Vegan Archives - Page 7 of 8 - Michael Dello-Iacovo

6 common mistakes that animal lovers make

Everyone loves animals. How can you not love Fluffy when he is begging for scratches or stealing your snacks? But even hard core animal lovers will sometimes make simple mistakes.

1. Supporting zoos and aquariums

It’s hard to resist going to the zoo to see those cute meerkats, or the aquarium to see those gorgeous penguins, but unfortunately, zoos and aquariums aren’t necessarily good for the animals. Many argue that zoos can act as a safe haven from poaching, and that the animals generally live a better life in the zoo than in the wild. For some specific zoos and sanctuaries, this may be true. But zoos are generally incentivised to keep exotic animals out of their natural habitat, which probably isn’t great for them. Zoos also generally reinforce the use of animals for human enjoyment.

If you want to support a zoo for the educational factor or to help endangered animals, I’d encourage you to look at animal sanctuaries and be careful about where you go.

2. Consuming animal products

You might not like it, but the unfortunate reality is, every time you reach for an animal product in the supermarket, an animal had to suffer for it. Going vegan is a super easy way to reduce the harm you cause animals, and it comes with a suite of side benefits like better health and reduced environmental impact. I wrote a full article on reasons to be vegan here which you should check out, but in short:

Most food animals live in horrendous conditions, with around 99% of meat being produced in factory farms, where animals have very little space to move around. Their deaths are not pain-free despite industry attempts, and other animal products like dairy and eggs are also associated with some awful practices that are standard in the food industry.

If you want tips on how to easily go vegan, I love this video by the Vegan Activist. Plus vegan food is just darn delicious!

3. Not using evidence

Many animal lovers put their wallet where their mouth is and support animal charities, which is great! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), not all charities as equally as good. Some charities do hundreds or even thousands of times more good than others, and some charities even have a negative impact. Effective altruism is a new movement which seeks to find the most effective causes and charities to support, and the most effective activities to undertake.

Animal suffering can arise due to a lot of reasons, but one seems to dwarf the rest. The below figure from Animal Charity Evaluators shows the number of animals used and killed in different industries. The number of animals used in factory farming far outweighs the number of animals used in labs and clothing (e.g. fur/leather) and who require shelters. Unfortunately, this disparity is not reflected in the amount of money donated to different animal charities, with most going to shelters despite the low number of animals involved, and practically none going to benefitting food animals.

Because of this neglect of food animals, it is reasonable to believe that working to help food animals will be more effective than helping shelter animals, and this is matched by the evidence. While there is still some uncertainty and debate around the figures, Animal Charity Evaluators estimates that The Humane League could “spare 100,000 to 1.7 million animals from a life in industrial agriculture” for $1,000. That kind of impact is hard to get by donating to an animal shelter.

Jacy Reese is one person who has taken the message of effective altruism to heart, and is working as a researcher for Animal Charity Evaluators to compare the effectiveness of different ways of reducing animal suffering.

Matt Wage has taken a high paying job, partly so that he can earn more and donate it to highly effective charities. Counterintuitively, taking a high paying job to donate to top animal charities could have more of a positive impact than doing animal advocacy directly. This has inspired me to take my own pledge to give to effective charities for the rest of my life, and I’d encourage you to do the same.

If this is your first introduction to effective altruism, definitely check out this more detailed one.

4. Getting angry instead of effective

It can be tempting to lash out at someone or use aggressive language when communicating animal rights or veganism. I myself have sometimes found myself casually saying that eating meat is like murder, or comparing factory farming to atrocities involving humans.

Here’s the thing – even if these comparisons are true, they are not likely to create change in the person hearing it. Anecdotally, I have not created any behaviour change by indirectly calling someone a murderer, but I have encouraged people to eat less meat or go vegan by calmly sharing information. It’s difficult, because you may well believe these things, and I am certainly sympathetic to that. But just because something is true doesn’t mean you should say it. The focus should always be on helping animals as effectively as possible. The last thing you want them to do is get defensive and reinforce their own excuses for consuming animal products.

5. Always dismissing the ‘weird’ stuff

The wild is often seen as an idyllic and peaceful place. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Many wild animals die young, often painfully, and even those that don’t can live exposed to the elements and suffer injury or disease. Related to this is the idea that insects may be sentient and capable of experiencing pain. If these are true, then there are a lot of wild animals and insects that might be living painful lives.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot we can do about these issues yet (though Brian Tomasik discusses some possibilities here), but if we care about animals and want them to suffer less, we should at least be open to this possibility and think about the implications. Sentience Politics explores this uncertain and difficult topic here, and a more academic review is available here.

I will add the cautionary note that not all ‘weird’ stuff is necessarily right or valid! I just want to stress that you shouldn’t always dismiss something just because you haven’t heard it before.

6. Being close minded and not being humble

We’re human. We make mistakes. That’s fine, as long as we’re willing to admit that. If another animal lover presents you with some information that you disagree with, you should always pause and ask yourself if it’s possible that you yourself are wrong. For example, remember that you used to think there was no good reason to go vegan until you did. If you’re debating with someone who raises a point you hadn’t thought of before, don’t rush to piece something together if you’re not sure. It’s better to say, “I hadn’t thought of that before, I’ll have to look it up.” Or just say that you’re not sure about something. If you get caught lying or being overconfident, your whole argument could lose credibility.

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If you have done any of these or have any more tips to share, write a comment to let everyone know.

My primary donation for the year – $60,000 to Good Food Institute

Just a quick update.

Today I donated $60,000 AUD to the Good Food Institute, which works to promote plant based meat alternatives and cellular agriculture to reduce farmed animal suffering. I thought about which charity to donate to clear my donation backlog for a while, but decided to outsource my thinking to someone who was able to spend a lot more time thinking about it than I could (Michael Dickens wrote his 2016 charity analysis here). Dickens’ values seem to be very closely aligned to my own (roughly total utilitarian, valuing all sentience, biological and digital and whatever other form it may take, valuing future wellbeing and suffering about as equally as current lives), and so I was happy to outsource most of my thinking to him.

