philosophy as a way of life,and how the ideas in Hungry Beautiful
Animals, his new book, can beput into practice for real life change.
I'm your host, Michael Hurst.
Welcome to One more thingbefore you go.

(00:46):
Dr. Matthew Haltiman is aprofessor of philosophy at Calvin
University, a fellow at theOxford center for Animal Ethics,
and an ardent advocate forhuman flourishing, animal freedom,
and food systems transformation.
His new book, Hungry BeautifulAnimals, is a heartfelt, humane,
and even hilarious account ofwhy rule obsessed vegan practices

(01:08):
fail and how focusing onflourishing can lead to an abundant
future for everyone.
As an author, teacher, and anadvocate, Dr. Alterman is committed
to exploring how the choiceswe make around food can shape a more
compassionate, sustainable,and joyful world, which we all need.
He serves on the board ofseveral animal advocacy and food

(01:29):
justice organizations.
And his life pursuits includepracticing partnership, parenting,
friendship, and indulging invegan desserts, which I am all in
for.
Matt, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Michael.
I'm thrilled to be here.
And you were right to leadwith desserts.
That is probably why one of mygreatest passions in life, especially

(01:53):
vegan tiramisu.
And I can tell you, for thoseinterested in Hungry beautiful animals,
my recipe, 20 years in themaking, is appendix B.
So you too can enjoy myfavorite vegan dessert.
But I have to say, I can'tmiss this opportunity to say that
I resonate a lot with the ideabehind your podcast, because we philosophers,

(02:15):
at least in the tradition thatI come from, thinking of philosophy
as a way of life, we think ofphilosophy as training for death.
And so I see myself as aneducator, as trying to get people
to do one more thing beforethey go really, really well, because
you just never know when yourtime is coming.
And so, living with joy andcuriosity and striving to live the

(02:38):
good life, there's not amoment to lose.
So I'm really glad to be herefor a conversation that I think is
in deep resonance with yourmission and.
Very, very grateful for that.
Yeah, life can change in an instant.
And vegan tiramisu.
Italian here.
Okay, Vegan tiramisu.
I haven't had tiramisu for 25 years.

(03:04):
Michael.
Your life is about to change.
This podcast is going to be atransformation for the host for once.
Absolutely, absolutely lookingforward to that.
But we've got much morepodcast important things to talk
about.
Although a tiramisu isimportant, but let's talk about.
We got so many things we gottadiscuss and kind of hopefully to

(03:24):
inspire, motivate and educatepeople into a life transformation
which doesn't have to beabrupt, it can be gentle and you
can take your time, but it isbeneficial to you in our lives and
others lives as well as our environment.
And so many things thatbecoming a vegan or living the vegan

(03:45):
lifestyle can help us tocontribute to the world.
But I like to start at the beginning.
Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Wheaton,Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago,
about 26 miles west.
And my people are actuallyfrom eastern Pennsylvania, so I come
from eastern Pennsylvaniaagricultural Mennonite stock.

(04:10):
Both of my grandparents onboth sides were in agriculture.
My paternal grandfather was anegg farmer and my maternal grandfather
was herbicide and pesticide chemist.
So though I grew up inChicago, my roots, my people are
Mennonites from eastern Pennsylvania.

(04:31):
So food right, not just atevery meal, but at every celebration,
every time we mourn, everytime we do hospitality, we.
Food is there.
But food was also thevocational pursuit right on both
sides of my family until mydad decided to become a professor

(04:52):
and my mom a spiritualdirector and fair trade activist.
So we ended up in the westsuburbs of Chicago.
But food right is pretty deepin my history and it's, it's why
I'm so excited about andpassionate about the transformation
of food systems.
I think that's an amazingopportunity, you know, for the whole

(05:14):
way around.
Coming from your environment,how do you develop such a deep commitment
to human flourishing, animalfreedom and food systems, especially
the transformation portion of it.
And how does communalcooperation come into play with that?
Because you mentionedMennonite kind of environment.
How does all that play into that?
Yeah, so, you know, Mennonitesare well known for the desire to,

(05:40):
you know, be the hands andfeet of Jesus in a suffering world.
A lot of Christians that Iknew in the west suburbs of Chicago
grew up in a form ofChristianity that really emphasized
beliefs and belief system anddefending beliefs and being right
about the beliefs.
And um, the Mennonites do it alittle bit differently.

(06:02):
It, it always in my traditionwas about action, about being salt
and light in a world full of suffering.
And so I wasn't thinking muchabout the metaphysics until a little
later when I Became aphilosophy professor.
For me, it was always about,well, how do we live our lives in
a way that provides serviceright to others?

(06:24):
And in my family tradition, asI mentioned, agriculture was the
way that we thought about that.
The idea was that the worldneeds high quality protein.
And a lot of people in theworld who don't have access to that
can benefit from the greenrevolution in agriculture can benefit

(06:45):
from these herbicides andpesticides that allow us to grow
a lot more grain and get theanimals off the pasture and inside
into confined feedingoperations and the like.
And you know, back when thiswas happening initially, I mean,
I think it's so easy to lookback in retrospect and imagine people

(07:07):
in agriculture as, right,these horrible people who are sort
of forecasting a dystopicfuture greedily, right to try to
gobble up all the profits.
But on the contrary, you know,for my family, this was a part of
a, a Christian vision forhelping other people you've never
met before by providing highquality protein to them through innovations

(07:30):
in, in science and, and, andfood technology.
So deep, deep in my roots isthis idea that service to others
and the transformation of theworld in favor of more joy and more
beauty and less suffering wasto provide food for people.

