Why Jack’s Book Matters

Of course, I understand wanting to appeal to self-interest to promote veganism. However, the idea that the majority of people will give up their familiar, favorite foods in order to benefit their long-term health has long shown itself to be ... unrealistic, given American’s eating habits. (Discussed in greater historical and nutritional detail here, and in an advocacy context here.)

Of course, the health argument isn’t just an unrealistic attempt to persuade the masses into going veg. As pointed out in the links above, it takes hundreds of intensively-confined broiler chickens to provide the same number of meals as one steer. So even though the health argument has convinced some people to stop eating all animals, the others who moved from beef and pork to chicken and fishes have more than countered these relatively few new vegetarians.

This, of course, has led to many, many more animals being slaughtered.

Thus, appealing to people’s self interest via the health argument has created much, much more suffering.

Still, many advocates have this seemingly unshakable belief that veganism is so miraculous in its health benefits, there simply must be a way to convince the majority to go vegan. But the fantasy that veganism (and veganism alone) is the perfect diet isn’t simply false (again, see this, especially the meta-survey that shows vegans having higher mortality than fish-eaters), it is the exact opposite of many people’s real-world experience.

When VO co-founder Jack Norris started leafleting around the country in 1995 and 96, he was stunned by the number of former vegetarians and vegans who told him they had gone back to eating meat because they hadn’t felt healthy as a vegetarian or vegan. This, of course, is completely counter to the standard vegan line that meat, eggs, and dairy are deadly poisons, being vegan will cure / prevent all manner of diseases, etc.

The tidal wave of failed vegetarians was so overwhelming that Jack went back to school to become a registered dietician, so he could read the actual original nutrition research, rather than merely seeing the selective vegetarian spin / distortion.

Jack’s experience is backed up in this new Psychology Today article, which indicates 75% of people who go vegetarian in the U.S. eventually go back to eating animals. 75%! In other words, if everyone who went vegetarian had stayed vegetarian, there would be three times more vegetarians in the US today! (A similar survey in the UK also showed more former vegetarians than current vegetarians there as well.)

And what is the leading cause of people going back to eating animals? The existence of “happy meat”? Ha! Peer pressure? Nope. Missing the taste? Not even close.

You guessed it – the leading reason most vegetarians go back to eating animals is because they didn’t feel healthy.

Again, compare the real-world reality with the propaganda put out by many advocates. Quite a disconnect, right?

Understandably, people are keen to defend their faith: “But I know the health argument works – just look at near-vegan Bill Clinton!” In the first case, Bill Clinton proves the point. Secondly, a relative handful of individual examples can’t counter the overall numbers.

The animals don’t need us to act on anecdotes – they need us to face facts.

And the facts are clear. The biggest impacts that health concerns have on diet are: 1. Eating many, many more smaller animals, and 2. Causing people to stop being vegetarian and go back to eating animals.

The numbers are stark and unequivocal: when we promote the vegan health fantasy, overall, we hurt animals.

Again, I have total sympathy with the desire to believe the anything and everything claimed for veganism: it will cure cancer, reverse baldness, halt global warming, undo impotence, create world peace, and make us all much, much better looking.

But then I watch the latest exposé of the brutal, sickening barbarity inflicted on farmed animals. And I know that, no matter how much I want to buy into the feel-good fantasy about my personal veganism, it is infinitely more important to deal with the real world. Knowing the reality of what the animals are going through, as well as the reality of how most people really react to different arguments, I am compelled to work for the biggest possible net impact for the animals, given the world as it really is, and accepting the facts as they exist.

And the way to have the biggest impact for the animals is simple:

1. Focus on the animals as the irrefutable bottom line: Buying meat, eggs, and dairy causes unnecessary suffering; we can each choose not to cause this suffering.

2. Provide people with honest, thorough, evidence-based information so they can change their diet and maintain that change.

The latter is why Jack and Ginny’s book – and their work in general – is of vital importance.

It is an absolute moral imperative that we learn and present the reality of vegan nutrition, so we can stop throwing away 75% of our efforts. The animals deserve no less.

-Matt