While this didn’t alter my decision, it was good confirmation to see that Animal Charity Evaluators had also recommended GFI as one of their top charities in the last 24 hours.

I believe that GFI is doing great work and is one of the best options in terms of value for money currently out there for reducing suffering if you value sentient minds based on their level of sentience or equally. I strongly encourage you to read ACE’s and Dickens’ work on them, and consider supporting them. I expect even a tiny donation to save many years of animal suffering.

Edit – To clarify on a few things – this does not necessarily represent the views of any of my employers. Also, to respond to common questions, I was able to save this money to donate because I took a high paying job for 1.5 years with the express purpose in mind of donating most of my income.

Movember, men’s health and the risks of consuming animal products

Coauthored by Hugo Burgin and Michael Dello-Iacovo

Depending on where you live you may have noticed a steady increase in the number of “Fuzzy Caterpillars,” floating around your workplace or local supermarket. It is “Movember,” after all.

The Movember Foundation was registered in 2004 by a group of friends hoping to raise funds for Men’s Health awareness, the main focus being Prostate Cancer. Since then the organisation has gone global in addition to expanding its efforts to cover men’s health more generally.

In 2015 NGO Advisor ranks the Movember Foundation as 55^th in the top 500 NGOs around the world.
Over 5 million participants from 21 countries having taken place from 2003.
CAD $759 Million has been raised since 2003 with 1200 men’s health projects receiving funding.

It is obvious then that the “Movember,” movement has done and continues to do a significant amount of good within Western Society. Although the foundation began with a focus on prostate cancer, they have now expanded their efforts to include a wider variety of Men’s Health initiatives.

If we look in more detail at some statistics surrounding Prostate Cancer in particular, it’s clear to see that within our society it is an issue well worth addressing. According to the Cancer Australia website:

Prostate cancer was the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia in 2012. It is estimated that it will remain the most commonly diagnosed cancer in 2016.
In 2016, it is estimated that the risk of a male being diagnosed with prostate cancer by their 85th birthday will be 1 in 6.
In 2013, there were 3,112 deaths from prostate cancer in Australia. In 2016, it is estimated that this will increase to 3,398 deaths.
In 2013, prostate cancer accounted for the 2nd highest number of deaths from cancer among males in Australia. It is estimated that it will remain the 2nd most common cause of death from cancer among males in 2016.

Taking part in “Movember,” and fuzzying up your top lip, seeking sponsors is a great endeavour and we applaud in every way each participant but as with every charity initiative it is worth asking, how effective is the action I’m taking at solving the problem I’m trying to solve and are there better ways of doing it? In this case, it is clear that there are not only more effective ways to combat health issues like prostate cancer in men but ways that can prevent the problem before it’s even begun.

Dairy Consumption & Prostate Cancer Risk

For example the latest Meta-Analysis studies of both case-controlled and cohort studies on the consumption of cow’s milk show conclusively that there is a positive association between the consumption of cow’s milk and prostate cancer risk in men. Additionally, the intake of large amount of dairy products between the ages of 14-19 has also been associated with a 3-fold elevation in risk for advanced prostate cancer in later life. The leading factor behind this elevated risk is the large amounts of exogenous hormones (like estrogens) that can be found in cow’s milk. As a species we are the only ones on the planet that are subjected to external hormone manipulation, from sources such as milk, from the perinatal period into adulthood.

Additionally, once diagnosed with prostate cancer the elimination of dairy products has been found to increase survival rates. Once diagnosed, men who consumed greater than or equal to 3 servings of dairy per day were found to have a 76% higher risk of total mortality and a 141% higher risk of prostate cancer mortality compared to those than consumed less than a single serve a day.

Finally, if we haven’t convinced you yet that a link exists between dairy consumption and prostate cancer it pays to have a look at the graph below. Here we see milk consumption per day plotted against mortality rate from prostate cancer in countries from around the world, and while we admit correlation by no means implies causation it would be foolish to ignore such a trend given the substantial amount of complimentary evidence.

Taken from: D. Ganmaa, X.-M. Li, J. Wang, L.-Q. Qin, P.-Y. Wang, A. Sato. Incidence and mortality of testicular and prostatic cancers in relation to world dietary practices. Int. J. Cancer. 2002 98(2):262 – 267)

Meat Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk

In 2015, the World Health Organisation announced that processed meat (e.g. bacon and sausages) was a Group 1 carcinogen – carcinogenic to humans. This means that there is strong, convincing evidence for it causing cancer in humans. Tobacco and asbestos are both Group 1 carcinogens. While it is true that regular processed meat consumption doesn’t increase cancer risk as much as regular tobacco consumption, this should still be alarming.

More alarming is that schools still serve processed meat to children at schools as snacks. To put that another way, schools are feeding known carcinogens to children. Now that we have the evidence, this needs to stop. According to the WHO, there is no safe amount of processed meat that can be consumed, and so raising the argument of ‘all things in moderation’ does not seem valid here.

Red meat was also classified by WHO as a Group 2A carcinogen – probably carcinogenic to humans. This means that there is some, but at this time limited evidence for red meat causing cancer to humans.

Red meat has been associated with prostate, colorectal and pancreatic cancer, and processed meat has been associated with stomach and colorectal cancer.

Why is this so important for Movember and men’s health? Prostate cancer is one of the main focal points of the Movember campaign, however one of the ways of promoting concern for this has been through typical ‘mens’ activities, like barbecues. Given the amount of meat consumption at barbecues, it is easy to see the conflict here.

PCFA, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, recently had an advertising push for their Big Aussie Barbie, encouraging people to talk about prostate cancer. In none of their messaging did I see them asking people to choose foods that don’t cause prostate cancer.

While we don’t cover it here, red and processed meat are also both associated with a number of other conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure.

