Welcome to Episode 10 of The Real Heal podcast where my guests are Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and Peter Singer, professor of bioethics, and author of Animal Liberation—widely considered the “bible” of the animal rights movement.
In this episode, we discuss the subject nearest and dearest to my heart: animal welfare. Ingrid and Peter both share how they came to understand animal sentience and how that decision to show compassion to all creatures changed their lives—which, of course, changed my life, too! I came to veganism through my work with PETA and have never looked back.
One of the things I really appreciated about this conversation was our discussion on food deserts, and how making the choice to not eat meat and dairy really affects these hard-hit areas where access to fresh healthy food including fruits and vegetables is scarce. These areas instead are teeming with unhealthy fast food, and high rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
While food deserts push out unhealthy food, approximately nine million people die every year of hunger when there’s more than enough food on the planet to prevent that—but we just feed it to animals instead.
There are other important reasons for not eating animals, too, including the benefits to the planet—animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, and the world’s leading scientists say we have only a few years to drop both CO2 and methane emissions.
Science also continues to learn more about the emotional lives of animals, their intelligence, and their sentience—and more reason to leave them off our plates and protect their habitats and right to exist.
It was such an honor to end the first season of the Real Heal with Ingrid and Peter, and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
Be sure to visit PETA.org for more info on Ingrid’s work and pick up a copy of Animal Liberation by Peter. Below are some resources you may find useful, and I talk a lot about how to keep animals off of your plate in the Kind Diet as well.
Trick a Meat Lover With These Vegan Burgers
Let’s Make 2022 the Yer We End Cosmetic Testing On Animals
