Speaker 1: All right, Dan, will you run the Humane League. It's
Speaker 1: one of the largest, arguably most effective animal welfare organizations
Speaker 1: in the world. And I would say generally animal welfare
Speaker 1: organizations have you know, sort of steered people into donat meat,
Speaker 1: go vegan. But you recently made a sort of heretical statement,
Speaker 1: which is saying that there's a place for meat eaters
Speaker 1: in the animal welfare movement. Now, before we get into
Speaker 1: why you said that, in your point, I want to
Speaker 1: sort of set the stage for people about animal welfare.
Speaker 1: I think we all sort of inherently know factory farming
Speaker 1: is bad, but like, what are the realities of what
Speaker 1: you're fighting for here? What does that actually mean and
Speaker 1: what happens in factory farming.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I agree with what you said.
Speaker 3: I think most people have some sense that factory farming
Speaker 3: is not good for animals, it's not good for the planet,
Speaker 3: it's not good for the people involved. What I don't
Speaker 3: think people have is a good understanding about a couple
Speaker 3: of things. I think one is the scale that factory
Speaker 3: farming operates at.
Speaker 2: You know, just in this.
Speaker 3: Country, in the US alone, at any given time, there
Speaker 3: are billions with a b billions of animals living in
Speaker 3: factory farming conditions.
Speaker 2: We can talk more about what those conditions look.
Speaker 3: Like, but that's like, you know, at any given time,
Speaker 3: the farm animal population of this planet far exceeds the
Speaker 3: human population, and by several times.
Speaker 2: So if you just think about.
Speaker 3: The scale of the individuals involved, I think people often
Speaker 3: just aren't quite connecting with that piece of it, right,
Speaker 3: and how much that's grown significantly over the past, like,
Speaker 3: you know, fifty seventy five years, even from when our
Speaker 3: grandparents were you.
Speaker 2: Know, we're around.
Speaker 3: Another thing that I think people don't really understand is
Speaker 3: the kind of depth of the suffering, right of the
Speaker 3: kind of how bad the welfare conditions are for animals
Speaker 3: on in industrialized agriculture.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of us grew up with the Richard.
Speaker 3: Scarry type of book right where it's kind of like
Speaker 3: you've got happy animals grassy fields. It's not to say
Speaker 3: that doesn't exist, right in some parts of this country.
Speaker 3: You can drive through on the highway and you might
Speaker 3: see cows kind of out on a grassy field and
Speaker 3: think that seems fine, right, But those conditions represent you know,
Speaker 3: less than like three percent two percent.
Speaker 2: Right of the overall volume.
Speaker 3: Of animals that are living in agriculture at any given time,
Speaker 3: and for ninety seven ish percent of animals, the reality
Speaker 3: is very different from that.
Speaker 1: So we're talking to billions, you know, that are living
Speaker 1: in this different reality which we're about to get into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly that.
Speaker 3: And you know, you go to the farmer's marketing, you
Speaker 3: talk to the very nice farmer there. They're probably doing
Speaker 3: a great job, right and then taking animal welfare very seriously.
Speaker 3: But again, they make up a tiny fraction of the
Speaker 3: overall industry. And what the reality is for the majority
Speaker 3: of the industry and the majority of the animals involved,
Speaker 3: is an industrialized approach to agriculture and that means a
Speaker 3: couple of things. It means treating animals more like you know,
Speaker 3: farm equipment, right, like a track, right, then you would
Speaker 3: dog or a cat, right, And so that manifests in
Speaker 3: some different ways.
Speaker 2: That manifests primarily through extreme.
Speaker 3: Confinement conditions, right, housing animals in the smallest space that's
Speaker 3: economically viable to save money. Right, You save money that
Speaker 3: way by you know, overall operation costs, by the amount
Speaker 3: of feed that these animals eat, because they don't if
Speaker 3: they can't move around right, They don't burn a lot
Speaker 3: of calories, so they don't need a lot of feed.
Speaker 3: And there's multiple ways that that becomes economical for the industry.
Speaker 3: What that means for the animals, right, And to give
Speaker 3: one example is like in the egg industry, which we
Speaker 3: do a lot of work on at the Humane League.
Speaker 2: Most egg laying.
Speaker 3: Hens live their entire lives and what's called the battery cage,
Speaker 3: which is a cage about the size of a file
Speaker 3: cabinet fur where you'd see four to six animals living
Speaker 3: their entire.
Speaker 2: Lives from birth to death, never setting foot outside of it.
Speaker 2: In filings, people just like four to six, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Just think about opening your filing cabinet up and there's
Speaker 3: four heads living in entire lives in there. They never
Speaker 3: move right, animals aren't allowed they're not able to spread
Speaker 3: their wings, they're not able to move around right. So
Speaker 3: there's the obvious like physical right conditions and the suffering
Speaker 3: that that creates. There's also a sort of you know,
Speaker 3: a kind of mental toll that this takes on the animals,
Speaker 3: you know, who have rich inner lives the same as
Speaker 3: our cats and dogs do.
Speaker 2: Right. And then chickens, you know, to continue to have.
Speaker 3: Example, these are animals whose natural instincts tell them to nest, right,
Speaker 3: to build nests, the dust bathe to perch right.
Speaker 2: And you know, it might seem silly to us because
Speaker 2: we don't.
Speaker 3: Have those instincts, but for them, these are like very
Speaker 3: deeply rooted instinctual behaviors that they have. And there's a
Speaker 3: tremendous amount of mental suffering that goes into being having
Speaker 3: all those behaviors frustrated, right, and they're not able.
Speaker 2: To pursue them in the conditions that they live.
Speaker 3: Then the third thing that I would point to is
Speaker 3: the kind of social dynamics for these animals, right, Like,
Speaker 3: like we are, right, animals inherently social, right, and they're
Speaker 3: just stay you know, the farming environments don't recreate the
Speaker 3: same kinds of social structures, right, familial interactions that that
Speaker 3: animals would have.
