The Rich Roll Podcast - Dr. Melanie Joy on Going Beyond Carnism: Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows

Episode Date: August 1, 2016

Why do we love dogs, but eat cows? Cooking up your golden retriever would be an unthinkable abomination. But barbecued beef? That's about as normal as it gets. It's just the way things are.  But why? The logic and social mechanisms behind why we eat some animals and not others is a behavioral inconsistency unexamined to the point of absurdity — both psychologically complex and strange — very strange indeed. Many guests on this podcast have elaborated on why we shouldn't eat meat. This week I sit down with Melanie Joy, Ph.D, Ed.M to explain why we do eat meat. An idea she coined carnism, Dr. Joy's work centers around the psychology of eating meat, what is known as the “meat paradox” – our irrational, inconsistent and species specific attitudes toward various animals – why we express affection towards certain animals while eating others – and the cognitive dissonance this entails. A Harvard-educated social psychologist, Dr. Joy is a celebrated speaker, organizational consultant, author of the award-winning book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows*, and eighth recipient of the Institute of Jainology's Ahimsa Award, which was previously awarded to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Her work has been featured by numerous national and international media outlets, including the BBC, NPR, and the New York Times. And she is the founder of the non-profit Beyond Carnism, which challenges dominant ideologies around food choice and systems and promotes a more mindful approach to our consumer choices. I came across Dr. Joy’s work via her popular TEDx Talk, Toward Rational, Authentic Food Choices — a very intelligent and cogent exploration of our normative cultural behaviors and attitudes around the food we eat and why — and have wanted to get her on the podcast ever since. I only had a tight hour with Dr. Joy, so this is a very focused discourse on speciesism and the psychological defense mechanisms we employ to rationalize our food choices. It's a conversation about the psychology of social change, and it's about how to employ psychologically optimal strategies in the advocacy of positive cultural change. Specific topics explored include: * the concept of carnism * psychological defense mechanisms to eating animals * speciesism * carnistic justifications and “humane meat” * the rise of meat & dairy alternatives * the psychology of social change * the impact of the locavore movement * masculinity of meat & gender stereotypes * how to effectively advocate for veganism Whip smart, Dr. Joy peels back the fallacious facade of logic and exposes the denial that surrounds these cultural mores with keen intellect and grace. Irrespective of your dietary proclivities, my hope is that this provocative conversation will challenge assumptions and inspire you to make more informed consumer choices that more adeptly align with your core values as an empathetic and compassionate citizen. It was a pleasure to talk with Dr. Joy and I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

Humans are naturally empathic. We know today that empathy is our natural state. We're hardwired to feel empathy for others and what carnism does is it uses a set of defense mechanisms, these are psychological defense mechanisms, that distort our perceptions and numb our feelings so that we act against our core values of compassion and justice, that we act against our core values of compassion and justice, that we disconnect from our natural empathy when we eat animals. That's Dr. Melanie Joy, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast.

Greetings from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host of the podcast that bears my name, The Rich Roll Podcast, the RRP, the show where I have the great privilege, the great honor of probing the hearts and minds of some of the most interesting, some of the most inspiring thought leaders and positive change makers across a wide variety of disciplines and specialties. Doctors, nutrition experts, world-class athletes, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, environmentalists, and even the occasional everyman. And the idea behind these conversations is simply to provide you with the keys to access, unlock, and unleash your best,

most authentic self. So thank you so much for tuning in today, for sharing the show with your friends and on social media, for reviewing the show, and for subscribing to the show on iTunes and Google Play. And of course, for always using the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. Greatly appreciate that. Thank you very much. Before we get into today's guest, today's conversation, I wanted to very briefly let you guys know or remind you that I recently launched something called Roll Call. It's a short, totally free weekly email blast with my best recommendations and resources, just things I've discovered along my journey, things I've enjoyed,

things I've found helpful to grace your inbox every Thursday. That's it. No spam ever. I'm just grateful for your support. And this is a really easy, simple way for me to just get back and be of greater service to you guys. So if this sounds like something you'd be into something you might be interested in, you can sign up for the newsletter at richroll.com. But first, let's acknowledge the awesome organizations that make this show possible. Did I mention that I have Dr. Melanie Joy on the show today? I've been wanting to get her on for quite some time, but it's taken a little while because she lives in Berlin. So I was really glad to finally make this one happen during her recent visit to Los Angeles. So who is Dr. Melanie Joy? Well, Dr. Joy is a Harvard-educated social psychologist. She's perhaps best known for promulgating the term carnism, which is the invisible belief system or ideology that conditions people to eat certain

animals. And we're going to get into all of it and define it in its context and specificity. But to continue with the bio, Dr. Joy is also a celebrated speaker and organizational consultant and the author of a couple award-winning books, her most well-known being Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Dr. Joy is the eighth recipient of the Institute of Janeology's Ahimsa Award, which was previously awarded to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, so she's in some very good company there. Her work has been featured by numerous national and international media outlets, including the BBC, NPR, and the New York Times. And she is the founder of the non-profit Beyond Carnism, which you can find at carnism.org. And this organization challenges dominant ideologies around food choice and systems and promotes a more mindful approach to our plate.

and promotes a more mindful approach to our plate. Dr. Joy's work centers around the psychology of eating meat, what is known as the quote-unquote meat paradox, our irrational, inconsistent, and species-specific attitudes toward various animals, why we express affection toward certain animals like dogs while eating others like cows and pigs, and the cognitive dissonance that this entails. I first came across Dr. Joy's work via her amazing TED talk. It's called Toward Rational Authentic Food Choices, and it ranks among the top 1% of all TED talks in number of views. And it's a very intelligent and cogent challenge to our collective cultural behaviors and attitudes

around the food we eat and why we eat the food we eat. I've embedded the TED Talk on the episode page on my site. I highly recommend you guys check that one out. I only had a very tight hour with Dr. Joy, so this is a very focused discourse on all the foregoing. It's about speciesism and the psychological defense mechanisms we employ to rationalize eating animals. It's about the justifications behind what we deem, quote unquote, humane meat. It's about the psychology of social change. And it's about how to employ psychologically optimal strategies in the advocacy of positive change. It's all super interesting.

