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I've learned a lot from Sam over the years, and have great admiration for him. I looked forward to a stimulating conversation between two of the smartest people I have read and listened to (Kasia, please don't take offense, I was unfamiliar with you and your work until episode one of this podcast). Some of the conversation was great, but I was very surprised to learn how uninformed Sam is about animal issues. One would think that prior to the interview he might have made at least a cursory attempt to do a bit of reading.

If Sam had picked up a copy of Peter's Animal Liberation Now, perhaps the very first sentence in the introduction by Yuval Noah Harari would have grabbed his attention. It reads "Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history." Sam would no doubt strongly disagree with this statement, but it might have grabbed his attention to read further. Hearing Sam refer to factory farms, where animals are tortured, as "non-optimal places" is dismissive, unempathetic, and, to those of us who care about and advocate for animals, infuriating.

Sam's belief that dairy products provide essential nutrients for his family is a testimony to the industry, that even someone as brilliant as he has fallen into the propaganda trap than so many of us have swallowed (pun intended). It took me decades to finally realize that I was similarly brainwashed. The misinformation is everywhere, and often begins on our first day of kindergarten, if not before. Yet a quick dive into the scientific evidence reveals what should be logical, that is is not natural for a human to suck the milk out of a pregnant cow's teat, or to have someone else or a machine squeeze it out for them. Cows’ milk is designed for baby cows, who have four stomachs and weigh hundreds of pounds within a year of birth. It's as nonsensical as drinking the milk of a dog, cat, rat, etc. No animal drinks milk beyond infancy, and no animal drinks the milk of another species (except when humans feed it to them, like with cats). Big ag is no different than big oil and big tobacco, they all put profits first. They have spent billions of dollars (yes, billions) deceiving the public with false advertising and their hired biostitutes. San thinks that raising children as vegetarians and vegans is irresponsible and a "medical experiment." Infants, children, and adults don't merely survive, they thrive, on whole food, plant-based diets. Sam has apparently fully bought into The Protein Myth. A big problem in our society is that people get much too much protein. if Sam has ever met someone with a protein deficiency, for every one of them, he has met hundreds, and perhaps thousands, who suffer from having consumed excess protein.

If only people would take notice of what scientists and nutritionists who are not on the industry payroll have to say. Like Dr. Frank A. Oski, Former Director of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, and author of "Don't Drink Your Milk!, Frightening Medical Facts About the World's Most Overrated Nutrient." He tells us this: "There's no reason to drink cow's milk at any time in your life. It was designed for calves, not humans, and we should all stop drinking it today." Or Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Cornell University nutritional researcher and author of the China Study, "The vast majority, perhaps 80 to 90 %, of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented, at least until very old age, simply by adopting a plant-based diet." An educated consumer is the meat, dairy and egg industries' worst nightmare.

Sam buys into the "humane myth," and while less cruelty is certainly better than more, no one should have the impression that "humane" dairy farms are kind to animals. If anyone reading this believes otherwise, I suggest checking out Annie Lowrey's piece in The Atlantic, "The Truth About Organic Milk."

Sam also seems to know little, if anything, about the tremendous environmental damage caused by raising animals for food. And while many people blame this on factory farming, all animal farming is grossly inefficient, period. Cramming animals tightly into factories actually provides some efficiencies of scale, bring lower prices to consumers and higher levels of suffering to the animals. While family farms do employ some environmentally beneficial practices, in some ways they’re actually less eco-friendly. Animals allowed to move around expend more calories and thus consume more resources than those crammed into tiny crates and cages. Chickens not pumped full of antibiotics and genetically manipulated to reach optimal slaughter weight at 6 weeks take longer to raise — and consume more food in the process. Cows raised on pasture produce more methane (a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide) than those crammed into feedlots. Supporting a meat-based diet requires five times as much land as a plant-based diet, and smaller farms use even more land per animal. Additional demand for these products means deforestation, which leads to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The amount of land needed to produce all the meat Americans now consume by so-called “sustainable” methods would be astronomical — and it simply isn’t available.

Animal activists are often accused of trying to force our beliefs on others. Ironically, we are often asked, why can't we just live and let live?, when that is exactly what we advocate. At the core of our actions is the desire to shine a spotlight on the hidden abuses routinely suffered by our fellow sentient earthlings. Once people are aware of the issues, they have to face up to their cognitive dissonance. Most people profess to caring about animals. If they are forced to confront the facts, then they must either make lifestyle choices in accordance with their own ethical standards, or admit that they just don't give a damn about the suffering. They must face the question, if they wouldn’t abuse an animal, why are they comfortable paying others to do it for them?

I am not a great thinker or writer, and certainly not a moral philosopher, but this all seems so simple to me. There is absolutely no need for most people to ever eat animal products. If we can be kind rather than cruel, while improving our health, reducing our carbon footprint, etc., why on earth would we choose otherwise? I wish Animal Liberation Now was required reading for everyone, and hope Sam some day gives it a read.

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