Plant Based Diets & Depression

In Australian culture especially, there often seems to be a myth that those who consume a wholly vegetarian or vegan diet are depressed. We can assure you that it is exactly that: A Myth! In 2014 a systematic review and meta-analysis of dietary patterns and depression in adults found that a healthy diet pattern was significantly associated with a reduced chance of depression. One randomised control trial included within this review found that removing meat, fish, poultry and eggs from the diet of a previously omnivorous study group saw mood scores in a number of areas increase after only 14 days. Why is this you ask? Consuming a vegetarian or vegan diet will result in a much higher level of antioxidants in the body which can reduce the detrimental effect of stress on mental health. One of the most power anti-oxidants out there is Lycopene (it’s what makes tomatoes red) which again has been shown to prevent severe depressive symptoms in Adults.

Additionally low blood-folate levels have been associated with clinical depression in humans which in many western individuals can be traced back to an overconsumption of highly processed food. So perhaps next time you’re feeling a little blue hit yourself with some greens!

Exercise & Depression

Anyone who does regular exercise will tell you that it’s a mood enhancer and this has been scientifically proven. A 2011 study expanded on this and linked regular physical activity to a decrease of severe depressive symptoms in adults from age 15 – 54. There is the arguments that in this case the cause and effect may be the other way around (eg: people who are depressed are unable to exercise) however this theory has also been tested: Men and women over 50 suffering from major depression were randomised to complete a 10 week aerobic exercise program or start a 10 week course of antidepressant medication. This study found that after ten weeks regular exercise was just as effective at combating severed depression as the medication and without all the unpleasant side effects that often come with antidepressants. At best regular physical exercise has been shown to have a significant effect on reductions in depression syndromes.

Implications for Movember and Campaigning for (Men’s) Health

We would like to advocate for a plant-based diet to be incorporated as a core component of messaging for health campaigns, especially campaigns such as Movember. Raising awareness without promoting good diet change has a diminished effect, which is compounded by typical activities organised to raise awareness for men’s health, such as barbecues.

The health, environmental and ethical reasons for choosing to not consume animal products are many, and there are increasingly fewer reasons to advocate for consuming them, or to remain silent on the issue.

Summary

What we hope to achieve with this short post is to convey to you that while growing a moustache to raise awareness for Men’s Health, is at its core a noble undertaking, there is a way to prevent many of these specific health issues entirely. From there, imagine what an event like “Movember,” could do for highly effective charity causes such as The Against Malaria Foundation, De-Worm the World or give directly. Groups that have shown to solve issues that have no other plausible solution like a simple change in diet and that quantitatively save lives than will otherwise go unsaved.

Sources

R R Yeung. The acute effects of exercise on mood state. J Psychosom Res. 1996 Feb;40(2):123-41.

U F Malt. Exercise in the treatment of major depressive disorder: still a long way to go. Psychosom Med. 2008 Feb;70(2):263; author reply 264-5.

R D Goodwin. Association between physical activity and mental disorders among adults in the United States. Prev Med. 2003 Jun;36(6):698-703.

J S Lai, S Hiles, A Bisquera, A J Hure, M McEvoy. A systematic review and meta-analysis of dietary patterns and depression in community-dwelling adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014 Jan;99(1):181-97.

Ganmaa, X. M. Li, L. Q. Qin, P. Y. Wang, M. Takeda, A. Sato. The experience of Japan as a clue to the etiology of testicular and prostatic cancers. Med. Hypotheses. 2003 60(5):724 – 730.

L.-Q. Qin, J.-Y. Xu, P.-Y. Wang, J. Tong, K. Hoshi. Milk consumption is a risk factor for prostate cancer in Western countries: Evidence from cohort studies. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2007 16(3):467 – 476.

W. Danby. Re: Endogenous sex hormones and prostate cancer: a collaborative analysis of 18 prospective studies. JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst. 2008 100(19):1412-1413.

Ganmaa, X.-M. Li, J. Wang, L.-Q. Qin, P.-Y. Wang, A. Sato. Incidence and mortality of testicular and prostatic cancers in relation to world dietary practices. Int. J. Cancer. 2002 98(2):262 – 267.

Bouvard, D. Loomis, K. Z. Guyton, Y. Grosse, F. El Ghissassi, L. Benbrahim-Talla, N. Guha, H. Mattock, K. Straif, Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat, The Lancet, 2015, 16(16):1599-1600.

Yokoyama, et al, Vegetarian diets and blood pressure: A meta-analysis, The Journal of the American Medical Association: Internal Medicine, 2014, 174:577-587.

N. Appleby, T. J. Key, The long-term health of vegetarians and vegans, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, Conference on ‘The future of animal products in the human diet: health and environmental concerns’, 2015.

Key, T.J et al, Mortality in vegetarians and nonvegetarians: detailed findings from a collaborative analysis of 5 prospective studies, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1999, 70:516-524.

Why isn’t palm oil vegan?

I made a video version of this article here.

Today I discovered that many people don’t consider palm oil to be vegan. The short version of this story is that palm oil production is generally associated with a lot of rainforest deforestation, and therefore destruction of orangutan habitats, often resulting in the death of orangutans.

Fair enough.

But the average vegan still contributes to 0.3 animal deaths per year (not including insects!) as the result of food production (based on a simplified calculation by Matheny). Obviously, there are some foods that are worse than others. I’m going out on a limb here, but I daresay something like wheat is going to result in more deforestation, land use and animal death than something like apples (I could of course be very wrong, but the point is that some vegan foods are going to kill more animals than others).

However, I typically don’t see/hear vegans avoiding certain foods like wheat because of the animals killed. In fact, most vegans seem to blissfully ignore the fact that they contribute to animal death. Obviously, it’s impossible to eliminate your impact because you’re bound to accidentally step on an ant at some point in your life, but reducing your bread intake seems like a reasonably easy thing to do.

But why avoid palm oil and not wheat? One anonymous comment on Facebook seemed to sum it up.

“Yeah I think it’s because of the immediate danger of extinction the species faces.”

Interesting. Why is risk of extinction a key factor, but pain and death isn’t? Unless it plays a crucial role in the ecosystem, it seems like extinction wouldn’t really be that bad beyond the individual deaths. Why does a species as a whole get consideration?

I would argue that, if you’re going to avoid palm oil because it hurts orangutans, you should probably consider optimising your entire diet, not just avoiding one thing (beyond not eating animals, that is). If what you value is the wellbeing of animals, there are many ways to do that, and probably more efficient ways than just avoiding palm oil.