So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this conversation with the great Dr. Melanie Joy. Awesome, Melanie. Thanks for joining me today on the podcast. I really appreciate you coming on over. Well, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. You're in town. You're in town kind of predominantly for the animal rights conference, right? That's right. How was that? It was fantastic. It was the largest turnout in

the history of the conference, which is just testament to the fact that consciousness is growing, awareness of veganism and concern for animal rights is growing. And it was really, as always, a deeply inspiring event. Yeah, I've never been. I should go. I don't know. I just didn't. I didn't even know it was happening until it was already happening. So next year, I'm going to make a point of checking it out. Like I realized on Instagram, I'm like, all these people are there. Like, why did I not go this year? So it's in the calendar for next year. Well, next year, it's probably going to be in D. in DC because they usually switch coasts. Oh, right, right, right. Okay. Well, an excuse to go to DC. So we only have an hour today. And

so I want to kind of get right into the heart of, you know, the work that you do. It's super interesting. You're somebody who has thought, you know, deeply about these issues of animal rights and the vegan movement, and you have a lot of interesting ideas and theories and concepts about it. So, perhaps the best way to kind of launch right into it is just talk about this concept of carnism, which you sort of famously have coined, what that means and how that shapes and forms how you think about these issues. Sure. Well, I came to the concept of carnism through my own personal journey. I, like many people, grew up with a dog who I loved like a family member. I certainly grew up

as a person who cared about animals and didn't want them to suffer. And I also grew up eating meat, eggs, and dairy on a regular basis. And for a lot of my life, I just never made the connection between the meat on my plate and the living being it once was and the suffering inherent in that meat, eggs, and dairy. And it wasn't until I stopped eating animals, I had become sick from eating a hamburger. When did that happen? That was in 1989. sick from eating a hamburger. And when did that happen? It was that was in 1989. It was before there was, you know, anywhere near the level of vegan consciousness that there is today. I kind of became a vegetarian by accident, I just became disgusted by meat, and I stopped eating it.

And I became curious about my new diet and started, you know, wanting to learn about vegetarianism at the time it was before I had become completely vegan. And what I learned shocked and horrified me. But what about animal agriculture and the suffering inherent in it. But what shocked me in some ways even more was that nobody I talked to was willing to hear what I had to say. These were people just like myself who were fundamentally compassionate and concerned about justice. And I realized that there was something much more going on.

And that led me to study psychology, the psychosociology of violence and nonviolence, which led me to discover what I came to name carnism, which is the invisible belief system or ideology that conditions us to eat certain animals. Carnism essentially blocks our awareness and blocks our natural empathy for those species we've learned to classify as edible. And it's very complicated psychologically, right? Like it's such a bizarre, I mean, like our journeys and our paths and our experiences are very different. But one point of similarity is that, you know, I got into this not out of a sense of injustice or, you know, an ethical or moral reason.

It was a health-oriented reason. And when you say you got sick, I mean, you can get a stomachache. Like, you were hospitalized, right? I was hospitalized, right. So it was kind of a serious condition. Mine was different, but that's what brought me into this. And then it became a journey of kind of opening up my eyes and starting to learn about everything else that was going on and realizing the extent to which I had been living in so much cognitive dissonance.

And when you have that kind of epiphany, you start to talk about it. It's not a very popular subject, right? And so what are the roots of that kind of psychological cognitive dissonance? You know, we sort of are inherently compassionate, and yet throughout our day, we're acting in ways that are at odds with perhaps a set of core values that we would articulate to our friends at a cocktail party. Yeah, exactly. I mean, carnism is a, it's actually a simple concept to understand. If you understand the way belief systems generally work, carnism, it's a dominant belief system.

That means that it is, it's embraced and maintained by all of the major social institutions from the family to the state. So it's really like woven into this belief that certain animals are meant to be eaten social institutions from the family to the state. So it's really like woven into this belief that certain animals are meant to be eaten is, you know, really woven through the very fabric of society. And it therefore becomes internalized. When we're born into a carnistic culture or society,

we learn to look at the world through the lens of carnism. And as you rightly point out, we, carnism. And as you rightly point out, we humans are naturally empathic. We know today that empathy is our natural state. We're hardwired to feel empathy for others. And what carnism does is it uses a set of defense mechanisms. These are psychological defense mechanisms that distort our perceptions and numb our feelings so that we act against our core values of compassion and justice, that we disconnect from our natural empathy when we eat animals. And I mean, the beauty of understanding carnism or of carnism awareness is that once we name it, once we recognize these defenses for what they are, they lose a tremendous amount of their power over us. these defenses for what they are, they lose a tremendous amount of their power over us.

And when we free ourselves of this carnistic mentality that we've all been indoctrinated into, we can make food choices that reflect what we authentically think and feel rather than what we've been taught to think and feel. So it's tremendously liberating for us as individuals, as well as obviously for the animals and the planet. Sure. So let's unpack what those defense mechanisms are. There are a number of defense mechanisms. I'll give you an example of a few. One defense is justification. And the way that we learn to justify eating animals is by learning to believe that the myths of meat, eggs, and dairy are the facts of meat, eggs, and dairy. These myths are expressed largely through what I refer to as the three ends of justification. Eating animals is normal, natural, and necessary.

And perhaps not surprisingly, these same arguments have been used to justify violent practices throughout human history, such as slavery and male dominance. So another defense, psychological defense, is abstraction. We learn to see animals as abstraction, as lacking or farmed animals, I should say. We recognize the individuality often of our dogs and cats but then when we look at farmed animals we tend to think of them as you know lacking in any individuality or personality of their own we learn to believe for instance that a pig is a pig and all pigs are the same these defense mechanisms numb us from our empathy for animals it's much more difficult to carry out harm towards somebody

if we recognize that they are someone and not something, that they are an individual and not simply an abstract member of a group. Yeah, and that's fortified by the arm's length that separates the consumer from those animals themselves. So it's hard to individuate when we don't experience them on a daily basis like we do our pets, our dogs. And there are plenty of very powerful interests that spend a lot of money and time and energy to ensure that that arm's length distance remains intact. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely.

I mean, carnism is a self-perpetuating system like sexism and racism. And at the same time, there are vested interests. There are those animal agribusiness, you know, big animal agribusiness that have vested interest in maintaining this carnistic status quo and maintaining this disconnect between us, our empathy, our hearts and minds, and the reality of what's happening to the animals. the reality of what's happening to the animals. When you really think about it, the speciesism is just the most bizarre psychological construct, you know, of our culture. The idea that we could cherish our dogs and have such a completely dispassioned attitude about, you know, the bacon on our plate, which is essentially indistinguishable in terms of the level of, you know, consciousness that that animal carries. I mean, it can be argued that the pig actually is perhaps, you know, has more capacity,

more intelligence, you know, more of an emotional interior than even a dog. Absolutely. And speciesism, you know, carnism is a sub-ideology of speciesism, just as anti-Semitism, for example, is a sub-ideology of racism. They're structured in very similar ways. It's bizarre, and it's also not in some ways, because the mentality that enables us to carry out harm toward animals is no different than the mentality that enables us to carry out harm toward humans. Humans have a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize. You know, we bomb children on the other side of the world, something that we would never support doing, you know, closer to home. So, or I should say we support, you know, certain bombings.

