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I thought I might take some time away from COVID-related stories to write about a term that gets thrown around a little in the vegetarian and vegan circles when discussing food ethics. It is a word that I think is quite useful to have a familiarity with because it underpins the varied perspectives regarding the morality of our food decisions as they relate to animal agriculture. The word is symbiosis; a biological term adapted for particular purposes when discussing the numer

I finally got around to listening to Mike's two "Talking to Vegans" podcasts earlier this week (sorry it took so long, Mike). There were a lot of comments that I agreed with and a lot of comments that made me think my eyes were going to roll all the way out of my head. One particular exchange about the harassment that vegetarians and vegans receive made me remember a journal article I had come across a few years ago. This article discussed something I'm certain every meat-min

I recently sat down with a group of six vegans to record a podcast (stay tuned in the coming weeks). My objective was to understand their perspective. I expect some who listen to the conversation will be critical of the fact that I didn’t challenge any of the statements they made. It felt, however, that it was most important to let them answer my questions about veganism without engaging them in a debate. Many of these conversations devolve into debate and I believed it was i

We recently wrote an article titled “Meat Demand is changing but its not because of the vegans.”. Our primary point was that there are many Canadians who are eating less meat overall, but still some eating meat – flexitarians. I often hear complaints that the vegans are the ones driving this reduction. We just wanted to make the point that focusing on vegans (and vegetarians) misses the point somewhat and overlooks the real driver of reduced meat consumption. We did suggest t

A piece that my colleagues Alfons Weersink, Molly Gallant and I published in the conversation.com on March 11th, 2019. Meat consumption in North America is changing. Product developers and policy-makers need to understand the reasons for that change. It’s tempting to attribute the decrease in meat consumption to a rise in vegetarianism and veganism, but not all vegans are the same, and overall they play a relatively small role in consumption changes. How is meat consumption c

Vegans and vegetarians have been getting considerable attention. The move to increasingly plant-based diets was reinforced by the newly released Canada Food Guide. The change in Canadian meat consumption is real but the truth is likely that it’s not due to vegans or vegetarians. The reasons are many (and we have an upcoming blog post that outlines them) but increasing number of vegans and vegetarians are an important contributor. The percentage of vegans and vegetarians in Ca