Speaker 2: In most instances, when.
Speaker 3: Pregnant farmed animals give birth, the babies are separated from
Speaker 3: the mothers at the moment of birth, never to see
Speaker 3: them again. Right, And so in all these different ways,
Speaker 3: their inherent social structures are broken apart, and again a
Speaker 3: tremendous amount.
Speaker 2: Of stress and suffering comes with that.
Speaker 3: And just basically, these animals lives don't look anything like
Speaker 3: what they would look like in the wild, or even
Speaker 3: a close proximity to that. And when you think about
Speaker 3: the billions and billions of animals that are living in
Speaker 3: those conditions every day of their lives, every day of
Speaker 3: our lives, right, the scale of this issue, I really
Speaker 3: truly believe is a moral atrocity of historic proportions, right,
Speaker 3: And I firmly believe that there will come a time
Speaker 3: in the future, well we'll look back on this period
Speaker 3: of animal agriculture and see it as I think what
Speaker 3: a lot of us see it as today, which is
Speaker 3: a the historical mistake, right, and a moral failure on
Speaker 3: our part to kind of recognize that this is what
Speaker 3: we were doing and doing something. But we're not there
Speaker 3: yet obviously, But I think our work at the Human
Speaker 3: League and across the animal protection movement is to try
Speaker 3: to bring that moment about and try to accelerate our part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think some people have a point of view
Speaker 1: of well, they're animals, we're humans. They're different, they don't
Speaker 1: suffer like us. What do we know about animal's ability
Speaker 1: to suffer mentally? And physically, and then how does that
Speaker 1: actually manifest itself based on what either scientists or people
Speaker 1: with organizations like yours see in some of these factory farms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do know that animals can, you know,
Speaker 3: scientifically proven too feel pain and suffer basically the same
Speaker 3: way that we do, particularly factories, you know, farmed animals, cows, chickens, pigs,
Speaker 3: central nervous system, rights, rebook, cortex. They have all the
Speaker 3: wiring right that they need to feel pain and suffer
Speaker 3: the same way that we do, the same way that
Speaker 3: caps it dogs do. Farm animals are more intelligent, I
Speaker 3: think than people give them credit for.
Speaker 2: Right, when you start.
Speaker 3: Thinking about the mental aguish Pigs are demonstrably smarter than dogs.
Speaker 2: And there's no disrespect to dogs.
Speaker 3: I have dog, We love dogs, you know, but pigs
Speaker 3: are smarter than dogs, right, And so I often think
Speaker 3: about dogs as our analogy for just like, imagine your
Speaker 3: dog living in these types of conditions and what that
Speaker 3: would mean to them, and.
Speaker 2: It's going to be no different from a pig. Right.
Speaker 3: I do think it's fair to say that animals are
Speaker 3: different from humans, right, So a lot of people don't
Speaker 3: realize that pigs, right, are proven to be as intelligent
Speaker 3: as dogs. They perform just asia as dogs do on
Speaker 3: animal kind of cognition and intelligence tests.
Speaker 2: So I often think about dogs as our analogy.
Speaker 3: Right, imagine your family dog at home living through the
Speaker 3: kinds of conditions that we talked about, and you know,
Speaker 3: that's that's kind of what sounds. I do think it's
Speaker 3: fair right to acknowledge that animals and humans are different.
Speaker 2: Right, we are not exactly the same.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that the ways that we are
Speaker 3: the same, right, don't need to be taken seriously. Right.
Speaker 3: Nobody's advocating for animals to have the right to vote, right,
Speaker 3: because animals don't need the right to vote. That's not
Speaker 3: a relevant need to them, right. But their need to
Speaker 3: not suffer, right, Their need to live in an environment
Speaker 3: that is natural to them, their need to be with
Speaker 3: their families, and their innate desire to be with their like,
Speaker 3: those things are all very much the same, right, And
Speaker 3: so I often think it's really about thinking about what
Speaker 3: would we do to a doggercat lives in our home,
Speaker 3: and do we feel comfortable right with that same an
Speaker 3: animal with that same ability to feel pain and suffer
Speaker 3: at that same ability to kind of experience.
Speaker 2: It living in the kind of conditions we talked abu.
Speaker 2: I think most people would agree that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So now it's a pivot to your So you
Speaker 1: recently took this role at CEO of the Human League.
Speaker 1: I think this was about a year a year and
Speaker 1: a half ago, and part of your message is that
Speaker 1: you think there is room for meat eaters in the
Speaker 1: animal welfare movement, which I think when I heard that
Speaker 1: it surprised me. It's like, oh, that's interesting, So unpack that.
Speaker 1: What is your thinking behind that, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: how that was received, But first tell us why that's
Speaker 1: your position.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I don't see I'll be even more direct,
Speaker 3: I don't really see a path to the future that
Speaker 3: I described right, one where we look back and say,
Speaker 3: oh wow, factory farming is really a kind of dark
Speaker 3: period in our history.
Speaker 2: I don't see any path.
Speaker 3: To getting there without the support, right, and the enthusiastic
Speaker 3: participation of people who who eat meat or eat animal products, right,
Speaker 3: who aren't vegetarian or vegan. I say this as somebody
Speaker 3: who's been vegan for almost thirty years myself, right, So
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I think that's a great choice for
Speaker 3: people to make and if they're concerned about animal suffering.
Speaker 3: But I don't think it's the only choice, and I
Speaker 3: often think that. I think factory farming is the result
Speaker 3: of a set of individual policies, like corporate and public
Speaker 3: policy decisions that have been made along the way. It
Speaker 3: is not this force of nature, It is not this
Speaker 3: kind of incontrovertible truth about the man's relation to your humanity's.
Speaker 2: Relationship to animals. It's a choice that we've made.