Of course, this is all complicated by the fact most animals in the wild have lives full of suffering. Do orangutans have natural lives in the wild that are not worth living? I don’t know, but I’m open to the idea. If that’s true, we would have to face the frustrating reality that maybe keeping orangutans alive is bad.

Morality is more complicated than you want it to be.

Interview with Barry Honeycombe – Founder & CEO at Plantalicious Limited

Barry Honeycombe is the founder and CEO of Plantalicious Limited, a company selling wholefood plant-based meat substitutes.

How and why did you become vegan?

For me, it was all about health. I’ve been a yo-yo dieter for the majority of my adult life. There is a history of heart disease in my family and my father had a massive heart attack aged 46 and nearly died. At the age of 61 my father passed away. This played on my mind and I spent many years trying to find a way to avoid the same fate. When I reached 51; 10 years off the age my father died, I read “the China study“. This book really changed my life, and may have saved my life! I then studied for a certificate in plant-based nutrition at E-Cornell University and the T Colin Campbell Foundation (M – I have a friend who did this course and highly recommends it).

Following on from this, I happened to be in the US and went to a “Farm to Fork’s” weekend which was held in Orange County. All of the food that was served at this event was whole food and plant-based and I met some really inspirational people. At the end of the weekend I came back to the UK and told my partner that I was changing my diet and I would no longer be eating anything with a face or mother. That was almost three years ago, and whilst initially I didn’t call myself a vegan I have gradually become one. So for me it was an imperative around health that propelled me towards becoming a vegan but as I read and learned more it only made me feel that I was making the right choice.

I hadn’t heard of Farms to Fork. Could you tell us a bit more about what the event involves?

Farms 2 Fork are the events of the Engine 2 Diet which was founded by Rip Esselstyn based on the work that his father did in the prevention and reversal of heart disease using a plant strong diet. The event was a weekend long retreat at a hotel where all of the chefs have been trained in the preparation of a whole food plant-based diet. The event involved various speakers and sessions all about the use of a whole food plant-based diet to revolutionise your health. I met some amazing people who I now count as my “food heroes”. Rips latest venture is a seven day rescue plan that helps people take control of their health through the use of plant-based diets.

Tell us a little about what you do now and how you got to that point.

The majority of my career was spent on aeroplanes and in hotels travelling all over the world, selling analytics to banks and financial services to manage either their risk or their pricing for Silicon Valley software companies. I did this for several companies for about 30 years. I was really fortunate that when I decided to establish my company my then employer, Nomis Solutions, were willing to let me work three days a week for them so that I could use the rest of the time to build my business.

My business came about purely because I was unable to find high quality, delicious plant-based or vegan convenience foods which had the nutritional qualities that I was seeking. All too often when I wanted something quick and convenient all I could find was something that was chock-full of salt, fat and sugar. As a result, I started making my own vegan convenience foods and my friends and partner asked me why didn’t I start selling them. It seemed like a good idea and that was the genesis of the company. We spent the best part of two years developing the products and testing them in various markets across the UK and reformulating them based on customer feedback. Getting customer feedback is one of the most valuable things that we have done to date and that’s really shaped the products that we have today.

So now the company offers five products for retail and seven for foodservice. Our focus currently is on growing our food service business in order that we can use the revenue from this to fund some new packaging for retail. Currently our packaging is functional and only really suited to small independent retailers. We need to do a thorough look to ensure that the packaging connects with the consumer and conveys the key messages that our products are delicious, healthy and made with natural ingredients.

Why do you think having high quality meat substitutes is important for the animals?

What I’ve found is that the better the quality the meat substitute, particularly the flavour and texture, the more likely people are to choose it and consume it regularly. The most obvious market for our products are vegans and vegetarians who already buy our kind of products. However, it’s the flexitarians or people looking for a tasty alternative to meat for Veganuary or Meatless Mondays or organisations wishing to add some meatless options to their menu that really make the difference.

The rapidly growing number of the vegans in the UK was reported recently, however the study also commented on the huge rise in people adopting a flexitarian approach where they eat some meatless meals each week. I think it’s that market where having high quality meat substitutes probably has the most impact for animals. My reason for saying this is that when you’re eating a burger you have a certain expectation as to how it will chew; the resistance and the flavour.

Many products that are labelled “burger” don’t provide that kind of experience for the consumer. What we found is that providing a tasty and familiar product means that people are eating a burger and are not concerned as to where the proteins come from. We are not trying to mimic meat as many organisations seem to be in the US, rather we are trying to give people an alternative which is familiar and comfortable and that meets or exceeds their expectation when they eat it in terms of flavour and texture, and certainly something that is superior when it comes to comparing our nutritional information with a similar product made from animal proteins.

What skills would you suggest are most valuable to learn early for starting and running a great business?

The first word that comes to mind when answering this question is “resilience”. Having not come from the food industry, I entered it with a degree of arrogance. I was confident that because my friends and partner liked my products, that everybody would immediately embrace them, order them, add them to their menus and want to retell them! Being told that somebody doesn’t like your products, or you should change something about them is very difficult for an entrepreneur to accept, let alone act upon.

One of the things that I found very early on was to listen to what customers were saying, whilst holding onto the principles on which I founded the business, I still had to act and respond based to the feedback being given to me. It is extremely hard to maintain positivity when people are criticising your packaging etc. You really do need a robust sense of self belief and belief in your products whilst maintaining an open mind and listening to the feedback that is being provided.

The second skill is one that was said to me many times, and that’s to “know your numbers”. We went through an agonising time when we had to take a very in-depth look at our pricing in order to re-evaluate our pricing strategy and positioning in the market. This was a difficult, time-consuming and a painful process but hugely worthwhile as we came out of it really understanding the costs involved in making our products and the price that is necessary for us and our partners to achieve a margin from them.

The third insight is to be persistent. We all know that JK Rowling didn’t get a publisher for the Harry Potter books on her first try. It’s the same for any new product. Knowing why somebody should buy your product and what the benefit is to them is absolutely imperative. Communicating that is just as important. This goes hand-in-hand with resilience because you will need both to be able to make a success of what you’re doing.

