What Dr. Joy concluded is this. “Eating (certain) animals results from extensive social and psychological conditioning that causes naturally empathic and rational people to distort their perceptions and block their empathy so that they act against their values of compassion and justice without fully realizing what they’re doing. In other words, carnism teaches us to violate the Golden Rule without knowing or caring that we’re doing so.” Deconstructing our carnistic system taught her how violent or oppressive ideologies are structured. (Powerarchy, 2019)

When Melanie was twenty-three years old, she ate a contaminated hamburger (campylobacter) and became severely sick, needing hospitalization. Surviving this incident—and questioning other aspects of how she and most of the rest of us were raised—took her on a journey from meat-eater, and vegetarian to vegan and activist, theorist, author, social entrepreneur, and the eighth recipient of the Ahimsa Award validating her work on global nonviolence. The Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela received this same award. You can hear her brilliance as we discuss Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows.

Today, our purpose is not to convince you to eat a plant-based diet.

Our goal is to expand your awareness about choices and encourage becoming an ally.

What compelled our family to become vegan in 2021 was a long journey that began by reading World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle, Ph.D., during yoga teacher training in 2016. Dr. Tuttle’s belief floored me. It was a disturbing ‘aha’ moment. He believes we will not have world peace until we stop killing animals. Growing up on a dairy farm, I was initially horrified by how many animals we killed and ate. I realized we were not allowed to name our cows and pigs because seeing these animals as pets would make it almost impossible to kill them, so we were taught emotional detachment.

Of course, our farmers aren’t in the business of killing animals. They are in the business of raising animals and crops to provide food to others, us consumers. What does a farmer do when their livelihood needs to change? They reconfigure their businesses. You will find out how a global sausage maker transformed his business.

Pondering that new awareness about how I grew up, our daughter, Olivia, encouraged us to watch documentaries like Cowspiracy, Inconvenient Truth, Blackfish, Seaspiracy, and What The Health. After that last documentary, we committed to going 98% vegan. There are situations where there are no plant-food based, so we allow ourselves to choose. 

My learning continues. I have read books like How Not To Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM and founder of nutritionfacts.org, and The Proof is in The Plants by Simon Hill. What has made it easier to live a plant-based lifestyle was helped with the results of today’s Guest Mentor’s work and Dr. Melanie Joy’s collaborations with other organizations to transform how food producers and manufacturers run their businesses. A positive consequence is more options in the grocery store. Transitioning to plant-based foods is more accessible now because we have more choices, i.e., coconut and almond milk, chia seeds to replace sugar, beyond burgers, and the Impossible and Violife products to replace animal by-products like beef, sausage, and dairy.

The evidence is compelling if you do not want to die from heart disease, lung disease, digestive cancers, infections, diabetes, high blood pressure, liver disease, blood cancers, kidney disease, breast cancer, suicidal depression, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s disease, or Iatrogenic causes (dying from Doctors who know how to treat acute infections, broken bones, and chronic infectious diseases but, do not know how to prevent you from disease)¹. We create change one decision at a time, as our family did on January 15, 2021. It has changed our view on food and relationships, and it can change yours if desired.

We are here to create an awareness of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Dr. Joy’s book was first published in 2010, and a tenth-anniversary edition was released in 2020. We discussed the global plant-based movement ten years later and her work in over 50 countries.

This episode first aired in 2019. I am re-posting it because I am inspired to continue expanding relational literacy. We don’t make changes unless it makes sense to us.  The practical way I am living beyond carnism is by bridging the gap between those professed values and the values I practice. I then could understand how carnism conditioned me to be nonrelational. I now feel more attuned and self-compassionate, and like usual, I love to share with you some of the underlying principles of resiliency. Emotional reattachment between what I say and do in my life led to connecting with why I was eating food that made me emotionally and physically sick. 

We discuss:

• The tenants of carnism and how these tenants are woven into our systems.
• Being trained to distance ourselves from our empathy psychologically.
• Classifying animals as edible and non-edible.
• How the dominant culture oppresses and what it teaches us about moral superiority.
• What does eating meat have to do with nonrelational relating?
• Do we think eating meat is normal or abnormal?
• Becoming an Ally.

It is possible to get beyond carnism. Please listen to our thought-provoking conversation and you can make up your mind about why you love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows. DOWNLOAD

NEXT STEP: Challenge yourself and do the Conscious Attentive Leadership Mentoring (C.A.L.M.) Activities, below.