Speaker 3: It's a result of set of choices that we've made,
Speaker 3: and to get out of it, we just need to
Speaker 3: make a set of different choices, right as it comes
Speaker 3: to corporate policy, right, the way companies manage their food
Speaker 3: supply chain, and public policy right and laws and regulations
Speaker 3: that govern the way that animals raise for food and
Speaker 3: other things like farm subsidies.
Speaker 2: And we can get into all the details, all right.
Speaker 1: So, all that said, what was the reaction you got
Speaker 1: from the animal welfare movement when you took that position.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think historically this is not a popular position in
Speaker 3: the animal protection movement, or at least in a certain
Speaker 3: wing of the animal protection movement.
Speaker 2: But I think more and more my experience is that
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 3: Movement is coming to terms with the idea that I'm
Speaker 3: sharing here, which is that we have to build a
Speaker 3: broader tent of people who care about animals if we're
Speaker 3: going to be effective at achieving our kind of big
Speaker 3: picture objectives in the long term. Again I mentioned I'm
Speaker 3: somebody who happens to have been vegan for a long time,
Speaker 3: but like you know, that's like one percent of us
Speaker 3: one and a half percent of us.
Speaker 2: Right, And in order to fundamentally.
Speaker 3: Reform and ultimately end factory farming, which is our goal
Speaker 3: at the Humane leg, we're going to need a broad
Speaker 3: movement of public support to do that. And I don't
Speaker 3: think movements that are measured in the one percent, two percent,
Speaker 3: three percent of people are ultimately sufficient at being able
Speaker 3: to achieve those kinds of.
Speaker 2: Big structural change type of objectives.
Speaker 3: So I find that more and more people are embracing
Speaker 3: that idea, and I think I've been a part of
Speaker 3: a lot of conversations recently across the movement about like,
Speaker 3: what does it actually look like to implement that, How
Speaker 3: do we think about messaging, how do we think about outreach,
Speaker 3: how do we think about programs and campaigns you know
Speaker 3: that create more of that kind of welcoming environment and
Speaker 3: invite people right who don't identify as vegetarian or begins
Speaker 3: into the movement. And I think we're going to I
Speaker 3: expect to be seeing a lot more of that kind
Speaker 3: of activity happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are those initial sort of outreaches and messaging,
Speaker 1: What do those look like? What's been the reaction?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I think a lot of people, as you you
Speaker 3: framed the conversation this way, you know, the story they've
Speaker 3: heard is factory farming is bad for animals. Basically it's
Speaker 3: your fault, right, because of the personal dietary choices that
Speaker 3: you make, and the responsibility is on you the change.
Speaker 3: I don't you know, is there a small amount of
Speaker 3: truth to that story shore, but I don't think it's
Speaker 3: the full truth or the kind of real truth, right.
Speaker 3: The real truth is a factory farming even for people
Speaker 3: who eat me to eat animal products. This isn't something
Speaker 3: that anybody asked for, right. These are a set of
Speaker 3: decisions that were made by people in positions of power
Speaker 3: and influence, you know, at corporations and the government, right
Speaker 3: that have brought us to this place. And I think
Speaker 3: people have a tremendous amount of power right more than
Speaker 3: we realize to influence those decision makers right, those companies, governments,
Speaker 3: state and local legislatures, et cetera, to make different choices right.
Speaker 2: And it will take a lot of different choice is
Speaker 2: over a long period.
Speaker 3: Of time to kind of back out of the factory
Speaker 3: farming industry that we've we've we've put ourselves into.
Speaker 2: But it can be done right.
Speaker 3: And I think it's really about asking people to flex
Speaker 3: their citizen power right, their ability to make phone calls
Speaker 3: to members of Congress and legislators, right to talk to
Speaker 3: the companies that they might stop.
Speaker 2: For about wanting to see higher welfare standards and.
Speaker 3: Options at the grocery store and restaurants, right, acting as
Speaker 3: citizens right, I think the way many of us are
Speaker 3: used to acting on other issues that we might care about,
Speaker 3: whether it's climate or public health or other things, and
Speaker 3: not only ask people to flex their consumer power right
Speaker 3: sort of are the what do they choose to.
Speaker 2: Buy and what do they choose to be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think to your point that no one
Speaker 1: made the decision for us, it really was. It really
Speaker 1: did just come down to a mathematical equation of saving money.
Speaker 1: Now to your point about how animals are treated as
Speaker 1: farm equipment. If you're talking about farm equipment and how
Speaker 1: to make that more efficient, great, we're talking about pieces
Speaker 1: of steel and oil and all these things. But when
Speaker 1: we're talking about sending of beans, that becomes really problematic
Speaker 1: to put something like that into a math equation.
Speaker 2: I think two.
Speaker 1: When the request is made for people to go from
Speaker 1: say standard American diet to vegan, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: asking someone to go from A to Z, not A
Speaker 1: to B, T C T D. So what, in your
Speaker 1: mind are some of the first steps someone can take
Speaker 1: to get to be so they can then go to
Speaker 1: C and then D and then see how far down
Speaker 1: the alphabet line they can go.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So a lot of our work at the Human
Speaker 3: League is about sort of mobilizing citizen power to influence
Speaker 3: institutional decision making. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker 3: early steps that people can take, you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: with our organization or somebody else. Right in that being,
Speaker 3: we do a lot of work and other organizations across
Speaker 3: the movement to get companies to improve animal welfare in
Speaker 3: their supply chain. Right As an example, we're working we're
Speaker 3: trying to get Kroger right now, one of the largest
Speaker 3: groceryanies in the in the country, to go fully cage
Speaker 3: breed with their eggs supply right, to kind of no
Speaker 3: longer buy eggs and sell eggs from farms that look
Speaker 3: like what I described previously and buy them from from
Speaker 3: cage three farms that we should be clear are also
Speaker 3: still not great for animals, but a significant improvement right
Speaker 3: on the kind of traditional battery cage system that we describe.
