WEBVTT - The Morality of Meat 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.000 Welcome back to point of Origin. On today's episode, we're 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.760 talking about the morality of meat, what it means to 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.400 consume it, to abstain from it, and as always, how 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:24.639 matters of morality are murky and impossible to entangle from culture, society, 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:29.240 and privilege. Today's episode is a banger. We begin with 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.639 writer Alicia Kennedy, one of the clearest and most compelling 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.960 voices in food media today, on among other things, veganism, 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.640 but more broadly, the politics of eating. We then travel 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.879 to India where Dr Yameni n Ryan and discusses the 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:48.240 politicization of beef in India and in particular what happens 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.839 when cal protection laws and dietary regulations are codified as 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.440 a means of marginalizing lower caste and Muslims. And finally 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.680 we go to the Dominican Republic with East and Batista 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.160 activists and owner of Woke Foods, who discusses her ongoing 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.160 activism through plant based recipes as a means of healing 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.920 and restoration, the politics of meat and diet, diet and 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.280 identity today on point of Origin, it's the morality of meat. 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:32.240 I've officially not eaten meat since that is Alicia Kennedy, 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.040 And it was something I had always been interested in, 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.080 something I'd always been attracted to as an idea. Alicia 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.400 is a writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico, whose 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.720 writing explorers not only the politics of food, but also 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:52.280 the interconnected elements of culture, climate, and access. There was 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:57.360 something about it that always made sense to me, But 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.720 lifestyle wise, it was too difficult when I was a 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.920 younger person who wasn't in control of of what she ate, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.239 wasn't in control of, you know, all her money, um 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:15.400 to make that decision for myself. And also there was 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.760 the fact that for a long time, vegan and vegetarian 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:24.840 food had a terrible reputation, and it earned that reputation. 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.919 The food was a bit bland, it was um, it 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.919 was a white gaze turned towards global cuisine and and 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.840 done improperly without the correct um, you know, either cooking 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.160 methods or without the correct spices and what have you. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:48.680 And that wasn't something I was interested in because I've 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:53.400 always been a person who, first and foremost, even while 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.119 I believe food is you know, utterly entrenched in all 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:02.320 the systems of that both oppress and exalt us as 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:06.480 human beings. It is also, you know, first and foremost 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.919 something that we have to enjoy every day of our lives. 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.919 And Alicia, how did you feel about the prevailing mainstream 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:18.040 notions around veganism at that time? I mean, I hated them, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.160 but at the same time I understood them because I 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.760 understood that they were rooted in the same things that 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:27.840 kept me from not embracing veganism until I was able 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.760 to ensure that it wouldn't taste bad, you know, like 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.320 so um. And I still understand even you know Anthony 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.320 Bourdain's kind of grandma rule, which is, you know, if 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.400 someone invites you to dinner, you eat what they serve you. Yeah, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.200 David Chang, it's funny. That's a funny aspect of it, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.920 because he was so anti vegetarian that he was like, 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.800 I'm never serving anything vegetarian at Mamafuku, etcetera, etcetera. And 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:58.760 then he became the first spokesperson basically for Impossible Burghers 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.800 and was like, oh, finally, the veggie burger is delicious, 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.160 and it's like, well, you never really tried to make 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.000 it delicious otherwise, and also probably haven't had that many 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.560 veggie burgers. And then one comes along that's taken you know, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.200 millions of dollars to develop and bleeds slightly and you know, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.680 looks exactly like meat, and finally, you know, it's accepted 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.920 into the pantheon of the fine dining restaurants, and so 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:29.039 you know, it's all just very predictable. The emphasis on 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.240 it needing to bleed. It's something that really stuck with 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.680 me after the conversation because obviously, in the US, not 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.880 only eating but cooking meat is seen as a gendered act. 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:47.000 So it's funny but also not surprising that in order 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:51.279 for a plant based meat to be considered acceptable, it 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:56.280 needed not only to bleed but also a masculine champion. 