What is your biggest insight on encouraging regard for animals?

The biggest insight for me with regard to animals came from looking at the animal protein based competitors to my products. If a supermarket sells four Aberdeen Angus burgers for £1, then think about how much of that £1 was spent on packaging, advertising and the margin for the producer, wholesaler and retailer. Just how much was left to pay for the ingredients and for the animal husbandry of the animals gave their lives for this product? It made me realise just how the meat and dairy industry behave in order to provide food at the costs expected by the consumer and the supermarkets. The sooner we realise that it makes no sense to turn plants into animal proteins to feed the human race the better.

What one movie, piece of literature or other medium has most shifted your views?

For me, my journey began with the need to improve my health and so the materials that most shifted my views were “the China Study” and the film “Forks over Knives”. The other book then made an impact on me was: “Rethink Food: 100+ Doctors Can’t Be Wrong” as well as the work of Dr Michael Greger.

That we can solve the global obesity crisis and reduce significantly the financial strain on the National Health Service here in the UK simply by the promotion of the widespread adoption of a whole food, plant-based diet.

What is one thing that you believe which almost no one else does?

What’s next for you?

Our strategy as a business is to focus on building our food service partners and then using the cash flow that this creates to finance a complete revamp of our packaging for retail. Our plans then are to promote both retail and foodservice formats of our products and to build the brand through entry into multiple retailers. Simultaneously we will need to look at either ramping up our in-house production or outsourcing the production of one or more products to a third-party as demand increases. Once we are firmly established in both the foodservice and retail markets in the UK we will look at the best models to either export or manufacture our products under licence in other markets that are attractive to us.

Thanks for taking the time to chat Barry!

Definitely check out Plantalicious‘ products, their plant-based burger looks ridiculous.

Interview with Geoff Palmer – CEO and founder of Clean Machine

Geoff is the CEO and founder of Clean Machine, and is 31 years a vegan! That is by far the longest running vegan I’ve met. What have been your highest and lowest points of the journey?

My lowest point was in the beginning feeling so isolated, ridiculed and ostracized by others. Whether with family, friends, co-workers or love interests, eating is a very social experience for me. That there was so much difficulty in not only finding food, but sharing it with others made it very hard to just get through a normal day without some sort of judgement or harassment. It is definitely so much easier now in food choices, accessibility and acceptance.

My high point was meeting Vanessa, the woman I fell in love with who is also a long term compassionate vegan. We first met at the Central Florida Veg Fest, we had a vegan wedding reception at Sublime, a vegan restaurant that donates 100% of the profits to Animal Rights Foundation of Florida (ARFF) and honeymooned on Holistic Holiday at Sea, Vegan Cruise!

Tell us a little about what you do now and how you got to that point.

I am the Founder and CEO of Clean Machine, a natural vegan sports nutrition supplement company. I started Clean Machine a little over 3 years ago out of a want to provide clean, natural, vegan supplements to help people with their physical fitness and health goals. I worked in the natural products and sports nutrition industry for over 25 years and saw health-promoting products that were not made for the serious athlete, and sports nutrition products that were not healthy or even dangerous. Health and fitness should be two parts of a whole, not polar opposites. So I created Clean Machine to provide a natural, effective alternative.

What skills would you suggest are most valuable to learn early for starting and running a great business?

The numbers first and foremost. Costs, margins, pricing, promotions, etc. that make a business profitable. No company succeeds without being profitable. Second, know your customer. You may think something is great, but that doesn’t mean others do. No wise investor will even consider a business until it is past proof of concept – is there a sustained demand, is it scalable, profitable and what protects you against competition in the marketplace? Bottom line, unless you have years of experience in a business, find some who does. Consultants and mentors can save you from wasting a lot of money and making mistakes that could end your business before you even get started. Partnering with people who excel in areas that you don’t is worth it.

What is your biggest insight on encouraging regard for animals?

Find an approach that suits you. I believe change will come in different ways for different personalities and that they all have their place. I prefer the science and nutrition because that is my passion and it is the way my mind works. But it is also usually less combative or judgemental to just show the research, or the statistics. I am not a confrontational person and for me being vegan is simply an extension of my compassion, so that is how I try to treat others. This approach feels best for me, so finding the approach that feels right for you is a good place to start.

I do caution people about becoming an “angry vegan”. Many people feel (rightfully so) very angry about the injustice and suffering. But if we can find ways to condemn the act and not the person, we may get less resistance to change, which I feel is the real goal (for the animals). No one likes to be judged or made wrong. Finding that nuance in your presentation can mean the difference in how it is received.

What one movie, piece of literature or other medium has most shifted your views?

Funny, I really haven’t felt that influenced by any of them, though I have enjoyed, or been moved by many. My shift came from a deeply personal transformation that freed me from so much of my own pain, I felt such an overwhelming gratitude that I searched my own soul for how I could contribute to less suffering in this world. In meditation, it just came to me and it felt so immediately right in every way, it was if I was already innately vegan, I just needed to remember it. At the time I did not know of any book, or movie (there was no internet yet) and I didn’t even know there was a word “vegan”. Someone else told me after I described my values to them. I was just using “strict vegetarian”.

What is one thing that you believe which almost no one else does?

That life is perfect.

What’s next for you?

Surfing this wave, this vegan movement as far as it will take me and enjoying being a part of this transformation of human consciousness.

That and launching some kick-ass cool new products that help people achieve health and fitness without harming their bodies, the planet or the animals.

Thanks for taking the time to chat Geoff. I hope to remain as passionate about helping animals in 31 years as you are today!

Donation pledge update

As of the 31st of August, 2016, I have pledged to donate all of my income each year over $45,000 Australian for the rest of my life to what I believe is the most effective charity/cause. That’s the short version, but I’d like to say a few more things.

Why are you making this public?

I recently heard a quote (and sadly I can’t remember where so I can’t give due credit – edit: found it) that it’s more selfish to donate and not tell anyone than to donate and tell everyone. By telling people you donate, you encourage giving norms, which encourages other people to donate. Imagine if, over the course of my life, I encourage just 1 other person to do the same. I’ll have doubled my impact.

