Image courtesy of AlicePopkorn via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent essay I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “We Can (and Should) Care About Both People and Animals”:

“In a recent interview in The Sun magazine, Joel Salatin, who is the owner of Polyface Farm and was featured in the film Food, Inc., and in Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, makes a number of comments about animals that bear deconstruction, primarily because they’ve become a straw man that undermines the goal of doing the most good and least harm to all people, animals and the environment.

Salatin is a farmer who raises animals for food. When asked whether animals should give up their lives simply for our pleasure, he replies: ‘Why think animals are more special than carrots?’ He goes on to say that he hopes that anyone who cares for animals ‘would not spend more on his or her dog or cat than on making sure hungry children in Africa got fed,’ stating that Americans spend more on vet care than Africans spend on health care. He actually calls this a litmus test of our priorities.

Why this need to disparage caring for pets? After all, there are many other things we spend money on.”

Read the complete essay.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | animal cruelty, carnism, compassion, consumerism, critical thinking, ethics, farmed animals, food choices, joel salatin, nonhuman animals, speciesism, straw man argument, veganism