(07:51):
And so obviously we humanbeings, our feet are made of clay.
We know sometimes our bestintentions don't turn out the way
we hoped they would.
And I think right when we looknow at some of the challenges our
current food system is facing,we see pretty clearly that there
are some big problems here forthe way that we're treating the human

(08:13):
beings who work in thesesystems, for the way that we're treating
the animals who are raised andslaughtered within it.
And of course, the way we'retreating the earth and the use of
finite resources to get it.
And so my passion for foodstuff is really, I think, you know,
it might seem counterintuitivebecause a lot of people think, oh,
you're a vegan, but you'refrom, you know, agricultural Mennonite

(08:36):
stock.
How does this work?
And I guess I think, well, abig part of being a humble servant
of others is to realize thatsometimes the strategies you started
from need to adapt and evolve, right?
So in order to do the samething, to serve a suffering world
with better food options, weneed to recalibrate the message a

(08:58):
little bit to serve this thesame mission.
And so I actually see what I'mdoing as a continuation of what my
grandfathers hope to do.
You know, they hope to feedpeople and make the world A better
place.
I'm looking for the same thing.
But I think that we need torecalibrate the way that we do that
both as individuals and interms of the way that we raise and,

(09:25):
and distribute food.
So some might see it as aradical break.
I actually see, you know, myinterest in, in vegan education as
a continuation of, of apassion that's been in my family
for many generations.
To make the world a betterplace by looking carefully at the

(09:46):
way we eat.
Well, you know, it'sinteresting because when you, when
you look the, the evolvementof all of that, the evolvement of
even farming.
When I, when I was a kid, Igrew up on, partially for a short,
very, very short period oftime on a farm.
And in regard to watching howthe, they did things, where we went

(10:07):
out to the pasture, we pulledthe cows in, then the cows were hand
milked, they weren't milked bymachine, for example, and things
like this, I think that therewas a more personal contact with
the animals.
You had a better journey withthe animals.
There was more humane andagain, this is just, from my perspective,
more humane than what you seenowadays where they're all in a stall

(10:28):
and they're stuck in a stalland they pretty much spend their
lifetime in a stall and so forth.
So I think your approach toeducating individuals and trying
to transform that journey foreveryone involved, to allow for more
compassion, more humancontact, more understanding that

(10:49):
we're all in this together isa wonderful opportunity.
What is your journey from, inother words, how do you.
In other words, let me trythat as a different question.
How did your journey comeabout into becoming a vegan or veganism?
Mine itself.
I think we talked a little bitabout it.

(11:11):
It was an easy transition for me.
I went to a Mediterranean dietand then from there I learned how
food affected my disease.
So in understanding how thattook place, it took me more along
the line of becoming a veganand learning firsthand through the
transformation of my own body,my own health, my own journey.

(11:33):
How did yours start?
Yeah, so I don't know.
I, I get the feeling intalking with you, Michael, that you'll,
you'll resonate with this.
We human beings are prettycomplex people, right?
And I always feel like, well,there's not just one of me, there's
many of me.
Lots of different things goingon, and I'm the type of person that
has a hard time changing orgetting motivated unless a whole

(11:58):
bunch of the parts inside arekind of have an epiphany or come
together in a certain way.
And I'll tell you what I mean,you know, we human beings, we're
physical organisms.
We have social lives, we haveemotions that kind of regulate our
social situations.
We get a little older and wehave intellectual lives that enable
us to kind of get outside justthe emotional and the social and,

(12:22):
and think from a moredisinterested perspective.
And, you know, as we getbetter at that, we get this moral
point of view where we're ableto kind of abstract ourselves from
our own idiosyncraticpreferences and kind of try, at least
for the purposes of living abetter life, to, to take the standpoint
of the universe and thinkoutside our own, you know, predilections

(12:44):
and ideas.
And with all those thingsgoing on at once, if you're like
me anyway, sometimes those areat war, right?
So like, our gut wants aburger, our heart wants to nuzzle
a cow, and our mind is sort ofbobbling back and forth between wanting
to defend the old ways ofeating and getting curious about

(13:04):
new ways of eating.
And so for me, it really tookmultiple epiphanies inside that inner
family.
And there were sort of threebig ones that hit me emotionally,
intellectually, and socially.
And it really took all threeof those to, to motivate me to make
some changes.
Because as I discuss in thebook, you know, in high school I

(13:29):
was the typical, you know,corn fed Midwestern boy, no neck
football player, captain ofthe football team type of person,
weightlifter and all that good stuff.
And I did not see being avegan in my future, to say the least.
So when I was, I don't know,30 years old, ish, I three things

(13:54):
happened.
So we got a dog, and my wifegrew up in a dog family, I grew up
in a cat family.
And our cats were relatively aloof.
And I was willing to see themas kind of smart, ambulatory organisms,
but they never struck me asbeing unique, irreplaceable individuals
in quite the way that I cameto see animals after meeting and

(14:18):
living with a dog.
So Susan said, when we canfinally have pets, right, when you,
when we're out of this housingsituation that doesn't allow pets,
we're gonna get a dog.
And I don't care what sort ofdog, you get to choose that.
So we got a bulldog.
And this is before I knewanything about the selective breeding
practices that produce bulldogs.

(14:39):
That's a story for another podcast.
Unfortunately, it's not ahappy one.
But Gus, this bulldog convinceme beyond a shadow of a doubt that
this is a canine person.
Now, I'M not crazy.
Right.
It's not a human person.
There's a lot of reallyimportant differences there.
But a person nonetheless, anirreplaceable individual with likes

(15:00):
and dislikes people he can'tstand, people he loves, foods that
he wouldn't eat if his lifedepended on it, versus his very favorite
things, carrots.
This dog ate about six poundsof carrots a week.
So the emotional bolt from theblue was getting to know Gus and
realizing this dog is a person.

