Thank you so much for posting this wonderful article….

For most of my life I have been a vegetarian — never really liked meat but love diary and eggs! The majority of my friends and family are also vegetarians and we all concluded that since we very rarely eat a dead critter (except fish) then we are being very humanistic in our endeavors to protect animal rights. Over this past year I have come to see the fallacy in this way of thinking.

Almost a year ago I reconnected with a friend who is now a confirmed Vegan. In a prior life this friend of mine could a steak and wash it down with a salmon fillet with the best of them and now will not touch meat in any form. At first I was taken aback by this change in attitude, thinking that it must be a 'fad' of some sort — trying it on so to speak, to fit into a group or as a form of acceptance. I expected this friend of mine to try to “convert” me to become a Vegan, heck I was already halfway there but my friend did not. Instead we got into friendly discussions… debates. Never was I approached with a, “you SHOULD be doing this because…” or a, “SEE I told you….”. Instead, my friend gave me recommendations for vegan cookbooks, sent me links to read about vegan interests and instead of telling me that I should not use milk and butter when baking my bread asked me gently, “have you tried using soy milk and olive oil in place of the milk and butter. It is so killer!” And you know what? Homemade bread with soy milk and olive oil IS way better than with milk and butter!

In my everyday life I am still mostly a vegetarian. I console myself with ideas that if I personally know the farmer than it is okay to eat those eggs or with raising three children alone cow milk is more economical than soy milk and the list of excuses for not being vegan (no matter how much I want to protect the animals that I so very love) goes on. So, I guess what I am trying to say is that as Vegans, if you all are trying to convert the world to becoming Vegans do it with little, tiny baby-steps. Love and friendship can change the world however, patience and understanding is required for the changes to occur….

Besides, who does not love Wilbur (the pig from Charlotte's Web)?

Sadly, I see too few vegans making these important connections, unless they're trying to win an argument. What I see more often is a kind of naive assumption that if we eat plants directly, they'll be more to go around. That may be true as a general rule, but the politics of food distribution make it almost irrelevant. In short, we need to better grasp the fundamentals of human inequality, and to try to get our fellow vegans to do some of the same.

I'm glad you listen to the show, and I'm flattered that you speak kindly of us. We keep thinking we'll get a show out, but times have been super-busy here. Nevertheless, we will eventually have another one out.

Thanks again.

We both have spent a lot of time thinking about how to deliver this message to different people, and we deliver it differently depending on the context. For example, in the classes I taught on this when I was a University professor, I took a very different approach than I do here. In my other book, I take yet another approach. Point is, different audiences require different approaches. We're not trying to reach everyone; we never could, and we never will. We've been doing this for years now, and the first edition of our book sold many thousands of copies. While that's not a direct indicator of the success of our approach, it suggests that we're doing something right for at least some people.

Responses to your points:

i) On it being from a book: The title references it being an excerpt, and the entry itself says in the first paragraph that we go into more depth “in the book itself.”

ii) Anyone can read the site — obviously — but we cater to ethical vegans and those on their way to ethical veganism in what we write. Omnivores, vegetarians, and whatever pretentious vegans are may not find a happy home here because of the audience we write to. That's how it goes.

iii) Because we wrote a book that helps people to embrace ethical veganism, we often have people asking us questions about these issues. While most of our readers are vegans, we also have some near-vegan readers who are trying to figure out how to go vegan. The excerpt was mostly for them, and actually, I only decided to post it in response to this:

http://veganfreak.com/authors/#comment-2

Point is, yes, anyone can read this, but it isn't intended to be the single definitive guide to quitting dairy, forever and ever, without end, amen. It is simply a single page out of a single chapter of the 2nd. edition of our book — thus, the version 2.0 excerpt in the title — and I posted it mostly to answer a single question, and to give those who follow our blog a little taste of what we were working on.

Thank you for your apology. i don't think constructive criticism is out of line, but comparing the argument we make to the nonsense you wrote in your last comment frustrated me. If the constructive criticism is on-level, I'm actually happy to receive it, and we run all of our books through a peer-review process precisely to get that feedback.

You're welcome to post here if I ever open comments again (hehe) but please be fair in your comparisons. And please don't post in the wrong entry again. It gets confusing.

Your point that the disease is completely non-discriminatory is right on, and the fact that the Global South will suffer disproportionately is particularly sad because that third of the world's population are largely farmers who live a lifestyle that is largely sustainable. They don't do it because they have a choice, in fact they have no choice, they either live sustainably or they die. They may eat meat, but they eat it occasionally, and yet they will suffer for the Global North's obsession with having two to three servings of meat with every meal.

So, the outrage is appropriate, but so is the empathy and compassion you suggest. As we continue to discuss the causes of and responsibility for this humanitarian disaster let us keep the victims firmly at the center of our thoughts and concerns.

Many thanks,
Jonathan