Speaker 3: So people can call a company like Kroger and ask
Speaker 3: them what their cage free policy is, and if it's not,
Speaker 3: you know, one hundred percent cage f resourcing, ask them
Speaker 3: why not.
Speaker 2: Then you know what they can do about it.
Speaker 3: And if they shop at a local Kroger right, they
Speaker 3: could maybe choose to take their business elsewhere, or at
Speaker 3: least talk to the manager at the store right kind
Speaker 3: of make their voice for There's also a lot of
Speaker 3: work being done to protect farmed animals at the public
Speaker 3: policy level. So right now, as some of your audience
Speaker 3: may be familiar, there's a big debate in Congress over
Speaker 3: the next draft of the Farm Build Right and whether
Speaker 3: or not it will include language that would overturn a
Speaker 3: set of state level animal welfare laws and states California
Speaker 3: and Massachusetts that have passed laws that actually ban a
Speaker 3: lot of the kind of extreme confinement systems that we
Speaker 3: talked about earlier. So like very strong, very good, very
Speaker 3: powerful laws. The industry doesn't like these laws for obvious reasons,
Speaker 3: and so they're lobbyists in Congress are trying to push
Speaker 3: to kill them. And there's a language and the Houses
Speaker 3: draft of the Farm Bill that would essentially overturn a
Speaker 3: set of state level laws that were past democratic right,
Speaker 3: either through ballot measures where the billain in California at
Speaker 3: Propositions twelve passed with twenty five percent margin, right, like
Speaker 3: it was like seventy five to something. I forget massive
Speaker 3: popular support for laws like this across the country. So
Speaker 3: not only is it bad for animals, it's fundamentally undemocratic
Speaker 3: right for the federal government to say we don't like.
Speaker 2: Your state laws, we're going to overturn them.
Speaker 3: So right, that's an example where people can make a
Speaker 3: phone call to their member of Congress or for their
Speaker 3: senator and say, how are you planning to vote on
Speaker 3: this bill? Right? Please don't vote on any bill that
Speaker 3: would strip annimal welfare protect at the state level. That's
Speaker 3: just one example of a policy app here in New York.
Speaker 3: Right in New York City where I live, we have
Speaker 3: a ban on flagra in the city, which is a
Speaker 3: product that's produced using very cruel methods that I won't
Speaker 3: get into because they're too impleasant.
Speaker 2: To talk about.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of policy public policy opportunities for
Speaker 3: people to think about using their voting power right to
Speaker 3: support candidates that have a good position on farm animal
Speaker 3: welfare and speak up against individual bills that would be
Speaker 3: bad for animals or in favorable Yeah.
Speaker 1: That makes sense to kind of give you an anecdote
Speaker 1: at the personal level with me, I mean, I was
Speaker 1: one of those people like I think every single American
Speaker 1: is where you know that factory farming is bad, but
Speaker 1: you're like you just kind of you fall into it anyways,
Speaker 1: and you don't think about it all that often. Then
Speaker 1: I read Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer. He's a
Speaker 1: philosopher at Princeton. Really, I would argue kind of started
Speaker 1: the movement. So I read this book. It was the
Speaker 1: updated edition of his book. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, how bad it is on so
Speaker 1: many levels, and so I went vegan. I wrote it
Speaker 1: out for a while, but then eventually, because I travel
Speaker 1: so much for work and I'm always on the move,
Speaker 1: I found it really really difficult. You know, I'd be
Speaker 1: in an airport and I'd be like, I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything for me to eat here beyond trail mix.
Speaker 1: So what I started to do is pivot into having
Speaker 1: some animal products in my diet. But what I did
Speaker 1: is I looked for places where do I need animal
Speaker 1: products here? So, for example, at breakfast, if I'm using
Speaker 1: Way Protein, oh, it turns out that like all these
Speaker 1: companies now make amazing vegetable protein powders, and I can
Speaker 1: have an apple and some blueberries. At lunch, if I
Speaker 1: was going to eat ex meat, it's like, oh, you
Speaker 1: know what, I also really enjoy air fried tofu, So
Speaker 1: now I'm going to swap that out. Now at dinner
Speaker 1: I might sometimes have meat. But for me, it was
Speaker 1: like this kind of big picture look and go where
Speaker 1: don't need these products and also kind of giving myself
Speaker 1: permission to not feel like a terrible killer if I
Speaker 1: get in a position where it's like, okay, our option
Speaker 1: is an animal product now, but you've done all this
Speaker 1: other work to remove animal products from your diet and
Speaker 1: I think that's a win. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: I did is I started giving money to the humanely,
Speaker 1: which leads me into a point that you made. I
Speaker 1: believe I heard you say. You know, you being a
Speaker 1: vegan for thirty years, you've probably impacted the lives of
Speaker 1: thousands of animals. But if you, as an organization, can
Speaker 1: get a massive corporation like Kroger or a fast food
Speaker 1: place to change their policies, now we're talking in the
Speaker 1: millions of animals that you can affect. So talk to me.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the Kroger campaign. What else are you thinking
Speaker 1: about right now in terms of getting some of these
Speaker 1: big food corporations to shift and what do you think
Speaker 1: the outcome of that will be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point. To your point is is
Speaker 2: why our theory of change.
Speaker 3: Is centered on institutional decision making, because none of us
Speaker 3: have the ability to make those kinds of decisions that
Speaker 3: are going to affect millions unless we happen to be
Speaker 3: the cover CEO or something right, And if you're listening,
Speaker 3: you know what you need to do.
Speaker 2: So The way we think about it is this, Our focus.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned, is right now, is on is on
Speaker 3: moving the industry away from these battery cages to cage three.
Speaker 2: We do that for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3: We think it's because that is where the highest sort
Speaker 3: of degree of suffering is taking place, and also where
Speaker 3: we think it's the most tractable, it's the most movable,
Speaker 3: right because there are just there are just very clear
Speaker 3: alternatives that nearly have right of the industry has already
Speaker 3: adopted at.