(15:20):
The intellectual challengecame from a philosopher friend who
at a lunch one time said to meas I was eating a French dip sandwich
with some beef hanging out thebottom of this French roll, he says,
aren't you a pacifist?
And I was like, well, what'sthat got to do with anything?
Right?
And eventually, inconversations with him, ended up

(15:43):
teaching a class on foodethics that I thought sure was going
to give me 10 knockdown, dragout arguments to keep eating just
exactly what I had grown upeating and loving.
And then, much to my chagrin,the evidence persuaded me otherwise.
And then the socialtransformation came from my wife

(16:05):
Susan, who is a really amazinghome cook.
And, you know, she was kind offor years a vegetarian for human
development and sort of globaljustice reasons and environmental
reasons.
I was an extremely reluctant,you know, vegetarian by marriage.
Sometimes, you know,occasionally I'd get a port, a pit

(16:27):
chicken on the way home,especially if we were in an argument.
So very, very reluctant to do this.
But when my emotionalcommitment to animals through Gus
and my intellectual commitmentto taking a harder look at these
issues came together, I wasinitially like, well, let's just,
you know, let's just keepeating this way until I figure out
all the answers.

(16:48):
And Susan was like, no, let'sdo a vegan experiment.
I love to cook.
I like to do new things.
We can do this.
And boy, oh, boy, could we ever.
I mean, she made things thatwere so delicious.
And we embarked on a socialjourney that convinced me beyond
a shadow of a doubt that thiswould be a life of abundance and

(17:08):
not deprivation.
So those three things, theemotional hit, the intellectual hit,
and the social hit, it tookall three of those things kind of
happening in rapid successionto convince me that this was going
to be about transformationrather than deprivation.
And boy, am I grateful to thefates, right, for bringing those

(17:30):
three things together.
Otherwise, who knows?
I might still be danglingshort rib bones as vampire fangs
at family events like I used to.
Yeah, it kind of changes yourphilosophy just a bit as a philosopher,
right?
Absolutely.
You know, it's interestingbecause when we look at animals,
we.

(17:51):
Charlie.
I'm pointing to Charlie downover my shoulder here.
He's laying behind me.
Every animal we've ever had inour family, we still call family.
And, you know, it has alwaysbeen that way.
Kids grew up that way withcats and with dogs and whatever we
had had.
I even owned a horse at one time.
Well, it was a pony.

(18:12):
It's a Shetland pony.
He's a mini horse.
A little guy.
Yeah, mini horse.
But, yeah, I've always treatedthem with compassion in regard to
that.
And it.
You know, even the cows that Imilk, I told you earlier, the pigs
that I slopped or the chickensthat I fed always went out and talked
to them like they were people.
You know, I didn't go out andjust throw food at them and, you

(18:33):
know, milk them and then slapthem on the butt and tell them, get
out.
It was a conversation.
I'd say, hey, thank you fordoing this.
Thank you for being here.
And for some reason, and Ibring this up because I think it
innately within my own heartand my soul, I knew that they were
a being.
You know, they may not be ahuman being, but they were a being.

(18:55):
So even at a young age, I wasable to recognize the connection
between an animal and us.
And you see within them, yousee love and you see compassion.
And you mentioned it in whatyou just said with, you know, they
like this or they don't likethat, they like you.
They don't like that person.

(19:15):
You know, they make decisions,in choices, in everything.
So I think.
Did that help you develop arelationship between.
You mentioned it a bit ago.
Animal ethics in human flourishing.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think.
I think the thing that reallygot me was this bizarre experience

(19:38):
I had.
You know, when you.
The thing about animalconsciousness, this feeling that
maybe other creatures aresentience too, you know, with lives
of their own, is that it dawns slowly.
Right.
I think everybody has had theexperience of.
Of loving a dog, or manypeople have.
Maybe not everybody.

(19:59):
Loving a dog, loving a cat,loving a cockatiel, loving a horse,
but it's something different.
To get that uncanny feeling,wow, this is a personal intelligence,
or this is it, right?
I mean, it.
It.
It's like.
It's pretty easy to treatcompanion animals as furniture for
a little while, and then sortof in the course of the relationship,

(20:22):
it dawns on you there'ssomething more complicated going
on.
And at the moment that I thinkI realized, holy smokes, it's no
longer possible for me tothink of animals as sort of Second
class beings was when thisweird thing would happen.
So Gus loved company.
He was our.
Our bulldog.
And he despised it when wewould get suitcases out.

(20:48):
And I always thought this wasodd, you know, like, why.
Why does this dog hate it whenwe get suitcases?
I mean, I hadn't considered atthe time that this really complex
biography was unfolding in hislife, right?
Why did the suitcases make him mad?
One day he got so mad that hewent to the middle of our dining

(21:11):
room, which is like theepicenter of our hospitality.
It's where he had seenhundreds and hundreds of meals with.
Our house is kind of arevolving door with friends and family
and activists coming to town.
And I, you know, founded a festival.
And so we always had people inthe house.
And Gus went right to themiddle of the room and just took

(21:32):
a dump, right?
In protest of seeing this luggage.
I thought, what is going on here?
Like this.
This is really making him furious.
And then it dawned on me.
He knows that we're leaving,and he is desperate either to convince
us not to leave or to show ushow furious he is that we'd have

(21:55):
the audacity to do this againafter what he had to endure last
time.
And this feeling just chilledme to the bone, right?
Because as a philosopher,rather than just letting, I started
thinking through all thecomplex cognitive and emotional processes
that have to be up and runningin his being in order for this to

(22:15):
make sense, right?
So he sees the suitcase, andit's not just a matter of perception.
There's a previous experiencewith seeing the suitcase, which means
that memory is up and running.
And it's not just a memory.
It's a memory that creates inhim anxiety, right?
He doesn't like this.
It doesn't feel good to him.

(22:36):
And then it's enough to create agency.
He makes a plan.
He wants to tell me that thisis something that makes him fearful.
And then when I don't listenand I keep packing the bag, he goes
into the dining room and makesit clear beyond a shadow of a doubt
that this is unacceptable.
That's not second class being, right?

(22:59):
That is creaturely flourishingto a baffling degree.
And I realized, this dog has a past.
This dog can project into the future.
To have anxiety when you see apiece of luggage means that there's

(23:20):
a biography, there's a story,there's persistence through time,
there's consciousness of theworld around.
And that thought left me bothdazzled and horrified.
It.
It was dazzling because I had never.
I mean, it.