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.640 A lot of me, stream media is super interested in 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.200 the new fake meat um what I usually call tech 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.520 burgers or tech meat um. It's fascinated by them and 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.520 by lab made meat and and that sort of thing. 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.159 And for me, the whole thing is like, why aren't 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.760 you as fascinated by tofu and tempe, which are ancient 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:23.080 proteins that are delicious and also, you know, don't centralize production, 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.160 don't come from you necessarily corporate producers and that sort 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.839 of thing. But in terms of meat, I mean, it's 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:35.039 funny because we've had so many conversations culturally and within 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:40.520 food media about how unsustainable our consumption of meat is, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.440 especially in the United States, especially around beef, even though 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.559 poultry I think at this point um out out runs 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.560 beef in terms of consumption, but which is insane because 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.839 people consume I think two and twenty pounds a year 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.719 in the United States of between beef and poultry. And 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:05.600 the conversation, yeah, it's people eat so much meat. And 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.960 so even though it seems like we're having all these 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.359 conversations around sustainability and you know, cattle production at this 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.680 scale in factory farming, and so I've seen the conversation 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:24.960 move lately toward sustainable grass fed, you know, regenerative regenerative 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.279 agriculture in beef, and you know, I understand that, you know, 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.360 I've talked to a lot of experts in this, butchers 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.920 or or even farmers themselves, and it makes sense, you know, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.839 like we have a ton of grass on the planet 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.720 and we can't eat the grass and make it into anything, 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:46.279 but cows can. And then so it makes sense that 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.479 they're part of our you know, human landscape, part of 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.760 our human relationship to the to the planet. But at 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:59.320 the same time, when you've trained a population to consume 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.840 meat at such a rate and in such volume and 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:09.080 then ask them to change, it would require so much 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.720 change to people's diets. And we are not capable of 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:19.760 um changing the the agriculture of cattle on such a 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.920 large scale to provide this volume of meat to everybody, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.080 um to make it be more sustainable. You can tell 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.160 people until you're you're blue in the face that they 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.400 have to consume less meat. But you know, how do 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.680 you really change people's diets. How do you convince them 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.280 that they need to spend more If they're going to 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.000 eat meat, they need to spend more money, They need 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.280 to have a relationship with their butcher. You know, these 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.400 are things that were systemically destroyed by the cattle industry, 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.120 by the meat packers in the United States. It was 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.120 it was a plot to centralize meat production and to 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.040 get people away from their local butchers. And that's that 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.600 was successful. And so you know, that's that's what America 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.480 is built onto. So that's what that's the foundation of 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:12.200 the food system. Alicia raises an excellent point here. Not 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.000 only do we consume enormously high volumes of meat. But, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.480 as we discussed in episode twenty seven Beyond the Wheat, 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.400 in the period of less than a century, we've become 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.760 so disconnected from the tears of our food system that 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.480 we have no sense of what's required to bring the 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:35.880 food onto our plates. We don't understand concepts like seasonality, regionality, 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.000 mono cropping, and certainly not migrant labor. We can't really 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:44.040 appreciate the specialized knowledge of what it takes to harvest 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.520 an unfathomably high volume of produce, and what it takes 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.280 to process it, to store it, to transport it, to 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.600 wholesale it, to retail it. We are a long way 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.000 away from the days of local millers and bakers, from 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:04.040 local butchers processors, and even further away still from the 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.200 image of meat itself. And it's important to note that 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.280 the creation of this void has been intentional, and the 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:17.240 same forces that created it, i e. Multinational food corporations 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.559 have also filled it with themselves with their own enterprises. 