Speaker 2: This point, right, So in the US we aren't.
Speaker 3: About fifty percent of the egg industry has moved the
Speaker 3: cage reproductions, right. So there's there's no practical there's no
Speaker 3: technical you know, there's no operational reason why any company
Speaker 3: can't choose to go one hundred percent cage free.
Speaker 2: It's really just a matter of will and willing to
Speaker 2: make the decision.
Speaker 3: Of those fifty percent that are of the industry that
Speaker 3: is still.
Speaker 2: Reliant on battery cages.
Speaker 3: Most of that is supply to the grocery industry because
Speaker 3: you would guess most eggs that are bought in the
Speaker 3: United States are bought and grocery store.
Speaker 2: So that is why our focus is on.
Speaker 3: The grocery industry right now and really kind of moving
Speaker 3: individual big players in.
Speaker 2: The grocery industry to cage three.
Speaker 3: We recently had a great victory at the Humane League,
Speaker 3: and several other organizations across the movement all work together
Speaker 3: on this to get all hold del Hays, which is
Speaker 3: probably name that doesn't mean anything to anybody, but it's
Speaker 3: a holding company. They own stop and Shop food Lion Hannaferred,
Speaker 3: a bunch of East Coast grocery chains that people probably know.
Speaker 3: They did exactly what we're asking Kroger to do, which
Speaker 3: is they made a commitment to go one hundred percent
Speaker 3: cage free. It takes some time, right, It'll take up
Speaker 3: some years to kind of implement it. That's fine, it's normal.
Speaker 3: So we've got to hold del Hays now, which I
Speaker 3: think is the fifth largest grocery produce company. Kroger would
Speaker 3: be the fourth, right, and there's only a couple of
Speaker 3: companies left after that, the biggest one being Walmart of course, right,
Speaker 3: which is the biggest. They're the biggest everything of everything,
Speaker 3: but they're the biggest purchaser of ames worldwide in the US.
Speaker 3: But if we can get just a handful of additional
Speaker 3: companies right to go to commit to going cage free
Speaker 3: in their supply chain, the entire industry, and I think
Speaker 3: it's entirely possible within the next like let's say five
Speaker 3: to ten years, that there will not be battery cages
Speaker 3: braggling in this country. Those still exist in other parts
Speaker 3: of the world, but that would be a massive timing point.
Speaker 2: We focus on that for two reasons.
Speaker 3: One is the reason I said, we just think it's
Speaker 3: where the highest welfare gains are to be had. But
Speaker 3: it also becomes a proof point, right, because if the
Speaker 3: egg industry can fully transition to higher welfare methods, well
Speaker 3: so can the pork producing industry, and so can the
Speaker 3: you know what they call broiler chickens, the meat producing chickens.
Speaker 3: And so I think if we have that kind of
Speaker 3: industry case study of a full transition to higher welfare,
Speaker 3: we can accelerate the progress that we're trying to make them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like animal welfare used
Speaker 1: to sort of be viewed as more of a left
Speaker 1: leaning cause, I would say, but I feel like it's
Speaker 1: starting to really cross political lines. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: with that voting, what do you say saying out there.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like we've hit a moment where now
Speaker 1: it's just sort of a lot more people from all
Speaker 1: different backgrounds or asking questions about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I do think it's a unique, relatively unique issue
Speaker 3: in American public life that hasn't been sort of fully
Speaker 3: polarized in one direction or the other. I mentioned the
Speaker 3: farm bill debate that's taking place right now. Some of
Speaker 3: our strongest allies in Congress have been on the Republican
Speaker 3: side of the isle, and we've had strong analyis on
Speaker 3: the Democrat side as well. Actually that it was one
Speaker 3: of the representatives, Representative Luna Costa, who's a Republican from Florida,
Speaker 3: I believe, was one of the leading advocates against this
Speaker 3: kind of language that we talked about that would overturn
Speaker 3: state level welfare laws. So I do think there's no
Speaker 3: necessarily sort of political ideology that do paring about farming.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the public it's the same right.
Speaker 3: I mentioned Proposition twelve in California, it's the strongest state
Speaker 3: level animal welfare law in the country. It bans the
Speaker 3: production and the sale of animal products produced through extreme
Speaker 3: confinement in the state of California. So battery cages like
Speaker 3: we talked about, creates for pigs, similar devices, deal creates
Speaker 3: things like that. That law pulls at eighty percent nationwide.
Speaker 2: Wo right, So if you.
Speaker 3: Ask voters would you like to have a law like
Speaker 3: this in your state, eighty percent of voters say yes.
Speaker 2: And it's not meaningfully different based on party affiliation.
Speaker 3: You can't get eighty percent of American voters to agree
Speaker 3: on anything, and yet they agree that we need much
Speaker 3: stronger animal welfare loss in this country. So I have
Speaker 3: a lot of hope for the future of public policy
Speaker 3: and kind of legislation and regulation around the movement. I
Speaker 3: think it's just a matter of us as a movement
Speaker 3: investing ourselves in bringing that about.
Speaker 2: So I think the political will in the public support
Speaker 2: is there.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then Dan
Speaker 1: is going to explain which labels on animal products actually
Speaker 1: improve the lives of animals and which are just corporate jargon.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how to actually eat what labels on
Speaker 1: food actually matter for animal welfare. If I'm at the
Speaker 1: grocery store and I see all these different language on food,
Speaker 1: what should I actually be looking for.
Speaker 3: It's a great question, because this is I think where
Speaker 3: a lot of very well meaning people get very tripped up,
Speaker 3: and it's intentionally confusing, as you could guess, because the
Speaker 3: industry doesn't really want you to understand. So talking about
Speaker 3: using and continuing to use eggs as the example, right,
Speaker 3: cage free means something right. It means rather than living
Speaker 3: in these battery cages that I describe, hens live in
Speaker 3: you know, a shed environment, which again is not necessarily
Speaker 3: great for them. You wouldn't want to be living in
Speaker 3: a cage free facility, but it's significantly better than living
Speaker 3: in pasture. Raised would then be a step further than that.