(23:40):
I.
It was the moment I came toterms with the fact that all these
other beings have biographies, right?
They're.
They're persons in.
In their own way.
But it was also horrifyingbecause I realized this meant that
billions of other creatures,biologically just like Gus, morally

(24:01):
indistinguishable from Gus.
We're not just living in apainful present, but had lives that
stretched out through a pastthat could generate anxiety about
the future suffering in the moment.
That's not just aboutpersistence, but that's about dread.
And that, Michael, that.

(24:22):
That realization, I think, waswhat moved me into a completely different
level of animal consciousness.
And.
And that's when I had to face,right, that this is suffering, right?
This is.
This is not just one bad day,as they sometimes say.
This is a life of oppression.

(24:44):
And so.
Absolutely right.
The short.
You'll never get a shortanswer out of me.
I apologize for that.
But the.
The short answer to yourquestion is absolutely right.
That experience with an animalcreature is what moved me into that
space of animal ethics andfood ethics.
Because when I realized, holysmokes, animals have biographies

(25:07):
at the same time we'retreating them as property that we
turn into food.
That is a controversial matterfor ethics.
And it's time to inhabit themoral point of view in a more rigorous
way than I had had the courageto inhabit it before.
Yeah, it's really interesting,your experiences in regard to that

(25:29):
and how it changed you.
And, you know, we can all see that.
If you think about if you owna pet, you own a dog, you have a
fur baby in your home or evenon the farm, you know, reality is.
Charlie recognizes when Dianepulls the bag of cheese out, because
Diane police cheese.
And he understands that, oh,cheese, that bag.

(25:50):
I recognize that sound.
Or when you start the canopener or, you know, anything along
that line, he'll tell me whenit's time to eat.
He knows it's.
We feed him at 5:30.
We feed him in the morning, we.
And at 5:30 in the morning, wefeed him at 5:30 in the evening.
And at 5:30 he's sitting infront of me like, do you know what

(26:11):
time it is?
I know what time it is, Michael.
So, you know, when you look atthis, you can see compassion.
You see sadness.
You see, you know, you see theanxiety when you leave.
Then you see the happinesswhen you come home.
And, you know, those kind ofthings I think, resonate with us.
You can see it is.

(26:33):
I have watched videos whereyou see a cow literally crying when
they know they're going to gothrough the slaughter thing.
And, you know, you see thedesperation of pigs that are crammed
into the back of a truck, thatyou can see that their fear.
And you can see they're scared.
You can see that they haveemotions like we as human beings

(26:55):
have emotions.
And I think that, yes, Iunderstand that the food industry
from that perspective is nevergoing to cease because obviously
we are carnivores, we areherbivores, and we are a combination
of, of both.
But in regard to the, again,the, the ethical and the moral aspect

(27:16):
of how we, we work within thatcommunity, that industry, I, I do
think needs to change to apoint because, you know, it is, it
is a.
And, and, and, and obviouslywe could go down a real big rabbit
hole with this.
But, you know, it, you know, Ithink that part of it is a corporate,
the corporate concept of howmuch can I get through, how much

(27:39):
can I do?
You know, I don't treat theseanimals as an animal.
I treat them as properties.
What you just said, right?
I know there's a lot ofmisconceptions about being vegan.
I've talked, I've spoken to afew of them throughout my podcast,
especially in the early portion.
What are some of the biggestmisconceptions about veganism and

(28:02):
how we, you know, some ofthese people think, well, how can
I get, how can I build muscle?
How can I, how can I live on this?
How, where's my protein?
You know, I get thosequestions all the time, you know,
what do you eat?
You know, and I said, I eatthe same thing you do.
I just do it in a different way.
I do, you know, approach itfrom this.
So can you help us understandsome of the biggest misconceptions

(28:23):
about vegan?
Veganism?
Yeah.
So I think, you know, one ofthe biggest misconceptions that I
run into in the classroom isjust that, you know, going vegan
is primarily a path of deprivation.
Right.
That going vegan is aboutbeing against things that are terrible

(28:46):
and sort of reorienting yourlife to try to perfectionistically
never do these terrible things again.
And one of the most importantfeatures, I think, of Hungry Beautiful
Animals is the attempt to kindof flip the script there and say,
no, you know, what going veganis about is the opportunity for deeper,

(29:10):
richer flourishing.
Right.
The reason that vegans areagainst suffering is because we're
for creaturely flourishing.
And so that, I think, is oneof the key misconceptions that going
vegan is about scarcity, it'sabout opposing suffering, it's about

(29:30):
stringent abstention.
From doing things orsupporting things that are bad.
I think actually at itsessence, going vegan is about opportunity.
It's about abundance.
It's about right, doing thingsthat will make the world a more truthful

(29:51):
and beautiful and good placefor all creatures to be.
Another misconception, right?
Although it's, it's gettingeasier to, to avoid this illusion
these days because nutritionscience has made an awful lot of
progress.
But the protein myth, right,where, where do people get our protein?

(30:11):
And I think now we haveresources, right?
Like Michael Greger'snutrition facts.org where anyone
who has any skepticalquestions about whether a plant based
diet can, you know, be one of,of joy and good health, spend even
15 minutes on nutritionfacts.org and you'll see the science,

(30:34):
and nutrition sciencespecifically is very much confirmed.
Not just that one can do wellon a plant based diet, but there's
all sorts of health benefitsand even the possibility for deep
healing of some of thediseases of affluence that have become
coin of the realm, right, in,in a place where we eat upwards of

(30:56):
220 pounds, right, of meat perperson per year, 25 times the amount
that an average Bangladeshiwill eat.
So that's the second myth, Ithink, another myth that I mean,
and I don't, I want to becareful here because this is one
of those things that reallydiffers from person to person.