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.440 We happily purchase slices of meat or ground beef, but 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.560 in the Western world, when we see an animal head 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:44.640 or carcass, it feels challenging or gross even all right, 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.240 So let's talk about tech burgers, as you call them 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.720 a apt and hilarious name. I've been calling them tech 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.840 burgers because they've mostly been burgers. But now I've noticed 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.640 that the ground meat, yeah, the ground meat from Impossible 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.880 and Beyond meat is used now as just simply an 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.240 ingredient in in even New York Times cooking recipes, which 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:09.200 is fascinating. UM. I don't think anyone would ever recommend 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.360 a specific kind of cow meat UM in a in 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:15.679 a New York Times recipe, it would just be ground beef. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:21.479 But now there's trademarked products UM in the in the recipes, 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.880 which for me, that's that's the big problem with it 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.800 is that it it's corporate, it's centralized, it's extractive in 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:33.400 terms of ecology. Even though it's it's maybe less impactful 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.520 than than beef production on the factory farmed scale, it's 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:43.920 still about encouraging monocultures UM. Impossible beef burgers, which are 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.199 sold at Burger King and many other places, UM used 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:51.520 genetically modified soy, which is also happily subsidized by the government, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.960 same as beef UM production, and you know, they just 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.800 kind of create UM a lot of the same problems 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.880 again because we're still at once again focusing on single 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:10.120 ingredients created by a single source, and um, that doesn't 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.040 bring us any closer to really changing how we relate 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.000 to food. You know, like there's there's veggie burgers that 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.839 people make at a vegetarian restaurant that will get super 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.240 made fun of, but you know they you know, they 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.960 combine like a whole host of grains and legumes and 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:32.160 vegetables and flavors in order to produce something that, yes, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.800 is more like a vegetable croquette than a burger, but 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:39.360 it's also you know, it's it's bespoke. It's something that 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.160 like that person that chef has developed. It's an act 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.360 of creativity, which is what we are supposed to I 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.480 thought expect from recipe writers and from and from chefs 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:50.440 and cook everything. It's a good point we don't actually 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:52.040 just talk about the fact that it's kind of weak 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.840 that chefs haven't been more enthusiastic about creating something that 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.720 doesn't even necessarily need to approximate it. I mean, even 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.040 a really delicious singular iteration of a vegetable croquette that 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:06.640 made me think harder about what my ideas of burder 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.240 work would be appreciated. So um, good point there. I mean, 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.880 people who've been in food you know full stop, like 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.360 you know how how most of the sausage is made um, 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.120 so to speak in the United States. You know that. 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.280 You know, if you're going to a big supermarket, you're 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.920 getting a commodity product, and you know that that that 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:34.040 worker may have repetitive motion and injuries from the kind 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.920 of work that they're doing, from the kind of pace 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.640 that they're expected to take. You probably know that they're 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.960 in cramped quarters. You probably know that many of these 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:47.760 people are undocumented and are subject to harassment and arrest, 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:52.160 and you know, deportation by ice. You know these things 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.040 if you're a person who pays attention to how the 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:00.600 food gets to the plate, so to watch people still 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:03.600 ignore this in food media when you have a huge, 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.760 willing audience of people who are going to the grocery 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.880 store who are cooking, and you don't let you don't 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.200 let it change anything about how you talk about food. 