Also, there is the very real possibility that, if I kept this as a pledge internally, or didn’t pledge at all, my values will drift over my life, and eventually I’ll stop caring to donate.

I keep a very transparent list of my donations here, and encourage others to do the same.

That’s a lot of money! Aren’t you worried?

Not really. As I’ll discuss below I think this would make me much happier than spending the money on myself. Plus $45,000 probably gets you further than you think once you take out excessive holidays, fancy houses, cars, clothes, restaurants, movies etc. And on an income of $45,000, I’d still be in the richest 1.3% of the planet.

Anyway, about $4,000 saves a life at the Against Malaria Foundation, 60 cents reduces one year of animal suffering if donated to an Animal Charity Evaluators recommended charity, and a donation to an existential risk organisation like the Future of Humanity Institute has a meaningful chance at reducing the risk of human extinction. It’s pretty hard to spend too much money on myself once I realised that.

Where do you think that money will go?

I think the answer to this question will change very often, so I won’t answer it in full here. At least in the near future it will probably just go to whichever charity I think is the most effective at reducing the suffering and maximising the pleasure experienced by conscious minds (including non-human animals, insects, and even AI if it turns out to be sentient). In the future I might decide that, say, political lobbying is more effective, so I remain open-minded.

What’s the catch?

Well, if the cost of living dramatically increases, I probably won’t make large sacrifices to maintain the pledge. There are practical and selfish reasons for doing this. The practical reasons are that, sometimes you have to spend money to make (and donate) money. If I were going for a job interview and thought I’d need a suit to land the job but I was about to go over, I’d probably buy the suit.

Also, there’s the risk of burnout. I don’t feel like I’m in any danger of burning out because I’m so motivated to make a difference, but a lot of smart people have told me that living a certain way is difficult to maintain. Donating a medium amount over a life is certainly better than donating everything for 3 years then giving up.

My current living costs are about $20,000 per year, so I really don’t see this happening any time soon. Plus I’m going to allow the cap to grow with inflation.

Wait, $20,000 a year? So you plan to blow $25,000 on yourself each year?

Not quite. I still donate as much as I can, the $25,000 is just to allow for changing circumstances.

Should I do the same?

Maybe. I guess you should ask yourself what you want in life. If it’s to make a positive difference, this is probably one of the best ways of doing so. If it’s for yourself to be happy, I’d actually argue you should still make a pledge. Anecdotally, I am much more happy after I first made a smaller pledge last year, and I feel no regret or worry about doing this today. I feel like I’m making a real difference, and that feels good.

Also, someone earning $100,000 a year is only marginally more satisfied than someone earning $50,000 a year. An individual earning $100,000 but giving half would arguably be quite a bit happier than someone who just earned $50,000 a year too. At about $40,000, other factors, such as health, relationships and a sense of purpose contribute more to happiness than income.

Have you ever felt like you have to work harder so you can buy more ‘stuff’? This is a concept called the ‘hedonic treadmill’. You can keep buying stuff and not really increase your happiness.

As I say, it did take me 18 months between hearing about such pledges and making this one. I would definitely encourage making a smaller pledge (Giving What We Can have suggested 1% for the first year), and increasing that if (or when) you’re convinced it’s manageable/makes you happier.

Any tips for saving money?

Totally. Toast sandwiches are delicious and are one of the cheapest meals per calorie (don’t use dairy butter though folks).

But seriously, Mr. Money Mustache is a great blog on reducing your spending in creative ways and investing wisely.

Budget yourself, and just don’t spend money on crap you don’t need.

I still think you’re kind of weird

Perhaps, but I think it’s a good weird. Plus, more and more people are doing this!

Interview with vegan publishers John Yunker and Midge Raymond

John and Midge are authors and co-founders of the publishing house Ashland Creek Press, which is dedicated to animal and environmental literature.

How and why did you become vegan?

It was a journey that predates Ashland Creek Press. We both took different journeys but arrived at the same destination. And the more we learned about animals and how they are treated, the more this affected every aspect of our lives, including our writing. Ashland Creek Press grew out of desire to see more works of literature that address animal rights issues.

How did you come to writing and publishing?

Midge: We both have journalism backgrounds, and we both worked in publishing in New York. This is when I first began writing fiction. After publishing a number of short stories, my first collection, Forgetting English, was published in 2009, and my novel, My Last Continent, was published this year by Text Publishing. Ashland Creek Press was born thanks to John’s novel, The Tourist Trail, which we published in 2010 after his agent couldn’t find a home for it. This experience made us realize that there is a lot of environmentally themed literature that isn’t finding its way into the world, so we decided to start a boutique press with that focus.

John: While Midge has a strong background in editing, my expertise is more in web, production, and marketing. After publishing The Tourist Trail, we began accepting submissions for Ashland Creek Press and were amazed by the high quality of work we received, which told us that there was definitely a need for an environmental press. We’re now in our fifth year and have published more than twenty books.

What would you suggest for an author looking to write or promote a book about animal ethics? For one, I imagine it’s difficult to write a popular and successful book about animals ethics when so few people take animal suffering seriously.

First, we’d encourage the author to keep us in mind! Second, we’d encourage any writer passionate about these issues to not give up. In many ways, writers who tackle these issues are ahead of their time — but our time will come eventually.

Regarding the writing itself, it’s important that writers understand their audience and what they’re trying to achieve with their work. Some writers are successful in writing for fellow vegans, and their work reflects this. But to write a novel that will appeal across the full spectrum of readers, one must be careful not to be heavy handed in style and voice. You want readers to share your journey, and you must always keep in mind that those who are not vegans might not take the same path that you took. The goal is to open hearts and minds toward these issues by asking important questions in a way that respects where every reader is coming from.

What skills would you suggest are most valuable to learn early for starting and running a great business?

Start small and keep overhead low. We didn’t “give up the day jobs” when starting this press, and we still have other work to help make ends meet. And this gives us the financial freedom take chances on books that fall outside of the mainstream.