(31:19):
It can be difficult to find awell balanced, whole foods, plant
based diet depending on whereyou live.
And so I don't want todiscriminate against people who have
less, less access or, or lessfood autonomy or less food sovereignty,
you know, the ability todecide what their food shed is going

(31:39):
to be and, and, and eat fromit in the ways that they'd like to.
But I think on balance it ismuch easier now to eat foods that
look very much like whatyou're used to that just come from
different sources, right?
So now we have burgers thatare virtually indistinguishable from,

(32:01):
from beef burgers.
We have sausages and eggsubstitutes and all these things
right now they're a little bitmore expensive.
But nobody has to foregoforever, right?
The mouth feel the experience,the, the nostalgia, right, of, of
these foods they really love.

(32:22):
So I don't want to say it's amyth that going vegan is, is difficult
because for some people, I, Iwant to honor the fact for some people
it's harder than others.
For some people, easier than others.
Privilege and affluence, ofcourse have a lot to do with Those
things.
But generally speaking, mostpeople these days, even in some places

(32:44):
where you'd be surprised, cango in and find really delicious plant
based options at the grocerystore, in restaurants.
And so yeah, those are threethings that I think people are commonly
concerned about that once youget into it a little ways, it turns
out, oh no, you know, it's,it's not about abstention and scarcity

(33:08):
at all.
It's about abundance.
It's actually quite easy tomeet those nutritional needs and
it's easy to eat deliciousfood that's accessible in your average
hotel and your average restaurant.
Even in increasingly incollege cafeterias now there are
entire cafeterias.

(33:28):
The University of North Texashas a cafeteria that is 100% plant
based.
So the world is changing and Ithink that's making greener eating
easier than ever.
That's a really good thing.
I mean I obviously I loved itwhen like beyond meat came out in,
in the, in the beginning andthey worked on that and you would

(33:51):
feel you're eating a burger.
I mean when I say feel becauseobviously we know as individuals
that really appreciate food.
You know, it's a combinationof not just taste, it's a combination,
it's a visual, it's asmelling, it's a taste, it's a feel.
It all applies together.
When you will pick up a pieceof food to want to eat it or when

(34:12):
you get a plate put in frontof you, you know, it's always, you
touch all of those senses inregard to that and your body then
adapts.
That goes, hey, this is, youknow, this is what this is and I'm
looking forward to this.
So yeah, it gives us theopportunity to kind of enjoy that
again.
You know, if you have switchedto being a vegan, I know there's

(34:32):
some people, I have friends ofmine that have their kids grew up
vegan and so they know nothingdifferent, you know, kind of a thing.
You can't see my hands goingall over the place.
They know nothing different.
So, so I think that what youhad mentioned is that the food systems

(34:54):
are transforming in regards to that.
That's amazing that they'vegot some university campuses that
have got vegan options, numberone and full vegan dining halls.
That's something I think thatI think is a very positive step in
the right direction.
How can the food systems,transformations like that contribute

(35:15):
to a more like compassionate,sustainable world?
We want to talk about sustainability.
Becoming a vegan contributesto humanity, the planet Earth, our
environment, sustaining itself.
I just had a conversationthat's going to go up effectively
and went up today where wetalked about bees and the contribution

(35:39):
to bees and believe it or not,locusts and how those contributions
to this society help sustainthe earth environment, which then
helps humans sustain andanimals sustain and the environment
to sustain and the ecologicalsystem work the way it's supposed

(35:59):
to work.
So that's a long question,isn't it?
Okay, that's a good one.
Food system transformationscan contribute to more compassionate
and sustainable world.
Yeah, I, I mean, I, I love along question because it shows just
how complex, right, thissituation really is.
And, and to ask this questionappropriately, you really do need

(36:22):
to give a nod to all thosedifferent levels, right, that food
systems touch.
I mean, one of the things Ilove about being a part of food systems
conversations is everyone, youknow, is party to the discussion.
And once you start to studyfood systems, you realize from the
soil to the stratosphere,everything, right, from the microorganisms

(36:46):
in the, in the soil that weuse to grow, the grain that we use
to feed the animals that weuse to turn in.
I mean, you there, there's nota, a better example that I can think
of of how everything from topto bottom is linked, is one, right?
The flourishing or languishingcomes packaged as a whole.

(37:08):
And you know, when I'mteaching on these things, the way
that I like to try to helppeople see the whole business is
just to take the example ofwhat it makes to bring, say, a steak
or a piece of chicken or eggsright to your plate.
And I think a lot of times wefocus only on the suffering of the

(37:30):
animal.
And I think it makes a lot ofsense to, to place the emphasis there
because from the moral pointof view, that is a, a dire, urgently
important question.
But when we only focus onthat, we miss all the other layers
here.
And what's going on, right, isthat if you want to eat collectively,

(37:52):
you know, 220 pounds of meatper person per year or, well, that
meat doesn't just descend fromplatonic heaven, right?
You've got to grow all that meat.
And because growing meat meansgrowing physical organisms, right,
individual creatures, well,you've got to feed them, you've got

(38:14):
to get them water, you've gotto provide them housing.
When you feed living organismsfood and water, what happens?
They produce waste.
When you have 80 billion landanimals that you're slaughtering
a year, that you're giving allthis food, that you're giving all
this water, that you'restressing the topsoil to grow, all

(38:36):
that grain that you'reconfining that, right?
Their flatulence and theirurine and their feces have to be
stored somewhere right here.
You can see it's not justabout animals.
It's about grain, it's aboutwater, it's about oil that we use
to make the pesticides and theherbicides and the fertilizers that

(38:58):
we need to support all thismassive grain growth.
It's about all theexternalities that pulling all those
things out of the earth,putting them into the metabolisms
of living creatures and thenhaving those excreted out back into
the planet's water systemsand, and waste systems.