And I think it's, you know, it's very important for us to recognize the way that these isms, racism and sexism, and all forms of belief systems that allow us to carry out violence are similarly structured. So even though the experience of each set of victims will always be unique, the mentality that enables the violence is always the same. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you really have to look at it through the lens of a civil rights movement perspective to see it in that way, right? And getting people to that place is the challenge. Absolutely. Getting people to hear information that they've been conditioned to block out and to resist is really the challenge.

And, you know, when we recognize carnism, we can recognize that eating animals is not simply a matter of personal ethics. It's the inevitable end result of a deeply entrenched oppressive system. And in this way, eating animals is really a social justice issue. It's not just about personal choice, as many of us have been taught to believe. But getting, you know, working towards habit change in the average consumer means overcoming those three ends. Because if you can't overcome that idea that it is natural, necessary, and normal, then you're not moving off of point zero. Well, it's a process. For many people, this kind of change is a process.

And we can see. I've given my presentation about carnism in 30 countries now on five continents. Soon to be six. We're going to Africa in November. It's been really exciting. And what's been so exciting is to see the overwhelming response of the public. Everywhere I go, I see the same thing. People care. People want to be a part of the solution. And the world is really changing. The vegan movement is one of the fastest growing social justice movements in the world today. So there is this kind of wave of growing consciousness that is in fact sweeping the world, even in places where meat consumption is starting to increase. You know, just like big

tobacco, big agribusiness is now starting to export its problems as more and more people in the West become aware of the health ramifications and ethical ramifications of eating an animal-based diet. And so we're seeing an increase in meat, egg, and dairy consumption in some other places in the world. But we're also, what's really exciting, seeing an increase in the number of vegan advocates and of people who are raising awareness about the public health crisis that has been caused by this mass consumption of eating animals. Yeah, it's super interesting in the, you know, in the developing world, like in China,

with the rise of the middle class, there's a sense of entitlement that comes with that, that like, okay, now, you know, we're not going to eat rice every day anymore. Now we get to eat our burgers, right? And so, and so bringing the movement to that level of awareness and trying to combat that, I think is like the next wave of the challenge. And it's happening. Some of the animal rights organizations here are expanding to, they're internationalizing now, so they have branches in some developing countries, for instance. recently launched the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy, where we train vegan advocates around the world and support vegan organizations so that they can communicate their message and run campaigns more effectively. And so there is a lot of effort being put into making sure that

as carnism decreases in some places, it doesn't just, you know, skyrocket in others. The vegan movement really is a global movement, and it's becoming an increasingly global movement. And that's very exciting to see. So we have this prong of carnism that's rooted in justification. Another prong is denial, right? So what is the difference or the interplay between justification and denial? Well, denial is really the main defense of the entire system. You know, if we deny there's a problem in the first place, then we don't have to do anything about it, right? So we deny that eating animals causes suffering. I mean, denial is expressed largely through invisibility, right?

So the victims of the system remain conveniently out of sight and therefore out of public consciousness. And, you know, we also, the ideology or the belief system itself remains invisible. We've named veganism and vegetarianism, but we haven't, until recently, named the dominant belief system, which is carnism. And this creates this misconception that somehow those who are not vegan or vegetarian don't follow a belief system. But when eating animals is not a necessity, which is true for many people in the world today, not everybody, but for many people in the world today, then it is a choice, and choices always stem from beliefs. So how do we work to better overcome this sense of denial?

Well, we're already seeing that happen, you know, thanks to the advent of the internet, seeing that happen. You know, thanks to the advent of the internet and thanks to the hard work of vegan advocates and professionals, there's been a tremendous amount of awareness raising such that today it's, you know, most people no longer deny at least the most egregious practices that are happening in factory farms. Most people recognize that there is an ethical issue here. It's not just taken for granted. So, you know, awareness is key. And I personally believe that it's vitally important that we not simply raise awareness of the consequences of animal agriculture or the practices, but we actually raise awareness of carnism itself, of the very belief system and the defenses that condition us to turn a blind eye to those consequences, and that conditions us to shut down our hearts when

it comes to those consequences. Yeah, and there's been some really interesting kind of social developments in this arena. We're seeing, you know, the explosion of, you know, the quote unquote, like grass-fed, you know, beef movement, and this idea of, you know, explosion of you know the quote-unquote like grass-fed you know beef movement and this idea of you know quote-unquote ethical meat and this is something that i experience on a daily basis like oh i know you're vegan rich but you know i make sure that all my you know i'm not vegan but like i make sure that all my meat is grass-fed and and ethically raised and you know this is a very interesting defense mechanism, right? Which almost reinforces this, you know, behavior that you have called carnism. It allows people to

obviate that sense of guilt or that sense of cognitive dissonance of living at odds with your values and feel better about basically doing the same thing. Well, it is a carnistic justification. And, I mean, the good news is that most people, and perhaps all people who are eating, you know, so-called grass-fed beef, or who are trying to support more, what they believe are more humane farming practices,

are doing so because they actually want to cause less harm. Yeah, that is an expression of that inherent, you know, compassion and empathy. Exactly. Like there's a desire to do less harm. The problem is that, you know, the way of going about it is not solving. It's not actually solving the problem. We're dealing with other carnistic justifications with, you know, what I believe is that as denial becomes increasingly destabilized as the main defense of carnism, there's an increasing need to justify eating animals. And so we see these new justifications, such as, you know, so-called humane meat. And these are justifications that were not surprisingly, at least in some part, constructed by animal agribusiness in order to

maintain their profit margin. Now, it's only when we step out of the carnistic mentality that we can see the absurdity of the concept of humane meat. So, you know, for example, most people would consider it cruel to slaughter a happy, healthy golden retriever just because people like the way her legs taste. And yet when the exact same thing is done to individuals of other species, we're taught to call it humane. So, we really need to step outside the carnistic box to recognize the irrationality of this notion of, you know, so-called humane meat. I saw a presentation by Gary Francione not too long ago, you know, professor of law at Rutgers, who's, you know, very intense,

hardcore animal rights advocate, activist advocate, who approaches this issue from a legal and civil rights perspective. And he makes no apologies for this idea that things like, you know, this humane meat movement and Meatless Mondays, that these are actually setting the movement back. Like most people would say Meatless Mondays is a step in the right direction. Okay, so these people are eating grass-fed beef. Well, that's better because that's a vote against the entrenched system of industrialized animal agriculture on some level

but the fact that it allows people to perpetuate these behaviors because they now feel comfortable with them is a strike against the ultimate goal which is to get people off of eating animal products altogether well we don't actually know that to be true right so i'm just interested in your reaction to that or how you may differ from that perspective. Yeah. I mean, what we do know is that social change throughout history in all social justice movements has been slow. It has been consciousness doesn't change overnight. Patterns aren't broken overnight and habits don't end overnight.