Speaker 3: It's what it sounds like, right, Animals would have access
Speaker 3: to pasture, not necessarily live there and find lives on
Speaker 3: the pasture. We should be clear to that, But I
Speaker 3: have access to the past here. You then will see
Speaker 3: labels like you know, you go to the grade, you
Speaker 3: see you know, farmer browns.
Speaker 2: All natural farm fresh things.
Speaker 3: All natural farm fresh. These are marketing terms. They mean
Speaker 3: nothing right for animal welfare, for anything else. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then what's interesting about an organic label?
Speaker 2: Which, don't get me wrong, I support people buying organic.
Speaker 2: We try to buy.
Speaker 3: Organic things in our household, but organic doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 3: higher welfare.
Speaker 2: Right, organic is focused on you know, it's things like pest.
Speaker 3: Aside use and important things, things that I at least
Speaker 3: think are important as well, But it doesn't necessarily correlate
Speaker 3: to animal wealthare so you're looking for so pasture raised
Speaker 3: would be an indication that something is you know, there's
Speaker 3: a meaningful distinction between you know, the standard practices and
Speaker 3: what this particular form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 4: As a vegan.
Speaker 1: What is your take on ranchers and people who are
Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing? And how do people
Speaker 1: even find those products?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, A thing that I think people well
Speaker 3: also don't realize about the agriculture industry is how consolidated
Speaker 3: it's become and how corporate it's become. Like most other
Speaker 3: industries in the country, right the you know, a majority
Speaker 3: of battery farms are operated by a very small number
Speaker 3: of companies, right, And like anything else, it's this highly consolidated,
Speaker 3: highly corporatized industry.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things that we find is that
Speaker 2: some of.
Speaker 3: The strongest supporters of farm animal welfare laws and some
Speaker 3: of the strongest opponents of the farm bill that would
Speaker 3: overturn these laws are small family farmers right who do
Speaker 3: genuinely want to do the right thing, right, are inherently
Speaker 3: at a competitive disadvantage to the big industrialized conglomerate mega
Speaker 3: corporations that dominate agriculture. And you know, despite I think
Speaker 3: they genuinely do want to do the right thing for
Speaker 3: animals because they you know, they live with these animals,
Speaker 3: They see them every day, right, I think they have
Speaker 3: a relationship with them, and it's very different than a
Speaker 3: corporate approach.
Speaker 2: But also they see it as a competitive advantage. Right.
Speaker 3: It's going to be probably easier for them as a
Speaker 3: smaller producer to transition of higher welfare standards, and so
Speaker 3: it gives them a competitive advantage against the industry to
Speaker 3: be able to kind of move in that direction.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of those producers are going to.
Speaker 3: Be local, right, So like when you go to your
Speaker 3: local farmers market, right, you can ask questions to those
Speaker 3: producers about, you know, how do you how do your
Speaker 3: hands live?
Speaker 2: Did they live in cages? Do they live in sheds?
Speaker 2: Do they have access to pasture?
Speaker 3: Right? That's probably going to be your best bet for
Speaker 3: finding kind of very high welfare products. But you know,
Speaker 3: when it comes to eggs, right, Like a lot of
Speaker 3: the even the big companies, they transition their supply chain
Speaker 3: to cage free.
Speaker 2: And so if you see that label at the grocery store,
Speaker 2: even if it is you.
Speaker 3: Know, at a big, you know, mega grocery retailer like
Speaker 3: you know, you can understand that does mean something meaningful? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Does does the word free range? Is that useful or
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Free range would be sort of equivalent to pasture raised, right,
Speaker 3: the idea that they're going to be out there and
Speaker 3: you know, have some amount of access to outdoors, right,
Speaker 3: because again, the majority of animals just don't.
Speaker 2: It would never see the light of day outside of it.
Speaker 1: What do you think will have into pricing, because I
Speaker 1: think there's this, you know case you can also vote
Speaker 1: with your wallet. At the same time, if I buy
Speaker 1: you know, uh, free range meat from we get from
Speaker 1: a guy up in Idaho and you know, I got
Speaker 1: to meet him at the parking lot of a Walmart
Speaker 1: once every three months, and it's also a lot more expensive.
Speaker 1: Do you think that as Do you think economics will
Speaker 1: kind of play a role where the price of free
Speaker 1: range products will drop or will those stay elevated? And
Speaker 1: what's your thoughts on that, given that people have only
Speaker 1: so much money for food and it's also increasing across
Speaker 1: the board.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, So to your point, free range would be
Speaker 3: sort of towards the top of the you know, the
Speaker 3: top of the scale in terms of high welfare. And
Speaker 3: the reality is, yes, it's going to be more expensive
Speaker 3: to produce that because you can't, as you talked about,
Speaker 3: like rely on that sort of we're go in to
Speaker 3: view these animals as production units and maximize for efficiency.
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, there's a reason they do that and
Speaker 3: help some save money on production costs. So there is
Speaker 3: a certain reality today. But I think a couple of
Speaker 3: things are true. I think for some of the incremental
Speaker 3: welfare improvements, right, like like moving from battery cages to
Speaker 3: cage free, that's an incremental step.
Speaker 2: There's not a massive production costs difference in that, right.
Speaker 2: It's it's something, but it's like measured in like cents
Speaker 2: on a carton events.
Speaker 3: What I find very interesting is when you go to
Speaker 3: the grocery store and you compare the price of the
Speaker 3: you know, traditional eggs to cage free eggs, you might
Speaker 3: see a dollar or a dollar fifty two dollars markup
Speaker 3: on the on the package of cage free.
Speaker 2: Eggs, almost all of that is corporate margin.