(39:22):
You know, this is our currentfood system, a massive generator
of harms.
And then when you think about,well, how does this animal go from,
you know, being a livingorganism to being a steak or a pork
chop?
Well then you've got to have ahuman workforce that has to systematically,

(39:44):
hundreds of times in a day,deny the cries for mercy of fellow
living creatures as they movealong an assembly line.
And then people wonder why,right, the mental illness rates are
higher, why the physicaldebilitation rates are higher and

(40:04):
spousal abuse and crime ratesand etc around these operations.
Because the emotional traumaof working in these operations, the
physical danger of working inthese operations are deeply problematic
from the moral point of view,from the standpoint of human worker

(40:26):
justice, right?
Completely aside from themoral harms that are inflicted on,
on fellow sentient creatures.
So just by looking at what'son your plate and tracing that back
to all, all the things thathave to be done in order for the
pork chop to be there in frontof you, you know, it's a reminder

(40:48):
of how from the soil to thestratosphere, our daily choices create
externalities, create massivemoral and practical harms.
And you know, if we want 10billion human beings by 2050, if
we want to have an Earth thatcan sustain life on the planet by

(41:10):
2100, if we want to create alabor force where people don't have
to wear diapers because theassembly line is moving so fast and
is so relentless that theydon't have time for bathroom breaks,
right, we have got to changeour preference patterns and the way

(41:30):
that we're spending our money.
But those aren't things thatare easy to see when you're just
looking at a sumptuouslooking, delicious smelling, right,
hockey puck sized piece offlesh on the plate.
Those are the farthest thingsfrom our minds.
And obviously in that moment,we don't want to think about the

(41:51):
harms that are radiating fromfrom that experience of deliciousness,
short sighted as it is.
You know, it is interestingwhen you.
I watch a lot of NationalGeographic, I watch a lot of jackana.
It's unfortunate he's got thedisease, he has ticking all that

(42:14):
away.
But in learning all of this,you watch where the animal kingdom
understands the balance thatthey need between what they eat and
whether or not they're killingfor the, you know, nothing more than
survival.
You can see where if a pack oflions, I guess you call them a pack

(42:36):
of lions, could be a herd of lions.
Pack of lions, herd of lions.
The pride, I believe it is a pride.
There we go, pride of lions.
You can watch where, you know,if they've already eaten for the
day, they can sit right nextto a whole herd of antelope or whole

(42:56):
herd of something else in regard.
And they don't bother eachother because they understand the
balance that we need in orderfor survival of everyone.
Because if they go through andeat everything in sight, they know
that there won't be any foodnext week with an understanding.

(43:17):
So from a again long question,so from that perspective, how do
you see our responsibility asa community or society to cooperate,
Achieving the goals of animalethics and, and maybe the, the food
justice, I guess would be agood word.

(43:39):
Yeah.
So what I'm trying to do in mybook Hungry Beautiful Animals is
really convince people thatthis is not a path of scarcity, suffering,
obligation so much as it is anopportunity to be the change we want
to see in our world from thesoil to the stratosphere, right.

(44:01):
That by, by eating moreplants, by eating less meat, eventually,
I hope by transitioning fullyto a plant based diet and entering
right.
The space of abundance thatcomes with that transition, expanding
our consciousness of theflourishing of other sentient creatures.

(44:22):
That happens right when, whenwe're no longer eating animals, it
becomes much easier toconsider who they actually are.
Right.
I mean it's hard to have aconversation about how intelligent
pigs are when you're halfwaythrough a pork chop.
But nobody wants to experiencethat, that cognitive distance.
But once you've sort of movedin a plant based direction, suddenly

(44:46):
where you know you weredefensive in the middle of eating
a pork chop.
You can get curious, right?
There's this transition thathappens from defensiveness around
the abilities and intelligenceand, and sociality and, and emotional
nature of, of fellow sentientcreatures to a curiosity about how

(45:09):
that works.
And so I think this evolvingjourney of going vegan, we start
with baby steps.
We start with, you know,exploring new exciting plant based
options that expand the rangeof the things that we're eating.
We move steadily away fromthat standard American diet that

(45:30):
we know is generating diseasesof affluence, making it harder to
live vibrant lives.
We start to experience thosephysical health benefits.
We start to get more curiousabout all the other benefits that
are happening.
And over the course of, youknow, a couple years of experiments
in this regard, we startseeing how we, ourselves, with our

(45:54):
unique talents and gifts, canbecome leavening agents in this transformation
of social consciousness thatwe need.
And what I mean by that,Michael, is that, you know, Hungry
Beautiful Animals is not abouta one size fits all approach to going
vegan.
It's about encouraging peopleto see that their own evolution in

(46:19):
the direction of all theseimprovements and benefits can inspire
them to be leavening agents inthe world in ways that only they
can be.
So if you're, if you're likeMichael and suddenly you are, you
know, have a media company andyou're making podcasts, well, you

(46:39):
can invite vegans on to talkabout that.
You know, if you're working ina law firm and you're somebody who,
you know, wants to make theservice project for all of your 200
employees that particular yearto be focused on animal welfare,
well, then you can do that.
If you're a professor or akindergarten teacher or somebody

(47:01):
who's a motivational speaker,you can integrate these issues into
the content that you'redelivering to help other people aspire
to do better.
If you're a custodian at ahigh school, you can see this as
an opportunity to maybeaddress the food waste issues and
start a recycling program or acomposting program, right?

(47:24):
I mean, every single person onthe planet eats, and every single
person on the planet isengaged in this system.
And that means every singleperson on the planet can be inspired
by taking account of whattheir gifts and abilities and passions
are, and then channel thoseinto this set of practices, going

(47:50):
vegan that over time cancatalyze a change that could transform
the world on a grand scale.
So this is really aboutencouraging people to find their
own personal journeys oftransformation that then enable them

(48:10):
and empower them to go outinto the world and share that right
with the people in their.
In their own areas of influence.
And none of us has to bear the.
The weight of the world on ourshoulders, right?
I mean, in the account thatI'm trying to offer, all you got
to do is worry about how yourdiet, your unique talents and gifts,

(48:35):
your vocational life, yourfriendships, your social life, that
tiny little area of Influencethat you, a human being with feet
made of clay, someone who'serror prone, someone who's definitely
going to make some mistakes.
You're not going to transformthe world, but you can transform
that tiny little patch ofearth that you call home.