So social change is has historically and consistently been a series of steps. For us to decide or to determine which steps are sending us more directly toward our goal and which are deviating toward our goalione doesn't actually have any data whatsoever to support the assertion that certain campaigns and measures are setting the movement back. What we do see is the numbers of vegans and vegetarians rising in many countries around the world. We do see awareness of and support for veganism and vegetarianism increasing in many places around the world. So we are doing at least some things right. And for us to really determine which of these campaigns and which of these approaches are most beneficial for the movement to bring us toward our end goal, we need to be doing some, and people are starting to do this, some research and collecting some real data. So

then we can make assertions like this and have them based on data rather than based on opinion. Right. I think there is this amazing rising tide of interest in this movement, and we are approaching a tipping point. It has tapped into a mainstream kind of zeitgeist nerve. People are talking about it. They're interested in it.

It's nothing like what it was five years ago, let alone 10 years ago, and that's very exciting. know a mainstream kind of zeitgeist nerve people are talking about it they're interested in it's nothing like what it was you know five years ago let alone 10 years ago and that's very exciting and interesting and and you know gives me a feeling of optimism and yet still the numbers of overall vegans in the world is is relatively low by comparison i mean what what are the statistics right now like three percent or something like that? Yeah, and it varies from country to country. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't actually been in the States in a year. I know I'm not sure what the numbers are even here at the moment.

But I do know that surveys show that the numbers are at least increasing. Right. And of course, but we're talking about transforming a deeply entrenched, possibly the most deeply entrenched oppressive system in human history. I mean, humans have been eating animals for millennia, carrying out, you know, exercising our power over animals, not identifying with animals. Animal exploitation is built into virtually every practice, every human, you know, institutional and personal practice. So transforming this, and I understand when we see the suffering,

when we become aware of the magnitude of the suffering, we become aware of the urgency of our mission and the need to transform this, to end this suffering as quickly as possible. And it's important for vegans in particular who can easily despair when they allow themselves to take in the magnitude of that suffering to also recognize that we are asking for a level of social transformation never before seen in human history. And that is not something that's going to come quickly. However, and um and that is not something that's going to come quickly however it is something that the numbers show us we are in fact working toward and we are in chart starting to achieve and there's some really interesting things happening with technology right now in the food space you know what what's going on with impossible foods and and memphis meats and and you know the idea that we

could create these you know they're i don't know what they're calling them, meat analogs or sort of Petri dish raised meat or, you know, a plant based cost-effective alternative that is compassionate, that maybe even tastes better and is healthier for you, and you make it convenient, that seems to be, you know, a powerful avenue towards change. Right. You lower the bar, you know, basically lower the bar. And this is one of the reasons that meat reducers can be so beneficial for the movement as a whole. When people, you know, one of the main reasons that there are the offerings, the amount of offerings today of plant-based alternatives to what used to

be just animal foods is not because of the hardcore vegans, the tiny percentage of vegans that are demanding that we, you know, have veggie burgers available in mass. It's largely because of the meat reducers. And so, you know, if we can make these meat alternatives, meat, egg, and dairy alternatives increasingly available, people aren't going to work. It's not going to be so hard to practice your compassion. It's just logical that people will make the compassionate choice that's healthier for them when it becomes easier for them to do so.

It must be interesting living in Berlin, though. The vegan movement is very strong and powerful there. They even have all vegan uh grocery stores vegans which i understand is they're starting to roll those out in the united states which which is pretty cool well i know they had a contract and intended to do so i don't know where things are at with that at the moment but they certainly portland i thought they were going to open one in portland i don't know where it stands right now but i don't know either but i know it was in the works um i don't know what's happened with it, where they are in that process. But there are several Vegans grocery stores in Berlin.

The owner of Vegans now is focusing less on creating new Vegans grocery stores and more in getting Vegans shelves in existing large grocery stores. Oh, that's interesting. So it's sort of like, you know, Kaiser's, which is the, oh my God, what's our main grocery store here? I just, well, here it's Ralph's. Ralph's. Like in, you know, in California. It now has like vegan stands and shelves where it's like everything vegan.

That's what the translation is in German. You know, so you can, which is great because for people who aren't looking specifically for vegan foods, you know, they now have the opportunity to pass by them and they're kind of, they're integrated in with the other foods. a little bit about your expertise, psychology, not only the psychology of, you know, carnism and these defense mechanisms and the kind of blinders that we put on to avoid having to look at the unpleasant realities of certain decisions that we make, but also the psychology that gets baked into advocacy and how to, you know, sort of communicate these ideas to the public. Because, of course, you're no stranger to the idea that, you know, sort of communicate these ideas to the public. Because of course, you're no stranger to the idea that, you know, a lot of people just get turned off by vegans, like, oh, here comes the vegan, he's gonna shame me and tell me that I'm a terrible person. And,

and, you know, the lights just go off with that kind of person. And that is the conventional wisdom about, you know, the prototypical animal rights act activist, or, you know, the prototypical animal rights activist or, you know, the vegan person who just can't talk about anything else and, you know, monopolizes every conversation and makes people feel uncomfortable. So, let's get into what that psychology is and perhaps a better way of grappling with the issues and communicating it in a way that perhaps might be more effective? Like, what have you learned from your studies and the thinking that you've done around this? Well, it's important to recognize that while, you know, it is true that there are skills and

awareness, an awareness that vegans can adopt that will help to significantly increase the chances that their message will be heard as they intend it to be. Society is set up in such a way to make it challenging to communicate about veganism in the first place. And one reason is, as I explained before, these carnistic defenses are internalized. So for many vegans, often the only thing they have to do is to say, I'm vegan, and all of a sudden they get this defensive know, can feel really pathologized. So right. So in other words, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you. But that person might not say anything else. But the person on the receiving end of that will walk away saying that person was preachy. That's right. That's

right. Because one of the ways that carnism maintains itself, you know, I've talked a bit about, you know, these carnistic defense mechanisms. Carnism also uses a specific type of defense mechanisms. I refer to them as secondary defenses that are geared not toward validating carnism, you know, saying eating animals as normal, natural, and necessary, but rather toward invalidating veganism. This is the way oppressive systems keep themselves alive. They validate or strengthen themselves and they invalidate or try to weaken the movement that challenges them. In this case, it's the vegan movement. So these secondary carnistic defenses invalidate veganism and the vegan movement in various ways. And one of the key ways is by stereotyping and otherwise

silencing vegan advocates. It's a form of shoot the messenger. If we shoot the messenger, we don't have to take seriously the implications of his or her message. And this has been used, you know, this strategy has been used throughout history to silence those who would speak out against an oppressive status quo. So, for example, you know, the anti-slavery abolitionists were called sentimentalists, who were just overly emotional. And we hear the same thing again being directed at vegans. So I commend vegans.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to live your truth in a culture that works very hard to pull you back into the carnistic norm, the carnistic cocoon of unknowing, and to be on the front lines of a social movement that is still quite young. That said, for many vegans, recognizing that we are automatically perceived as moralistic, because this is the frame that we're operating, our society is operating within. When we communicate from a place where we are not feeling moralistic, you know, attitude translates to behavior very, very often. And we are simply communicating with the intention of sharing our truth. We'll minimize defensiveness. There are ways to minimize carnistic defensiveness.