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:19.960 You don't chain, you don't mention that you know, meat 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:25.679 processing centers have been hotspots of the spread of the virus, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.280 that people have died, that children have died of COVID 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.440 nineteen from being exposed from their parents working at meat 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.520 processing plants. And it doesn't bother these people that it's 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:41.720 President Trump who has decided that meat processing, of all things, 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.000 is extremely essential, whereas production of PPE for the healthcare 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:51.440 industry hasn't been essential, that um, that testing and contact 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.560 tracing hasn't been essential. That these things are actually seen 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:57.440 as some sort of detriment to you know, his his 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.440 reign of power. But meat process thing is essential to it, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.360 even though it's it's putting people's lives in danger. Like 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.920 that should tell everyone everything they need to know about 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.920 what meat means in the United States. You know, it 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:18.280 means authority, it means um, you know, unpaid, poorly treated 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.680 immigrant labor. It means animal cruelty. I think this situation 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.080 has in so many ways laid bare so many problems 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:32.080 in the United States. And so to watch food editors 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.120 at you know, the biggest the biggest outlets in the 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.000 country completely ignore this in favor of telling people that 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.920 they should comfort themselves with cheeseburgers at this time or 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:47.880 with a chicken and pork patte um. While most knowing 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:49.840 that most people are going to go to the supermarket 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:51.520 and get the commodity meat. They're not going to go 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.840 to the butcher. They're not gonna you know, they're not 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.920 having a close relationship with their farmer and making sure 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.960 that everything is above board. You know, that's so irresponsible, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.960 that's so negligent, and like I mean to me that 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.240 you know, these editors and these writers have a hand 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.520 in these people going to work under unsafe conditions because 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.200 they continue to encourage people to consume something that is 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:24.520 leading to sickness and death. And that's just inexcusable to me. Yeah, wow, wow. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:29.480 And the inability of editors to to bring that kind 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.760 of analysis into the way that they do their jobs 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.960 has resulted in a kind of complicitness that I don't 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.920 really think that they're ready to hear or absorb yet, 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.840 But that is very deep. And um, I hope that 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.480 we can get through a point in the and the 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.320 discourse in the same way that we have around the 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:55.000 reconciliation of you know, sexual predation um or or racial discrimination, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.680 about the harm that is being perpetuated you know, in 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:07.160 in media. So Alicia, we are in what some people 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.000 are calling a moment of reckoning. And one of the 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.680 things that many people are reconciling is their relationship to meet. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.800 But mind you, and you know this well that people 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.760 eat meat for a variety of reasons, but not the 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.960 least of which is their socio economic condition. And that 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.240 condition can be multifaceted, but in no small part is 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.480 due to the fact that meat is often the cheapest 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.160 part of their diet, and the fact that it is 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.360 the cheapest part of their diet has to do with 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:42.240 really aggressive lobbying and heavy subsidies paid by taxpayers. So 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.760 my question for myself and for my people is often 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.080 how can we amplify and support this important message of 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:55.120 needing to eat less meat, but without condemnation, with empathy, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:17:01.000 and frankly, without sounding to paternalistic. I think in age first, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.560 on this level with people you have knowledge of deeply 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:09.280 and are intimate enough with to have that conversation, to 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:15.879 have hard conversations, and you know, come with deliciousness, like 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:20.160 you know, if you want someone to stop centering meat 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.160 in their diet, like show them how they can eat 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.560 something else that is also delicious, that is also cheat 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:32.400 you know, that is also you know, well sourced if possible, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:37.119 and you know, make that the focal point you know, 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:41.159 I think I've in my in my almost ten years 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.000 of not eating me and I've changed a lot of 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.400 people's maybe not their whole life, maybe not their diet completely, 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.240 but I've changed their mind about what veganism means and 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.480 what it is by simply making a really good cake 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.640 or a really good cookie, or like a cashew mac 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.520 and cheese that someone really enjoyed and didn't, you know, 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.000 screw at them that it had no no dairy in it, 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:08.000 you know, And don't think you have to change everyone's 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.480 mind all at once, because you won't, you know. Like, 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.240 and I think also encouraging people to simply consume less 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:21.359 meat and thus better maybe more expensive meat than you know, 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.280 show people how they can get their protein in another 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.120 way that works, But never come at people who are 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:34.480 not um already open to it, because it's not gonna work. 