(48:56):
And if we all work at our ownlittle patch, well, pretty soon we're
going to have a quilt.
And if that quilt gets bigenough because of the impact of the
way these things work, theworld could be a totally different
place in 50 to 100 years.
And that, that's the hope, right?
Maybe it'll take us longer,maybe 200, but we, we need to do

(49:19):
this soon because the impactof the way we're currently doing
it is not sustainable for much longer.
And so no better time than the present.
I agree, I agree.
And I think anybody that's avegan right now, if you want to be
an activist in regard to this,it's you.
There are some steps there andsome concepts in your book that will

(49:40):
allow people to move forwardwith helping this whole thing.
On the same note, there areindividuals that listen to this that
may be on the cusp of, or onthe fence, the old cliche of whether
or not they really want to gointo this lifestyle or whether or
not they're going tounderstand that eating this way is

(50:01):
a better benefit to themselves.
Practicing a vegan lifestyleis a benefit not only to us, but
to our environment.
What advice could you givesomeone who is considering.
Excuse me.
As I clear my throat.
Let me try that question again.
If I remember it.
What advice would you givesomeone who's considering transitioning

(50:22):
to a vegan lifestyle but feelsoverwhelmed by the idea how can we
help them to transition into.
I told you how I did it.
It was real simple because theway I did it.
But there are people that havelived a, shall we call regular, I
guess, regular lifestyle, youknow, as a carnivore, you know, and

(50:45):
occasionally putting a littlebit of vegetables on their plate,
you know, like I'm eating vegetables.
Look into this lifestyle.
I, One of the things that'sreally important to me is to remind
people again and again, it'snot a one size fits all.
Everybody's journey is goingto be different.
And for that reason, I tackhard away from the idea that veganism

(51:11):
a, a, a rigid set of rulesthat or, or an identity, right, that
you earn or lose by what youeat on a given day or what you wear
on a given day.
I think identitarianconceptions of veganism are very
fragile because the minute youmake a mistake.

(51:32):
Or if you haven't decided ifyou want to adopt the whole worldview
yet, right?
Well, then you're, you're outevery time you make a mistake.
Or maybe you never startbecause you're worried that only
the perfect can apply, right?
For this vision, what I try todo instead, I want to kick veganism,

(51:52):
right?
Rigid rule based ways ofthinking about this to one side and
invite people instead to thinkof going vegan.
And what I mean by going veganis, look, this is an aspiration.
It's not something we do atone go.
No human being can actually beperfect at it because of the ways

(52:15):
in which we're intermeshedwith everything else, right?
Even if we never eat anotheranimal product again, you know, we're
driving cars that harminsects, or we're eating vegetables
that have been raised usingpesticides or combines that affect
field animals or.
Right?
I mean, there is no way for afinite, error prone human being to

(52:40):
achieve a full fledged vegan identity.
Totally cruelty free,completely insulated, right from
the vicissitudes of being afinite, error prone creature.
That's not something that'spossible for human beings.
So I would discourage peoplefrom thinking of going vegan as a
stringent rule following ismand think of it instead as a trajectory

(53:06):
where they see this vision.
Wow, look how much morebeautiful the world could be if animals
had a fair shot at livingflourishing lives.
If the earth wasn't sufferingunder the strain, right?
Of all of these difficultpractices for the environment and

(53:26):
wasting water and wastinggrain and wasting agricultural land,
what if our personal healthwere more resilient?
In our public health, we hadto worry less about pandemics and
we had to worry less aboutglobal hunter.
What if that beautiful worldthat a transformed food system could

(53:47):
deliver to us?
What if I just started toadopt daily practices that moved
me incrementally in that direction?
So I think diet is one of themore powerful ways to do that.
Certainly it's one of the moreefficacious ways to start moving
in that direction.
But as I tell my students allthe time, you know, some people maybe

(54:09):
don't have the freedom to dothis dietarily at first.
So maybe they do it by readinga bunch of books or watching some
documentary films or focusingon expanding animal consciousness
or learning more about workerjustice, right?
On my view, you're going veganso long as you're finding practices

(54:32):
that are moving you in thegeneral direction of that beautiful
vision of a transformed world.
So, you know, how might thisaffect someone on the fence.
Well, I would say lean intoyour curiosity if you're thinking
to yourself, man, this looksreally interesting, but I'm worried
that I won't be perfect.
Or this looks reallyinteresting, but I don't want to

(54:53):
become one of those bunnyhuggin lunatics who judges everybody.
Or this looks reallyinteresting, but I don't want to
fall into this set of stereotypes.
I say more power to you.
Follow your curiosity.
Do the things that look likethey'll be blessings to you and blessings
to the people in yourimmediate spheres of influence.

(55:14):
And what I've seen happen tomany, many, many people over the
years, as you know, somebodywho's been doing vegan education
now for two decades, thosebaby steps help people to gain confidence.
Those baby steps turn intobigger and bigger victories and more
and more highly evolved moraland environmental consciousness.

(55:38):
And before you know it, thosepeople who wondered, well, you know,
how can I eat differently at all?
Are now trying to figure outhow can my career as an attorney
or how can my career as anenvironmental justice advocate, or
how can my career as abusiness person or how can my career
as an entrepreneur or acustodian or a kindergarten teacher

(56:02):
help the world, woo the worldright into seeing what this transformation
has to offer them.
So my advice is lean into the curiosity.
Tack away from those defensive feelings.
You're not going to be able todo this all at once.
String together a few tinylittle victories spurred on by your

(56:27):
curiosity.
And I predict then as yourconfidence grows, your curiosity
expands, your consciousnessbecomes, right, more engaged, your
path widens.
It's shocking howtransformational this path can be

(56:49):
if you have the courage tolean into your curiosity instead
of letting that those fewremaining defensive, skeptical worries,
right.
Keep you from taking thatfirst step.
So lean into curiosity.
Be wary of those defensivefeelings that arise when we're kind

(57:10):
of in fear of perfectionism orin fear that we have to be the perfect
vegan.
I say banish those thoughts,kick perfectionism and shame and
blame to the curb and say, howcan I follow curiosity into something
beautiful here?
And let's not think about the destination.
Let's, let's think about thenext tiny little step and see where

(57:33):
we end up.
Sounds like a wonderfulphilosophy that we should all incorporate
into our life.
Well, I hope so.
I, I, I've tried very, veryhard to make this a book for everyone,
right?
To me, you, you don't have tobe somebody with the word vegan tattooed
across your neck, right?