I always recommend that vegans and everyone learn the basics of effective communication. There's a fabulous book that we recommend on our website called Messages. The author's name is McKay. The main author's name is McKay. And the big takeaway from this book, one of the key big takeaways from this book, is that when we're communicating, regardless as to what we're talking about, whether we're debating whether to stay home or go out on a Saturday night, whether to eat animals or not to eat animals, if we have a healthy process, our communication is going to be more effective. The process is the how you communicate, and the content is what you're talking about. What you're talking about doesn't matter so much.

How you talk about it matters. And a healthy process has as its goal understanding the other and being understood by the other. That's the whole purpose of communication in the first place. I'm not trying to change you. I'm not trying to be right and make you wrong. I'm simply trying to communicate the truth of my experience and am equally interested in the truth of your experience. And when it comes to vegan advocacy, if we can move into conversations with the goal of planting seeds, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau says this, don't try to change people.

It's not your job. You can't do it anyway. It's exhausting. Plant seeds. I suggest sharing or advocating through sharing your own story. You know, if somebody says to me, why are you vegan? I tell them why I'm vegan, not why they should be vegan. Yeah.

Communicating your, I always try to avoid giving advice and stick to my own experience. That's I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm in recovery, uh, alcoholism recovery. So that's like a primary kind of, uh, cornerstone of 12 step, like, you know, share your experience. And the more that you stick to that and relate it to yourself, it becomes more digestible to the other person because you're not preaching and you're not shaming. And, you know, these ideas, these emotions that you've talked about, like the shame, the grandiosity, the entitlement, you know, the perfectionism that kind of come across through ineffective communication strategies ultimately undermine, you know, the goal that you're kind

of aiming for. Yeah, absolutely. Shaming people. I always say that shaming somebody is a great way to get them to do exactly the opposite of what you want. Shamed people withdraw or attack. Shamed people do not feel a sense of agency to be proactive in a positive way, typically. Do you feel like, I mean, there's all different, there's a whole spectrum of voices in any movement, you know, and that's no different in the animal rights or the vegan movement. So you have people that are very ardent, you know, throwing buckets of blood on, you know, storefronts and all of that. And then you have the very, you know, sort of more calming, accepting voices on the other end of that spectrum.

Do you feel like all of those voices have a purpose and a point and they're all, you know, serve some kind of, I mean, there are some people that respond really well to that. Like they see that and that is impactful for them, like the really hardcore thing. Or do you feel like if everybody could tone it down a little bit and learn more effective means of communication, that it would advance the cause better? Well, not all strategies are created equal. And there are strategies that are counterproductive. There are strategies that are unproductive. And there are strategies that are more productive.

One of the reasons we founded the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy was to take the strategies that we know work and look take the strategies that we know work and look at the strategies that we know don't work or don't work that well and try to bring them out more fully, bring them into the movement more fully. I don't know anybody who would respond well to a bucket of blood being dumped

on their expensive fur coat. There are, however, nuances and differences in personalities and in cultures. Some cultures are more receptive to more direct communication. Others need more intellectual, if you will, framing. But all of that, all of those are nuances within the broader framework of a healthy communicative process. And I don't think that that should ever be compromised. We can run campaigns and we can be strong and effective. You can be peaceful and powerful at the same time.

And I would suggest that you can be even more powerful when you are peaceful in many ways. Being peaceful doesn't mean that you're not disruptive in some way. So what would be an example of that? Can you illustrate that? Well, some of the work that we do at Beyond Carnism, you know, some of the work that Mercy for Animals, for example, is doing, you know, promoting, asking people to bear witness to the reality of what's happening in animal factories, but doing so in a way that's not shaming them, that's not blindsiding them, that's not shocking them, but saying, hey, guess what?

This is what we've learned. You deserve, you have, you know, the right to know. And, you know, really speaking to the part of people that we want to grow. What you focus on grows. What seeds do you want to water in someone? If you shame somebody, you're going to grow their inner shame. If you speak to somebody as though they're a person who has the capacity to be a part of the solution, who probably wants to, if they're reached in the right way, you increase the likelihood that that's going to happen. I think understanding your audience is really important as well. Like, for example, you know, young people expect transparency in the corporations that they patronize, you know, on a level, I think that perhaps our generation isn't really, you know, it doesn't think as much about. So the idea that a company would be so blatantly

untransparent in its means of manufacturing and distribution is an avenue that can be, you know, sort of explored to get somebody to look at something that perhaps ordinarily they wouldn't, right? And you kind of break carnism down into these subcategories of, you know, what do you have? You have eco-carnism, bio-carnism, you know, under this rubric of neo-carnism, right? Which gets into a little bit some of the ethical meat stuff that we talked about before, but maybe we can kind of explore those subcategories. Well, what I had mentioned earlier is that as denial becomes increasingly destabilized, justification takes on a more important role in maintaining carnism, right? So we can't deny that there's a problem anymore, so now we need to justify, you know, eating animals. And so each of these justifications,

eating animals as normal, natural, and necessary, has morphed into kind of its own form of carnism, newer form of carnism, which I refer to as neocarnism. So we have eating animals as normal. That has morphed into what I call compassionate carnism, which we see in the whole happy meat movement, right? So this idea, you know, people have become aware of what's happening in factory farms, at least, and have said, I don't want to be a part of this. And at the same time, they still perceive veganism as too far outside the norm, the carnistic norm, veganism is radical. So how do I stay within the norm, but not feel so bad about what I'm doing. And so then we can see this, the advent of um you know so-called happy meat um eating animals is natural has morphed

into what i um what i refer to as echocarnism and so you know you can see this in the locavore like the locavore movement and people like michael pollan right reduce your footprint but basically don't abandon it altogether right and the And the argument is that, you know, we shouldn't eat animals from factory farms. It's terrible what happens to the animals. It's terrible for the environment, but we shouldn't stop eating animals altogether. We're still justified in eating animals because eating animals is natural. The argument is tribal societies eat animals. It's the natural way for humans to be. Humans have always eaten animals. And there are a couple of things to be aware of when it comes to echocarnism. One is that how we define

natural is determined by the lens, the dominant lens that we look through. So basically, we tend to look at history, which is how we come to the definition of natural, through the lens of the dominant culture that's why we call it his story and not her story because we look at look at it through the dominant history through the dominant patriarchal lens when we look at history through the lens of carnism we only look as far back as we need to in order to justify our current carnistic practices our very earliest ancestors were actually fruit eaters, not scavengers, which they evolved into, and omnivores, which they evolved into. Does that mean that we are not

somewhat omnivorous? No. But if we want to use natural as a justification for carnism, then we should be clear that we're only looking as far back in history as we choose to. Well, human history is littered with all kinds of insane behaviors that you could then label as, I mean, we were raping each other and all kinds of craziness, right? Exactly. So you could make the, well, that was natural, you know, but we didn't tolerate that, right? So, you know, are we growing and evolving as a species? That's right. That's exactly right.