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.879 You're just gonna alienate people. I think, in terms of 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.680 vegetarianism and veganism, like talking food first is way better 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.480 than trying to change someone's heart and mind. Um, that's 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:53.360 that's a lot more difficult than changing their stomachs. I 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:58.040 was actually born vegetarian my cost, so I I belong 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.760 to a cost which was always vegetarian, and I sort 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:06.000 of inherited vegetarianism just because of my my upbringing and background. 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.160 I've never thought once about animals at all until about 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.760 five years ago. Beyond the personal or morals. Sometimes these 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.040 questions of whether or not to eat meat are superseded 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.440 by one's culture or religion, and in order to talk 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:24.720 about the morality of meat, we also need to consider 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.280 these factors. And to do so, we go to India 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.240 with researcher Dr Yamini no Ryan in where the convergence 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:35.120 of cultural, political, religious, and social pressure to abstain from 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:40.320 eating meat all come to a head. So I never 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:44.520 thought about the ethics of my diet because I assume 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.639 that if I don't like thought about it, I assume 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.600 that I was okay, because I would have vegetarianism in 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.000 my mind, and I think in the minds of most 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.560 Indians but also most people in general, does not necessarily 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.639 involve slaughter, does not necessarily involve and on suffering. I 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.920 was a where that there's a raging conversation, of course, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.800 politically around this question in India, because you have a 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:11.360 very strong Hindu ultra nationalist right wing government in India. 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.800 Dr Na ryan And is a senior lecturer in International 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.960 and Community Development at Deacon University in Australia. Her work 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.560 focuses on the nexus between animals and urban planning in 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:27.240 India and the intersections of species ism, cast is um 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.840 and racism and the ways in which animals are enrolled 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.119 in nation building projects. As Dr Na ryan And tells us, 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.199 the interesting thing is that although India is not a 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.400 nation associated with beef, they are one of the world's 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:46.000 largest producers and exporters. Here she expounds on that relationship 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.440 and how this contradiction came to be at the moment 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:51.600 we've been having them for the last five years, where 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.640 they have really taken on the cause of cow protection 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.960 in a very political, very violent sort of way. In 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:02.320 there in their vision and cow protection means protecting the 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.600 cow from slaughter. Implicitly, this means protecting the cow from 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.560 um Muslims and also who they see as low cost 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.639 Hindus who are consumers of beef. Right where consumers of 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.520 meat so special and there's a cow is seen as 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.760 a sacred animal in Hinduism. Um they see this as 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.680 a way of marginalizing Muslims and and low cost Hindus 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.200 who they who they see as low cost Hindus. Som 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.639 me dating is extremely political and volatile in terms of 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:35.520 resistance to these sorts of um world views as well. 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:40.359 So meat eating in fact is seen as a political activity, 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.480 and vegetarianism therefore, because the Hindu writering is is honestly 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.360 so violent about it, Vegetarianism in India is seen as 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:51.720 some sort of a fastest activity, which is really interesting 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.240 because a lot of cultures might disagree with vegetarianism, but 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.719 in India it actually becomes the fastest activity. Right. So 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.479 it was in this context that I started my research 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:04.800 on card protection five years ago. And so when you're 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.200 talking about vegetarian being perceived as a method of fascism, 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.720 which is fascinating, is it because it's used as an 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:18.480 instrument to oppress and already oppressed or marginalized class And 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.320 is that being done specifically by preventing access to foods 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:27.640 that would otherwise be part of their traditional and cultural diet. Absolutely, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:33.560 absolutely so. So vegetarianism is being mobilized specifically against bee fetus, 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.959 so not necessarily against consumers about meat. So you know, 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.720 if you're eating chicken or or lamb, or other meat. 