(57:54):
Or somebody who is, you know,on fire for environmental justice.
I mean, I Think this issomething that every person who wants
to move a, a fragile body fullof thoughts and feelings and a desire
for joy.
This is a path that's, that'sopen to everyone.

(58:14):
And you know, as I tell myactivist friends all the time, something
I need to remind myself fromtime to time, what we want from our
advocacy is for this to becomecommon sense.
Yeah.
I mean, hopefully one day wewon't even need the V word because
it wouldn't occur to anyonethat we need to do all these things

(58:35):
and cause all these harms toeat a delicious, sustainable, earth
friendly, health friendly diet.
I mean, my dream is that oneday it'll seem as strange to us,
you know, that once upon atime we, we ate animals and in order
to do that we caused.

(58:55):
Right.
All these, these, we'vewreaked all these terrible things
to happen across the planetand into the lives of our fellow
human beings.
I mean that'll seem as, asstrange to us as it now seems that
we were willing to enslavehuman beings or that we were willing
right to.
I mean there's so many thingsthat would have seemed shocking,

(59:19):
right.
200 years ago that are nowcommon sense for everyone.
Doesn't matter what theirpolitical identity is, doesn't matter
right.
Where they're coming from orwhat their experience base is.
My hope is a revolution infood is that next step.
Right.
That goes beyond identitypolitics, that goes beyond.

(59:42):
Right.
Our experiential differencesand something that just everyone
will one day take for granted.
That's the hope.
Anyway.
I think we should all hope for that.
I think it's a wonderful,again, an amazing opportunity, a
brilliant opportunity for usto be able to take an active approach
to all of this.
And I like to tell when peoplequestion me in regard to whether

(01:00:04):
or not we get enough proteinor whether or not what I'm eating,
I say the largest land animalin the world is a vegan and a gorilla.
The elephant and a gorilla isa massive as a gorilla and the strength
that gorilla has is a vegan.

(01:00:25):
So you know, don't be afraidof that.
I had to throw that in there,so just toss it.
Absolutely.
Tell people how they can givesome help, how, how they can get
involved and how to get yourbook and you have so many opportunities
on there like Tom's story andJoanna's story and we can even buy

(01:00:45):
lunch for a donkey.
HungryBeautifulAnimals.com isthe website.
The title was weird enough,Michael, that the dot com address
was still available.
So we, we took Advantage ofthat, but lots of resources there.
So on the resources page, youcan find a whole bunch of ways to

(01:01:05):
start your journey into goingvegan that don't necessarily require
right an an overnight flip ofthe switch, ways to build your consciousness,
ways to help individualanimals, ways to make connections
between justice for humanbeings and justice for members of
other species.
Lots and lots of things thereon the resource page.

(01:01:27):
Of course, you can buy thebook anywhere books are sold.
There are links there on thewebsite and I want to call readers
attention in particular yet tothe stories page.
And that's where people whohave read and digested the message
of hungry beautiful animalstalk a little bit in their own voice
about how this opportunity isunfolding in their own lives.

(01:01:51):
And I encourage, you know,readers who want to share stories
to reach out through thewebsite because we're always looking
for new stories to feature andmaybe your story is the one that
will inspire an untold numberof folks to, to follow in your footsteps
and to find that one morething before they go.

(01:02:13):
I think this is a beautifulpath to travel.
And hungrybeautifulanimals.comit could be your first step.
There you go.
And I'll make sure thatthere's a link in the show notes
so that everybody has an easyway to find it.
You won't even have to look for.
Just click it and it'll wonder.
Well, thank you very much forbeing on the show.
I really appreciate it.

(01:02:33):
This is one more thing beforewe go.
So I always ask, is there anywords of wisdom before we go?
I think look for joy in aworld brimming with suffering.
It's so easy to focus on theoverwhelming amounts of suffering
in the world, the overwhelmingamounts of oppression in the world.

(01:02:57):
But until we find our joy andmaximize that joy among the members
of our inner families, ourefficacy, our power, our motivation
to go out into the world andmake it a joyful place is going to
have a harder time finding us.
And so my advice, one morething before you go find joy and

(01:03:21):
nourish your inner family.
Because if you treat all thoseparts of yourself well, the physical
you, the emotional you, thesocial you, the intellectual you,
the moral you, the power thatyou will have for taking it to the
street and helping others tofind their joy will be so, so much

(01:03:42):
richer and your enthusiasmwill be more contagious.
So go for the joy.
It's a joyful case for going vegan.
Brilliant words of wisdom.
Thank you very much forsharing those.
I appreciate them very much.
Again, Matt, thank you verymuch for coming on the show.
Thank you very much forspreading your wisdom, your wealth

(01:04:02):
of knowledge, your expertiseand your passion for taking this
forward.
I appreciate you.
Well, speaking of joy, it hasbeen a rich one.
Thank you, Michael.
Grateful as well.
For everyone in the One MoreThing before you go community, thank
you very much for being partof this community.
Everything we just spokeabout, you'll be able to connect

(01:04:23):
with Matt and let me startthis over just a second.
For everyone else in the OneMore Thing before we Go community,
again, thank you very much forbeing part of this community.
I will have everything inconnecting Matthew in helping you
on your vegan journey orhelping you to become a vegan activist,

(01:04:47):
how to get his book and someresources and buy a lunch for a donkey.
You have to.
And one more thing before youall go.
Have a great day.
Have a great week and thankyou for being here.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing before
youe Go.
Check out our website atbefore you Go podcast.
Com.
You can find us as well as.

(01:05:07):
Subscribe to the program andrate us.
On your favorite podcastlistening platform.