Speaker 3: It's corporate profit, so sort of green tax or a
Speaker 3: humane tax, if you want to look at it that way.
Speaker 3: Because companies have realized they can market that as a
Speaker 3: threemium product, right that there is a signific for people
Speaker 3: who can't afford it, which I agree with you, everybody can't.
Speaker 3: But for people who can't afford it, they're prepared to
Speaker 3: pay more for higher welfare products. But people don't need
Speaker 3: to be paying the extra dollar dollar fifty. It should
Speaker 3: really just be a couple of cents, right, So, I
Speaker 3: think also part of it is about companies very cynically
Speaker 3: exploiting people's desire for higher welfare products to up the prices.
Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that's what you're goind Idaho is doing.
Speaker 3: That's probably a real meaningful production costs. But I think
Speaker 3: for those incremental improvements, there's a lot of kind of
Speaker 3: corporate breed kind of sitting behind it and exploitation of consumers.
Speaker 2: I think if you take a very long viewed, like how.
Speaker 3: The industry is going to evolve over time, right, if
Speaker 3: you think about what it's going to look like to
Speaker 3: fundamentally transform the animal agriculture ecosystem and start moving away
Speaker 3: from factory forming at scale. You know, the reality is,
Speaker 3: I do think it's going to require fewer animal products
Speaker 3: being produced sold in consumer I don't think that that's
Speaker 3: going to mean every single person needs to go one
Speaker 3: hundred percent Megan, right, But it might mean that people
Speaker 3: need to think about moving from eating meat every day
Speaker 3: to maybe a couple of days a week, or you know,
Speaker 3: every meal to one meal or two, you know, like
Speaker 3: incremental shifts and diet and also in just industrial use.
Speaker 3: Right to your point about corporate decisions, companies can do
Speaker 3: things like, I don't know, replace an egg ingredient in
Speaker 3: like a brownie, you know, recipe that they produce its
Speaker 3: scale with a different product, and that can have a
Speaker 3: meaningful reduction and animal product in some production without.
Speaker 2: Anybody noticing, you know what I mean. So I do
Speaker 2: feel like that needs to be part of it.
Speaker 3: But I think about it as and I think this
Speaker 3: is how it sounds like how you think about it.
Speaker 2: I identify as an environmentalists, a climate person.
Speaker 3: Somebody who carries like I try to recycle, you know,
Speaker 3: do I recycle one hundred percent?
Speaker 2: Of the bottles and cans that I get my hands on. No,
Speaker 2: probably not right.
Speaker 3: If I'm out with my kid running around, I just
Speaker 3: might have to toss it in the crash. Right, But
Speaker 3: recycling ninety percent or eighty percent, but my bottling cans is.
Speaker 2: Ninety to eighty percent better than not doing it at all.
Speaker 3: And I think we need to look at animal consumption
Speaker 3: the same way, right, incremental shift is what's needed. And
Speaker 3: if that's going to be accessible to people in a
Speaker 3: way that going vegetori or vegan isn't, that's great, right,
Speaker 3: and that that's got to be part of it.
Speaker 2: But I think the way.
Speaker 3: The industry needs to evolve as the industry does need
Speaker 3: to shrink, right, and we need to raise and fewer animals.
Speaker 2: And then I think that will help offset some.
Speaker 3: Of the kind of production costs, right because and then
Speaker 3: I think it'll be easier for part elements of the
Speaker 3: industry to transition to higher welfare standards while keeping costs
Speaker 3: more manageable for for cons.
Speaker 1: We'll take a quick break, and then Dan, who has
Speaker 1: been a vegan for thirty years, is going to tell
Speaker 1: us the easiest ways to find awesome plant based alternatives.
Speaker 1: How does the Human League. Talk about this from a
Speaker 1: health perspective, and I'll give you my point of view.
Speaker 1: I think that you can do any diet really poorly.
Speaker 1: So we've kind of had a rise of as veganism
Speaker 1: became more popular, we've had a rise of well, now
Speaker 1: you can have vegan doritos and vegan whatever. And in
Speaker 1: my mind, it all kind of comes down to the
Speaker 1: food sourcing, right, Like a vegan diet that is filled
Speaker 1: with the vegan version of junk food is probably going
Speaker 1: to be worse for you than a diet that is
Speaker 1: mostly whole foods but include some animal products. I do
Speaker 1: think that if people were to shift to more plants,
Speaker 1: I think that would be really meaningful for public health
Speaker 1: because when you look at the data, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people are getting enough protein per day, absolutely, but
Speaker 1: only one in ten Americans eat enough fruits and vegetables
Speaker 1: every single day. So I think that needs to be
Speaker 1: the shift. How do you talk about that and think
Speaker 1: about health or do you just stay out of it
Speaker 1: and focus on the ethics.
Speaker 3: Yeah. As as an organization, we're an animal welfare organization,
Speaker 3: so our our messaging is focused on that.
Speaker 2: You know, just personally, I.
Speaker 3: Tend to agree with you, right, I don't necessarily identify
Speaker 3: as the most health forward vegan. Before I got on
Speaker 3: with you, I had my you know, tokfurkey sandwich with
Speaker 3: like vegan talkies.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? Like super healthy? Probably not?
Speaker 2: But I had a good time eating my lunch.
Speaker 3: And it's important that people enjoy their lives, right, I
Speaker 3: think that's got to be part of it. But yeah,
Speaker 3: to your point, the standard American diet I don't think
Speaker 3: works well for anybody. That's just my personal opinion. Definitely
Speaker 3: doesn't work for animals, it doesn't work for our health.
Speaker 3: I think we've we've convinced ourselves. Yea, At to your point,
Speaker 3: we have some kind of protein epandemic in this country
Speaker 3: that I don't think any of the data suggest. And
Speaker 3: then you know, you often hear there's a bit adjacent
Speaker 3: to the health question. But to your point, right, like
Speaker 3: people might try some vegan foods and not Like I
Speaker 3: don't know how many people I've talked to it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I had a vegan burger and I didn't enjoy it,
Speaker 3: And so it's like, well, I've had plenty of vegan
Speaker 3: burgers I didn't enjoy have you ever eaten a hamburger
Speaker 3: you didn't like?