Also, a lot of people view publishing as an easy business to run because of the rise of self-publishing models and eBooks. But there are more than 200,000 books published every year, which makes book marketing a constant and never-ending challenge. In other words, we would not recommend that people get into publishing to make money but rather to pursue their passions. It’s definitely a labor of love.

What is it about fiction that allows a message to be communicated better than non-fiction?

Non-fiction speaks to the brain; fiction speaks to the heart. And while we find that non-fiction books have a huge impact on awareness and action (we also publish non-fiction, such as Dogland), we have special affinity for fiction. We’re readers and writers of fiction ourselves and are continually frustrated by the lack of novels that see the world the way we see the world.

What is your biggest insight on encouraging regard for animals, either in print or in person?

Empathy is the key. Most people have empathy for their family pets, and they may not realize, for example, that pigs are as intelligent as their dogs. The challenge is helping them expand their love for such pets as cats and dogs to animals that have largely been overlooked. One strategy is by giving an animal point of view in a story — not an easy feat but, done well, can be quite successful, as it was with the cockatoo Caruso in Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s Love and Ordinary Creatures. Other ways we can find empathy for animals in fiction is by authors creating unforgettable animal characters that live among humans, such as Jata in Mindy Mejia’s The Dragon Keeper. And both editions of Among Animals feature animals from dogs and cats to emus and cockroaches, all of which challenge us to view these creatures in a new light.

What one movie, piece of literature or other medium has most shifted your views?

John: It’s hard to pick just one. Some of the more influential books in my life include Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee, The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, and the story A Report to An Academy by Franz Kafka. When it comes to television, the British mini-series Edge of Darkness continues to inspire me.

Midge: I am a big fan of environmental novels like Ann Pancake’s Strange As This Weather Has Been and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior. Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves beautifully touches on important animal-rights issues. I also think film is a wonderful medium for the animal rights, especially as there are so many good films that tackle the subject from different angles, from Forks Over Knives to Earthlings to Cowspiracy.

What is one thing that you believe which almost no one else does?

We have long made the point that often widely acclaimed “environmental literature” isn’t truly environmental in that nature is exploited rather than respected. We are working hard to promote a “new environmental literature” that doesn’t glorify hunting, fishing, or any form of extraction from nature. We’ve founded the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (www.siskiyouprize.com) specifically to highlight these works. We believe we’re due for a revolution in environmental literature.

What’s next for you?

For ACP, we’ve just published the second volume of Among Animals, an anthology of short stories that explore human-animal relationships.

We also just launched the third annual Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature.

Next year we will be publishing the novel The Crows of Beara, about Ireland, nature versus industry, and the power of landscape. We’ve also just signed a non-fiction book about wild bears of Europe. Most people aren’t aware that there are bears there, and this book sheds light on the struggles that they face, as well as the people who advocate on their behalf.

And we’re also both writing new novels.

Thanks for sharing your time! If you want more information about Ashland Creek Press, check out their website.

I’m hoping for interviews with interesting people doing interesting things will become a regular segment. If you enjoyed this and want to hear more stories, make sure to subscribe. And if you have any interesting stories/experiences/wins you’d like to share, please do get in touch so I can interview you!

From utilitarian to abolitionist and back in a month

I’ve made a video version of this article and have expanded on some of the points here.

I’m a utilitarian through and through, so it might be a surprise to you to know that I called myself an abolitionist for about a month. But I’ve stopped, and I think my thought process is potentially quite useful. Regardless of your current position regarding animal activism, I ask you to read this.

If you’re not familiar with the abolitionist (or rights) approach to animals (and its opposite, welfarism), I’ll briefly sum it up here. Welfarism is about focusing on trying to minimise suffering felt by animals. Some welfarists advocate for strategies such as welfare reforms in factory farming, like changing the way animals are slaughtered. They might also advocate for people reducing their meat consumption. Essentially, it’s a utilitarian point of view, or close to.

Abolitionism rejects this approach, and wants to abolish the property status of animals. For example, an abolitionist would say that anything less than advocating for full veganism (e.g. saying vegetarianism is ‘ok’ or ‘good’) is wrong, and anything less than advocating for full abolition of animal use (e.g. by advocating for welfare reform) is also wrong. The abolitionist movement is lead by Gary L. Francione, Rutgers University law and philosophy scholar/professor.

The story

I had loosely heard of the abolitionist point of view and had dismissed it on utilitarian grounds. I was already vegan and opposed animal experimentation for a number of reasons, but I still reasoned that, in some hypothetical where testing on 1 animal could mean that 10 other animals could leave, it would be quite unreasonable to not test on that animal. This point of view attracted a lot of criticism in mainstream vegan circles such as Facebook groups. One particularly emotive and memorable comment (which I paraphrase) was:

“You would put poison in the eyes of a puppy?”

To which I replied:

“To save 10 other puppies? Yes. If you wouldn’t you’re in effect killing 10 puppies to save 1 to save yourself feeling uncomfortable. That doesn’t make sense.”

We got nowhere but I was satisfied I had soundly won that debate on logical grounds. What got me thinking, though, was this video interview with Francione, where he argued that welfare reform is actually just not effective, and that we already had a welfare reform under Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Things did get a little better for exploited animals, but after a while people became complacent and things got worse. That seemed reasonable enough to me. And so while I never dropped the utilitarian stance, I was open to the possibility that, even on utilitarian grounds, an abolitionist approach was just better in the long run.

Perhaps the best way to be a utilitarian is to pretend not to be a utilitarian.

And so I called myself an abolitionist, and started acting like one. I became opposed to the owning of pets, to welfare reform campaigns, and to advocating for anything less than veganism. I began arguing with my non-vegan family more and started to find it harder to function in a society of meat eaters. But I’m no stranger to dealing with adversity for the sake of my goals, and so I pushed on.

The turn

I began questioning Francione’s point of view when I heard him state in a talk that he wouldn’t test on one animal even if it meant curing cancer, which reminded me of the conversation I had had on Facebook. The math just didn’t add up for me.