And so with echocarnism, the argument is, well, let's just eat animals in a more natural way. It's natural to eat animals, so let's kill them ourselves. We'll raise them and kill them ourselves. And, you know, this frames, you know, in this frame, the suggestion is that vegans are just soft urbanites and suburbanites who are really disconnected from their source of their food, and they, you know, don't get their hands dirty and buy their packaged plant-based products. But, you know, it's really, you know, important to recognize that in this lens, empathy and compassion are framed as qualities to transcend rather than cultivate. You know, the fact that we are at the point now where we actually feel enough empathy, we're connected enough to our empathy to individuals of other species such that killing them unnecessarily in particular disturbs us.

That is not something to be ashamed of. That doesn't mean that we're too disconnected from our food. That actually means, in my opinion, that we're more connected than we have been in the past. It gets more complicated with men and gender roles and this idea of masculinity, right? Like what does it mean to be a man? And baked into that is this concept of hunter-gatherer that for whatever reason we still cling to, despite the fact that it has no bearing on how we, you know, most people who live in Western society, you know, function. But that if you are not eating meat, then you are somehow less masculine. So how do we begin to, you know, overcome that? Which I think is, you know, that's a really big thing for most guys, that they don't want

to be perceived as weak. This still, you know, despite the work of people like Brene Brown, the idea that vulnerability is weakness, to show that kind of compassion is to say that you're some kind of lesser man. We know from the research that it is actually the opposite, that there is strength and power in vulnerability, and that the greatest leaders throughout history are ones that know how to wield power, but also know when to wield compassion. Like, you know, the great leaders understand that they're caretakers, right? But for some reason,

that gets lost in the translation of how we take care of, you know, the animals on our planet. So, how do we, you know, as men, like, how can you speak to men to help them kind of understand and get over that hurdle? Well, this is one area where we can, you know, quite clearly see the way that these isms intersect, you know, so veganism and feminism, for example, naturally intersecting carnism and patriarchy or sexism, you know know are naturally intersecting this idea of being a lesser man because you're not eating a lesser man is basically a woman right and the fact that we perceive women as lesser the fact that we can actually you know when we call a man a woman or

a boy a girl that it's actually a slur tells us something about not only what it means to be a man but what it means to be a woman and but what it means to be a woman. And really helping men and women to recognize the way that we've been socialized to believe that, well, when it comes to males and females anyway, both genders somehow have a separate set of qualities, and that one is lesser and one is stronger. We tend to overvalue the male or masculine definition of power, which is power over others. It's wielding power over others rather than sharing power with others. And just in communicating with men about this issue, it's important and useful to help men

think outside of this box that we've all been born into, to believe that being a real man means exercising power and control over others and to sort of shift masculine power from being, you know, power from being about bullying to being about, you know, protecting. You know, men can perceive themselves. When it comes to eating animals in particular, we can see this. Eating meat is an exercise of power over an individual who was weaker and whose body was exploited for the purpose of becoming somebody's food. One could

also look at the refusal to eat that meat and to stand up and speak out against that as playing the hero role and saying, I'm going to use my power. What it means to me to be a man is to stand up for what I believe in and to connect with those parts going to use my power, what it means to me to be a man is to stand up for what I believe in and to connect with those parts of myself, my compassion, you know, that I value, and that I have the strength of conviction to be able to do this, to speak and live my truth as I understand it. Yeah, that takes a lot more courage and strength than just, you know, sort of operating under the predominant cultural mores, right?

But it's still, it's such a difficult thing, right, for a lot of guys. And I think that's why the athletes are important, you know, the vegan athletes that are out there, you know, everybody from Patrick Baboumian to the MMA fighters, because it doesn't matter, you know, what they say or what comes out of their mouth. If they can perform well without doing this and they can speak to that, you know, paradigm that you've been referencing, that wins hearts and minds in a very interesting way. Yeah, absolutely. It really gets through to, you know, the typical guy. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's one of the many paradigms that are changing and that need to be changed over time.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle right now? Or what's the blind spot that we're not talking about in addressing how to advance this movement and ideology? You're referring to veganism. Yeah. You're referring to veganism. Yeah. Maybe there isn't one. Oh, no, there's always a blind spot, but it might just be that it's my blind spot, too, and that's why I can't answer it. I mean, I think the movement is doing a fairly good job of addressing its blind spots.

I think there are certainly areas of weakness and some blind spots that have been talked about, so they're not totally blind, but we should be more aware of them. I think that we would tremendously benefit the vegan movement if we were more intersectional, if we were aware of our own racial and gender and other biases and prejudices that we bring into the movement. I think it's important for us to be talking more about race, diversifying the movement more so that it's not overrepresented by white people. It is a diverse movement, but it's not perceived as diverse as it is because the leadership is not as diverse as, in my opinion, it could or should be. It's a movement made up predominantly of women still, and yet the leadership is predominantly males. And so I think these are very important conversations for us to be having.

I think we really do need to be having conversations about more than anything, about gender and about race. Yeah, human beings are funny. We all walk around believing that we're perceiving the world objectively. And yet, of course, none of us are. Right? Not as long. It's a very hard thing to do.