Speaker 4: Some food is good, some food is bad, some food
Speaker 4: is healthy, some food is unhealthy, And I think those
Speaker 4: are different kind of parameters, and whether it's animal based
Speaker 4: or not, I think it's important for people to just
Speaker 4: figure out what do they like to eat, right, and
Speaker 4: what is a you know.
Speaker 3: Plant forward version of that diet that works for them
Speaker 3: and feels sustainable right, Because I think that's the big thing.
Speaker 2: If people can make radical changes to their.
Speaker 3: Diet that aren't sustainable in the long term and then
Speaker 3: they just go back to where they were previously, and
Speaker 3: I don't think that helps anybody, and it does it
Speaker 3: definitely doesn't help animal So figuring out what's sustainable for
Speaker 3: you and what you enjoy eating in a way that
Speaker 3: kind of takes all these considerations into into consideration, I
Speaker 3: think that's the.
Speaker 2: Path for most people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been a vegan for thirty years. What are
Speaker 1: some of the things that helped you the most at
Speaker 1: stay on the path in terms of how you approached
Speaker 1: eating and living in a world where you know, if
Speaker 1: you find yourself at the airport your only choice is
Speaker 1: trail mix.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm dating myself a little bit,
Speaker 3: but I went to vegetarian vegan when I was seventeen
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to cook. So, like, first of
Speaker 2: it was just like figuring out how to cook for.
Speaker 3: Myself, which hopefully most people don't need to go that
Speaker 3: through that kind of one on one level version of it.
Speaker 3: But I also think it is about learning how to
Speaker 3: cook with different kinds of products. As a tangent, my
Speaker 3: wife is a vegan cookbook auth there, and a lot
Speaker 3: of what she writes about in her in her books
Speaker 3: is about, you know, we have access to these products
Speaker 3: that sort of replace animal products in certain.
Speaker 2: Times, and right like I've got you know, I could
Speaker 2: use a veggie burger as opposed to a hamburger, but
Speaker 2: they don't actually cook the.
Speaker 3: Same way, right, and so you might prepare a vegan
Speaker 3: burger a little differently than you would and eat right.
Speaker 3: And so I think a lot of it is just
Speaker 3: about figuring out how to evolve also, like your preparation
Speaker 3: the types of meals that you make and the way
Speaker 3: that you cook them and prepare them to account for
Speaker 3: different types of products.
Speaker 2: You know, for a lot of people, right like I
Speaker 2: grew up in a You know.
Speaker 3: My dad cooks Italian food for us, so figuring out like,
Speaker 3: you know, Italian food is what feels like comfort food
Speaker 3: to me, So what are kind of vegan versions of
Speaker 3: Italian comfort food that we can make at home? So
Speaker 3: I think figure I think for me, and also just
Speaker 3: the products have improved tremendously over the past thirty years.
Speaker 3: I remember having to drive, you know, to literally drive
Speaker 3: two towns over to get like a shelf stable cart
Speaker 3: and of soy milk for my cereal in the morning,
Speaker 3: which I can now get at the Boteg guy around
Speaker 3: the corner from my.
Speaker 2: Apartment in New York City.
Speaker 3: You know, every product's not going to be for everybody,
Speaker 3: and every meal isn't going to be for everybody.
Speaker 2: So I just think trying a bunch of things, seeing
Speaker 2: what works for you.
Speaker 5: And figuring out what your go to is, because I
Speaker 5: think the other people think about having a vegan lifestyle
Speaker 5: is like, oh, you're reading labels constantly, but it's just
Speaker 5: like dot but you I've bought most of the same
Speaker 5: things at the grocery store every week.
Speaker 2: I don't need to read the labels. I already know
Speaker 2: what's in it.
Speaker 3: Right, So sort of figuring out what's my go to
Speaker 3: and how do I prepare it in the way that
Speaker 3: works for me, and how does it kind of overall
Speaker 3: create a diet and a food lifestyle that I feel
Speaker 3: excited about and is going to be sustainable. I love it.
Speaker 1: Where should people go to find your work the Humane
Speaker 1: League and what sort of one big takeaway you can
Speaker 1: leave us with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can find us online at the Humane League
Speaker 3: dot org and we're on all the socials at the
Speaker 3: Human League and various platforms. I think the biggest thing
Speaker 3: I would want people to take away is that they
Speaker 3: have you have more power than you realize right to
Speaker 3: influence institutional decision making that can have a meaningful impact
Speaker 3: on farm animals.
Speaker 2: And you can do that whatever your dietary towards me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, billions of farmed animals. By the way, Well, Dan Channon,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming on. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: What you're doing is important and we appreciate you taking
Speaker 1: the time man.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Michael, It's been a lot
Speaker 2: of fun.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: That's rot.
Speaker 1: Thanks for checking out the show, and thanks to Dan
Speaker 1: for coming on. He's at the Humane League dot org.
Speaker 1: Check them out and if you're looking for ways to
Speaker 1: swap in some good protein that is plant based, because
Speaker 1: that's one of the hardships of turning to plant based
Speaker 1: products is getting in enough protein. Check out Momentous plant
Speaker 1: based Protein. It's fantastic. And also tofu. A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't like tofu, but guess what if you air
Speaker 1: fry tofu, it is amazing. I've turned so many people
Speaker 1: who are fundamentally anti tofu onto tofu by telling them
Speaker 1: to put it in the air fryer. Get it a
Speaker 1: nice sort of golden brown on the outside. God, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe that helps us. Please give us a review
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Speaker 1: updates for our twice weekly shows and in closing, have fun,
Speaker 1: don't die, and be nice to animals.