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.280 That's that's okay. It's specifically as a way of marginalizing 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.800 bee fetus because in the in the world, in the 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:52.359 political sort of narrative, Muslims and low cast Hindus are 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.439 the only be fatus, which is not true. If you 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.200 actually do a demographic story of India, everybody is everybody 0:22:58.240 --> 0:23:01.560 is consuming base, including the supersede themselves as high cast, 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:06.320 so it's across the board. But the political narrative is 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.240 that it's only these sorts of minorities who don't belong 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.399 to the Hindu nation, to the Hindu Indian nation, and 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:15.320 therefore they either need to tow the line or they 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:17.560 just need to, you know, not be part of this nation. 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:22.679 So so therefore vegetarianism becomes um becomes seenus as very 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.399 fastest activity because it's kind of used as part of 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:29.680 nation building. In their view, they want this ultra right wing, 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:33.359 pure Hindu Indian nation, and vegetarianism is part of this 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:36.000 pure Hindu nation. Because it is seen as part of 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.359 nation building, it is tied up so politically it goes 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:41.600 well beyond the ethics of diet itself. It's kind of 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:46.240 almost like a nationalist ultra nationalist narrative right. Interestingly enough, 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:49.159 for a high beef producing country, India does not actually 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:51.240 have any beef cows. So if you look at other 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:54.920 leading beef producers in the world United States, Brazil, Australia 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:59.400 and New Zealand, they all real cows that are explicitly 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:02.760 for the beef sector. Like anger scouse. India does not 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:08.159 have any breed of cattle that's actually for for for 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:12.560 beef purposes. The only actually a real dairy house because 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:14.440 we're not supposed we're supposed to We're not supposed to 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:17.520 be slaughtering house. You can raise dairy cows. We are 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:19.880 the world's largest producer of dairy and we have been 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:23.679 since nineteen seven, so over twenty years you'll be the 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:28.879 largest producer of dairy. Um. But but but the fact 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:32.080 that dairy is also linked to cow slaughter is fully obscured. 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:35.040 What actually happens in India is that we have an 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:39.080 industrial scale of cow slaughter that simply goes underground. So 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:41.280 it's not that we do not slaughter house. They simply 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:43.480 go underground. So we have the largest year of the 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.720 one of the largest war and slaughtery countries in the world. 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.480 We think of industrial slaughtering in the West as something 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:54.480 that happens in these giant industrial slaughterhouses, right, But in 0:24:54.560 --> 0:24:59.640 developing countries, and certainly in India, industrial industrial slaughtering happens informally. 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:04.080 It happens underground. It happens in people's that yards, and 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:08.200 this happens usually in the homes of highly racialized minorities, 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:11.200 highly vulnerable minorities. And this is across the board in 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:14.360 almost all countries, right, So the ones that are performing 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:17.800 this sort of really risky labor, and in India it 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.399 is extremely risky because it's also illegal, right. It's actually 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:25.600 they're not just having to perform labor, which is not 0:25:25.920 --> 0:25:29.000 very nice, but it's also outright illegal. And there is 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:32.120 there is like really high penalties in many states in India, 0:25:32.200 --> 0:25:36.320 especially those that have um a Hindu nationalist political party 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:39.840 ruling the state. Right, the penalties tend to be very high. 0:25:39.920 --> 0:25:42.440 In the state of Buddad, for example, it's life imprisonment. 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:45.040 When cows are sold for slaughter in the in the 0:25:45.280 --> 0:25:49.399 in the market, they don't necessarily get sold as sluck 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.280 as as as slaughter cows, you know, they get sold 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:56.200 as dairy cows. They get sold repeatedly over many, many, 0:25:56.200 --> 0:25:59.560 many different park markets. It's almost impossible to trace the 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:01.879 point of origin at the point of sort of destination. 0:26:02.520 --> 0:26:05.400 And they go through so many markets across so many states. 0:26:05.400 --> 0:26:08.080 Because there's only about two states in India where cow 0:26:08.160 --> 0:26:11.400 slaughtering is actually legal, so a lot of cows from 0:26:11.400 --> 0:26:13.879 throughout India, that is the states of Kerala and Western 0:26:13.920 --> 0:26:17.080 Goal they go through many, many, many markets sold as 0:26:17.160 --> 0:26:19.600 dairy cows the point of purpose because it's not per 0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:22.200 se illegal to sell a cow. You can sell a cow, 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:25.000