The best thing we can do is to commit to examining our biases and being open to feedback when we get it. And realizing that we are always going to be bringing our subjectivity to our work so not to assume that we're objective right i mean it it really it transcends this issue in so many ways i mean if you can't take feedback from somebody else or look at yourself in the mirror and take stock of of you know the objective reality of whatever character defect is holding you back or, um, you know, some persistent, you know, idea or, or thought or action that is harming you. Uh, if you can't do that, then you can't, you can't grow. Yeah. You can't grow in general and, and not, and, and nobody's going to be able to get through to you about anything. Right. So, so you have to really be willing to there's a vulnerability

with that right psychologically you have to be willing to say yeah i'm wrong about this or yes i can hear you i'm going to think about that you know in a new and different way and like i know for myself like i had to sort of be personally dismantled before i was able to do that but it's and it's frightening and terrifying. But ultimately, that's how I've been able to, you know, rebuild my life and become a stronger person. But it's terrifying for most people. And it's not something that we really value or encourage people to do. Right. And it's something that we're also even defended against. I mean, let alone not encouraging people to give us feedback. We're actually defended against it. I, you know,

encouraging people to give us feedback. We're actually defended against it. I, you know, an example, recently, I was talking to a male colleague of mine who runs a fairly significant vegan organization. And I, he, we were having a meeting together, he was in a meeting, he talked to me after the meeting, and he was frustrated because one of the people in the meeting was really not saying that much. There were, it was four men and a woman, and they were all in leadership positions. Of course, it was very unbalanced leadership, and he was frustrated that the woman wasn't talking that much. And he said, well, maybe she doesn't have that much to say. And it was very much an example of what happens pretty consistently where if there isn't space made for women, women's voices will get squeezed out.

if there isn't space made for women, women's voices will get squeezed out. And they've done plenty of studies, you know, looking at the gendered communication patterns. And this is very concerning to me. My colleague is open-minded, so I could talk to him about this and encourage him, you know, as a male and as a leader to try to be aware of gender

and to try to not let the men kind of override what the woman is saying. But many, many instances I have had similar conversations and have been told that, you know, I'm making a big deal out of nothing. It's not that bad. Oh, sure, we'll work on it. And then nothing happens. And so, you know, we have this assumption that just because somebody is vegan, then they've somehow got it. Well, by the time you make the connection with animals, you've gone through all of the other levels of human rights connections

that you could make, and that's just not the case. Human beings, as I said, have a remarkable capacity to compartmentalize, and I think what we really need to do, getting back to your question about the blind spot in the movement or the blind spots in the movement is be willing to take feedback from those, particularly who are in positions of less power and take them seriously. When somebody has less power as a member of a group that has less power and they say, this is a problem, you know, this feels discriminating and this is why to listen. Right. It's very easy to discount that group or that individual

because of that lack of power. Yeah, and because we're socialized to do it. I've had countless conversations with male colleagues where I say, as a woman, I was on a panel, and I won't say what panel it was, but there were a lot of important people in the room, and it was in, anyway, it was in another country far, far from here, and I was, it was me, and it was all men on the panel, and the moderator was female, and the two of, we were consistently

interrupted. I had less time than everybody else, and every time the moderator started talking, somebody would talk over her. And I said to my colleague after that, who had hosted me and actually gotten me into this important conference that I was speaking at, I said, wow, you know, it was really interesting to see this, and it was such a gendered experience. It felt like a very familiar experience to me as a woman.

This has happened consistently. And he just looked at me and he said, there was no gender to anything happening there. And his automatic reaction was to completely dismiss the, you know, I was 49 at the time, you know, 49 years of my experience as a woman. And I was just told that I was wrong. And it just erased my reality and i thought this is exactly and he's a vegan and i thought this is exactly what we're asking people not to do when it comes to animals yeah well that's a pretty illustrative blind spot right um he couldn't see that whatsoever and when challenged on it was in a place of denial,

like refusing to really even look at it. And I'm using gender as an example because that's my own experience, but we could apply this across the board. I'm thinking about just within the movement, the vegan movement, the very fierce and loud dismissal of the China study, right? Like somebody writes a blog post that purports to debunk it, which didn't really debunk it. And then it's very easy for somebody who feels their worldview being challenged to say, well, that was debunked. And then suddenly, by virtue of the Internet and virality, that becomes the conventional wisdom around the China study, despite the fact that it's not true whatsoever, right?

It's just, oh, yeah, that was debunked. Or didn't you hear it was debunked when it wasn't? Because that allows you to feel better about your world. You're not challenged in your worldview to just hear that. You're more likely to adopt that without investigation than to actually look into and explore whether that is indeed the case. Yeah, I think we could accomplish a lot if all of us just stopped and listened and took seriously the information that was given to us. We don't have to believe all of it, but we could stop and listen and consider it. Take a moment could stop and listen and consider it.

Take a moment to stop and listen and consider. And if this information is coming from somebody whose experience is different than yours, take them at face value. And if we did that, I think it would go a long way for many of the problems in the world. What is some of the literature or the books out there that you have found to be most instructive or beneficial on this issue that maybe people, I mean, there's the obvious ones, but, you know, maybe some of the lesser known ones. Yeah. For people who are just interested in learning about power dynamics and how these social power dynamics get played out and are typically so invisible, there's a book called Privilege,

Power, and Difference. It's a very, it's a thin book. I used to use it as one of my textbooks when I was teaching sociology that I think outlines the dynamics quite well. Do you remember the author? Alan G, I think it's his middle initial, Johnson. There is Jackson Katz, K-A-T-Z, does some great work in raising awareness

of gender dynamics and gender issues. Alan G. Johnson has a new book about patriarchy, and I don't remember the title of it, but it's on his website. And then the book that I mentioned to you, Messages by McKay et al., about effective communication. I think those books are probably some of the most useful books for people who really want to be more open and more examined and communicate more objectively and effectively. Cool. Well, I'll put links to those books up in the show notes.

And tell me a little bit about the work of your organization, Beyond Carnism. Sure. Well, Beyond Carnism's mission is to expose and transform carnism. And we use a two-pronged strategic approach to do this. We use a two-pronged strategic approach to do this. All of our programs and outreach are designed to either weaken carnism or strengthen veganism. And, you know, like I said earlier, this is sort of carnism has this two-pronged strategy to maintain itself. And so our programs are designed to basically do the opposite and ideally to do both equally. ideally to do both equally.

So we reach out to people who are, you know, everybody, not simply vegans and vegetarians, but meat eaters as well. And so we have videos, we have a new booklet, a campus outreach program that we're starting up now to help people become aware of what carnism is and to help people become empowered to make choices that help to transform the system and reduce their participation in carnism is and to help people become empowered to make choices that help to transform the system and reduce their participation in carnism. And we've also launched,

as I mentioned before, the center for effective vegan advocacy, whose mission is to increase the impact of vegan advocacy worldwide. And so through the center, we do trainings on site trainings for organizations and advocates around the world. We have a strategy resource center. And we also provide small grants for smaller international organizations outside of the U.S.

Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, and those grants are from another person, a designated grantor. Right, right, right. And I'm interested in the stuff that you're doing on college campuses. What does that look like specifically? Well, we just finished designing. We have our first booklet on carnism and we're actually going to distribute

the first batch through FARM, Farm Animal Rights Movement, with their pay-per-view and look at what people's response is, try to get some really preliminary metrics in how people respond to this booklet. And then we're going to do basically what Vegan Outreach has done on college campuses, and we're going to start in Germany

because our offices are, we're a U.S. organization, a 501c3, so all donations are tax-deductible. And we are based here in the U.S., and we have offices in Berlin, Germany, where I live. And so we're going to start our campus outreach program, basically saturating college campuses with leaflets, start a leafleting program and ideally a speaking program. Old school. Yeah. Well, yes and no. I mean, the beauty of leaflets is that they're very, very cost effective. And the studies that have been done on leaflets have shown that they actually have a pretty significant impact.

And they're not expensive to produce. I mean, once you've produced them. And anybody can get involved. But we have a number of other campaigns and programs that we're running as well. And people who are interested can get information at carnism.org. Very cool. So where do you fall on the optimistic, pessimistic spectrum? Like, there's a lot of work that has to be done.

Yeah. We're kind of running out of time with the ecological crisis that we're in. We're slaughtering, what is it, like 1.2 billion animals? Every week. A week, which is insane. The numbers are staggering, right? The movement has picked up a lot of steam. There's a lot of interest. It's never been, you know, more, you know, acceptable and like cool to like explore this. Are you encouraged by what's going on? Are you discouraged? Well, I have a privileged position that I'm in where I do travel all over the world and meet

with people in positions of leadership in the vegan movement all over the world and get their, you know, perspective on what's happening in their country. And so I'm constantly hearing these amazing success stories of the vegan movement and organizations around the world. And I'm also pretty consistently seeing the response of the meat-eating public, at least to the work that we're doing, which is extremely, extremely inspiring. somebody who has studied social transformation and social change, we can see that carnism, because it's structured like other isms, the mentality is the same. Carnism is starting to follow the trajectory or the direction that the other isms have gone in.

When a behavior becomes a choice and is no longer a necessity or perceived as a necessity, it takes on an ethical dimension it didn't have in quite the same way before. Oppressive systems and regimes have historically relied on making the public believe that, you know, their oppressive actions or violent actions were necessary for the preservation of the race or the preservation of the species or the country or what, you know, what have you. And so, you know, once we take out that necessity component argument, then suddenly we see the rise of the social justice movement that has challenged that oppressive system in practice. And that's what we're seeing with

veganism today and carnism. I have absolutely no doubt from a psychological and a sociological perspective, no doubt whatsoever, that at some point in time, veganism will replace carnism as the dominant ideology. It's just not logical to think otherwise from where I stand. I could be wrong, but that's my professional opinion, I guess I could say. So I'm very hopeful. Well, we're going to have to be anyway because we're running out of land and resources to continue to do it the way that we have been doing it. Right. Beautiful.

Well, that's a great place, I think, to kind of round it out and, you know, land this plane. But I think I want to leave people with one last question, which is if somebody is listening to this, they're intrigued by, you know, what you have to say, perhaps these are new ideas to them. They're plant curious, you know, they think they want to make a change. Like, what kind of recommendations or advice do you give to that person to encourage them, you know, learning more and perhaps changing habit or two? Yeah, learning more is really important. Get informed. The information is out there. At carnism.org, we have resources for people regardless of where they fall on the carnism-veganism continuum. And we also have some resources for people who are wanting to change their diet and lifestyle. So reducing and ultimately eliminating, ideally, one's consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy is

obviously a great way to be part of the solution. But even simply reducing is a great step. And then thinking about how else you can not only get informed, but once you become informed, I should say, become an active participant in raising awareness of carnism and veganism and being an active part of this solution in a way that works for you. And so we do have a number of recommendations on our website for how people can get involved in a way that works for them. Fantastic. Well, I'm really inspired by your work. I appreciate your level of advocacy and your passion.

It's inspiring. And I hope that you continue to do what you do. And I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today, Melanie. Well, thank you. And thank you for all that you're doing, too, reaching so many people and opening hearts and minds. It's wonderful. Doing my little part. Doing my little part.

Cool. So the best place to connect with you, carnism.org is the destination, right? You're on Facebook. You're not really on Twitter. I looked at your Twitter. You haven't tweeted since 2014. And we're we're working on that right but people should definitely check out your ted talk uh from it's

from 2015 right tedx munich um it's fantastic it's got like almost a half a million views at this point so that's a wild success congrats on that and uh are you do you do public speaking that's open to people coming and checking you out is there a calendar on your website if people want to try to connect with you in person um there's not a calendar on the website at the moment because we're revising our current calendar but i am i do do quite a bit of public speaking um i'm not going to be doing any public speaking in the u.s um for the rest of year, but I expect to be back in 2017. There's a lot of European listeners, though. Yeah, I'll be in Lithuania, Norway, and we'll have it on Facebook.

And the Beyond Carnism Facebook page will be posting these, but not until starting in October. And South Africa, Africa Argentina and Brazil and I think that's what we've got lined up for the rest of the year thanks for doing this thank you so much it's a pleasure to talk to you you too peace

plants alright we did it hope you guys enjoyed that hopefully Dr. Joy gave you more than a few things to ponder. As always, please make a point of checking out the show notes on the episode page for this episode at richroll.com. I got tons of links and resources to take your infotainment and your education beyond the earbuds.

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goal setting and achieving. And my third course, my most recent one, is called How to Build a Conscious Relationship, which is, of course, about relationships. And you can find all those courses at mindbodygreen.com. Click on the word classes in the upper left-hand corner of the homepage, and you can search for them there. They're really great. I'm really proud of them. Hopefully, you will find them helpful. What else?

Go to richroll.com for all your Plant Power merch and swag needs. I've got signed copies of Finding Ultra and the Plant Power Way. I will sign it with whatever inscription you would like if you purchase it through our site. We also have cool Plant Power t-shirts and tech tees, all kinds of cool swag and merch to fly your Plant Power allegiance. I want to thank everybody who helped put on today's show.

Jason Camiolo, as always, for audio engineering and production. Sean Patterson for all his help on graphics. Chris Swan for production assistance and helping compile the show notes. And theme music, as always, by Analema. Thanks for all the support, you guys. I love you. And here's my final thought. If you're still listening to this podcast, whether you are a longtime vegan or an ardent omnivore, I want you to approach your next meal with a heightened sense of awareness and mindfulness. Where did this food on my plate come from? What went into bringing it to me?

And why am I eating it? Does it reflect my values? Does it reflect the words that come out of my mouth? Do my actions align with what I believe? Our plate is political. It's a vote for what we believe about the world, how it is, and how we would like it to be. So I simply want you to consider that perhaps a little bit more deeply this week. And I'll see you guys soon.

Peace. Plants. Thank you.