I read Francione’s Rain Without Thunder (1996), or at least made it halfway before giving up. He had some solid points in that welfare reforms simply were not as effective as people thought they were, and possibly made things worse. He criticised Peter Singer and his utilitarian stance towards animals (who believes that animal use could be acceptable as long as their interests are considered equally to human interests), and praised Tom Regan‘s deontological position of giving all animals rights, although he didn’t spend any time justifying why deontology was better than utilitarianism. The more I read, the less I was convinced.

The tipping point

The final tipping point was when I was reading Brian Tomasik‘s work on wild animal suffering. He argued that a rights approach to animals might actually increase animal suffering in the long run, if we consider wild animals. I directly quote from Wikipedia here:

“The argument is that animal rights leads people to believe that all animals have fundamental rights and should not be exploited or interfered with, regardless of the outcome on wellbeing. This may lead people to be against interfering with nature and wild animals. However, the magnitude of wild animal suffering is potentially immense,^[9] and interfering with the wild may be a good way to reduce this suffering.”

I feel that the reason most discussions about abolitionism go nowhere is because people aren’t even valuing the same thing, and so of course they have different answers. If you primarily value the wellbeing of animals and disvalue their suffering, you would probably seek to do whatever max/mins wellbeing/suffering in the long run, which might be an abolitionist-like methodology, and might not. If you want to try and optimise for individual rights instead of wellbeing you’d perhaps take a different approach.

I’m becoming less convinced that I should try and optimise for rights above and beyond how it relates to wellbeing. If it came down to me choosing (all else being equal including flow-on effects, which doesn’t really happen in reality of course) between an animal being happy and an animal being miserable but slightly less exploited, I don’t think I could justify the latter. It seems almost forceful and exploitative itself to choose to consign some animal to misery just so they can be a bit less exploited. Surely what animals fundamentally value themselves is wellbeing, not a lack of exploitation. Humans value not being exploited because it feels bad. Non-human animals only feel bad in factory farmed conditions because such conditions objectively suck for animals. They are abused and are kept in awful conditions. I’m not convinced that ‘humane’ slaughter is possible in reality, and so I still won’t advocate for it, but I won’t pretend that there is some other thing that animals value called ‘rights’.

Final thoughts

As the icing on the cake, I expressed my concerns to Francione on his Facebook page, and he deleted my comment and blocked from liking the page. Well said, Francione.

Should you donate to Animal Charity Evaluators even if you’re not vegan?

If you haven’t heard of Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) yet, there’s a really neat summary of them here, but in short, they are doing research on the most effective ways to help animals and reduce their suffering. They perform foundational research on a range of things from the effectiveness of various interventions, such as leafleting to encourage people to go vegan or eat less meat, to the scale of wild animal suffering (it’s huge).

They also produce recommendations on which charities to donate to in order to reduce animal suffering. Perhaps counterintuitively, they don’t recommend animal shelters. This is because the impact of creating one extra vegan on animal wellbeing is so high that it makes the impact of sheltering one extra animal look tiny in comparison. ACE estimates that Vegan Outreach, one of their standout charities which does leafleting at universities, can spare 1.87 animals from a life on a factory farm per dollar donated. By reducing the demand for meat, the animals are, in theory¹, never brought into existence in the first place. If you believe like I do that a life of immense suffering is worse than no life at all, this is surely a good thing.

Let’s suppose that rescuing and sheltering one animal costs $50. I have no idea what it costs but I think this is a safe underestimate. Therefore, for the same cost that it takes to shelter an animal, Vegan Outreach can spare 93.5 animals from a life of suffering. Unless you value shelter animals much more than you do food animals, you should donate to Vegan Outreach (or better yet, ACE, to multiply your impact). I don’t think you should value shelter animals more than food animals though. They can all suffer, and in fact pigs are more intelligent than dogs, so if capacity to suffer is what you care about, you should probably care about pigs a little more than dogs.

So this is why I would argue you should donate to an effective animal charity rather than a shelter, but what about the original question? There are many great reasons to go vegan, and it’s really easy, yet many have still decided to not go vegan because they enjoy the taste of animals too much. Even if this is you, I think you should still donate to ACE. Most people who eat animals still claim to care about animals, so if you want to be at least partially consistent with that belief, the very least you could do is donate to a charity which is reducing their suffering. Of course, I think being vegan is far easier than people think, and you should do this as well because it’s not one or the other (see this video for how to literally go vegan overnight). I’m also not saying that anything but a vegan lifestyle is ethically justified, and don’t want to make it sound like I’m supporting that. But if you can’t bring yourself to be completely vegan, at least donate a chunk of your money to ACE². Last estimate I heard was that it costs $500 to create one vegan through Vegan Outreach, so you should donate at least that much³. But why stop there?

Let’s go one step further and say that you currently donate to charities that focus on humans. Arguably the most effective charity working on poverty and global health, the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), saves a human life for around $3,300 USD. In effect, you would have to value human life something like 3,000+ times more than the life of an animal to donate to AMF instead of a top animal charity.

Footnotes

¹I say in theory because other factors such as market elasticity are at play which dilute your effect.

² I’m wary that such a stance will make people less likely to go vegan and to just donate a bit of money to ACE and think they’re ok. I think, on balance, this article is more likely to have a net positive effect than a net negative effect (otherwise I wouldn’t have posted it), but I want to make it doubly clear that I think you should do both.

³ An interesting conclusion comes out of this which might be uncomfortable for those who aren’t consequentialist in their ethical beliefs. If donating $1 is expected to save 1.87 animals from a life of suffering, that means that by not donating, you have confined 1.87 animals to a life of suffering, because there is no morally relevant different between an action and an inaction (think walking past a drowning child in a shallow pond when you could easily save them). By extension, if you’re vegan (or even if you’re not) and you spend $20 on a nice restaurant meal when you could have eaten for $5, having spent $15 on yourself needlessly instead of donating it to a top animal charity, you have consigned 28 animals to a life of suffering. Consider that next time you dine out. This leads to questions like ‘well where does it end then?’ Maybe it doesn’t. Living on less is easy and arguably better for your wellbeing, and you get to save a ton of lives. Why wouldn’t you?

Disclosure: While Michael has worked with ACE in the past, he has never been an employee or an official volunteer.