Stop the Presses! Mark Bittman's Become Protein-Deficient!

Someone kindly sent me a link earlier to a Mark Bittman piece from yesterday's New York Times. In Tara Parker-Pope's "Well" column in the health section of the paper, Bittman explains how while training for the New York City Marathon, he was informed that he's not eating enough "'complete' proteins". In fact, it seems that he just hasn't been getting enough protein at all. He lists the credentials of nutritionist and Today TV show regular Madelyn Fernstrom, and states:

We met, she heard me out, then immediately declared my diet to be on the “low end” protein-wise – which, she said, “would certainly cause fatigue,” especially since I eat mostly vegetables and don’t typically consume “complete” proteins (code-word for animal products).

So what's an omni foodie trying to pass himself off as a supposed "part-time vegan" to do?

I started eating a “concentrated protein,” usually tofu, a can of sardines, an egg thrown onto whatever else I’m eating, or something equally simple, right after six-miles-or-longer runs.

So here's the scoop: Bittman's obviously not an abolitionist or any sort of animal rights advocate. He's not a vegan. He's not even a vegetarian. He's a trendy food writer who's tried to cash in on the rising popularity of veganism, attempting to co-opt the term to sell his book. I certainly don't expect him to defend a plant-based diet any more than he already has for the limited reasons he has (e.g. personal health, the environment). However, the reference to needing "complete" proteins (or of the supposed need to combine proteins), whether or not for "athletes", has long-since been dismissed by even the most mainstream of non-vegan-friendly bodies as completely unnecessary. Plus, the whole idea (his token reference to tofu aside) of needing to consume "concentrated" sources of animal-based protein to not "often run out of energy halfway through even four-mile runs" had me rolling my eyes more than a little. Some of the comments were especially annoying, especially one where Tara Parker-Pope added a note describing Bittman as "mostly-vegan" and attributing his protein deficiency to that fact. Mostly vegan? Really?

I would certainly never try to encourage someone to go vegan for health-based reasons, since it's not about personal health: It's about our usage of animals for our own selfish and trivial purposes. On the other hand, it really ticks me off to see someone who's getting so much attention as a purported food expert now trying to spread the word that anyone exerting themselves physically needs to eat animal flesh to stay healthy. I really hope that someone takes him to task concerning this soon.

Stewart White of The Business Spectator Minces Words

OK, I'm kidding. President of Food Media Club Australia and "The Digestive Tract" columnist for The Business Spectator, Stewart White went on the anti-vegan rant of the week today. Somewhere in the middle of all of it, he plugged eating pigs to fight diabetes, citing the results of--an Australian meat industry funded study! Go figure.

Some highlights? First:

Vocal minority food zealots can be so tedious. They are invariably self-righteous, ill-informed “believers” who have some flaw in their existence that gets them liverish about something and they will bang on ad infinitum in their blinkered and myopic crusade.

Then:

If it weren’t for the fact that these fanatics dig into their anthropomorphic chaff bag of skewed anecdotes from which to launch these sallies – on the face of it there would be a modicum of logic in the argument – but changing a person’s eating habits – changing lifestyle habits – are not done easily as most sane people who’ve ever tried to do – or not do something – would attest.

A quantum leap into vegetative boredom is a big call for anyone to seriously adopt and maintain from a lifetime of a normal omnivorous diet. So get over it. Modifying is the buzz word here. Modify the diet – make incremental changes – and it will stick … hopefully.

Today I read how there is a health issue with sprouts on the veggie market. There’s a whole lot of salmonella going down with mung, alfalfa and other mouth-watering sprout offerings. I have to say, I’d prefer to take my chances losing weight with one of 15 heart foundation approved cuts of lean pork than a gusset-filling gastro dose from alleged human grade fodder.

His use of the term "logic" was almost endearing. I think that I've written "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" papers in junior high-school that reflected a bit more maturity than this opinion piece by an obvious Australian meat industry mouthpiece.

Number 457

Thanks to Dan Cudahy from Unpopular Vegan Essays for the heads up on this short (but effective) SlideShare presentation that lets you have a look at the true cost of milk.

Number 457

View more presentations from Screaming Chicken.

Let The Boston Globe Know that The So-Called "Vegan Cook's Bible" Isn't Vegan

Pat Crocker's crept into the news again (well, into a newspaper, anyway). The Boston Globe's T. Susan Chang reviewed The Vegan Cook's Bible today. Chang calls Crocker "a fearless cook who is not afraid to use a complete arsenal of techniques to generate drama on the plate". What she neglects to mention, however, is that (as was discussed here a month ago), part of Pat Crocker's arsenal includes honey as an optional sweetener. Heck, she even lauds the consumption of fish at the end of her book. Chang obviously misses the point about veganism by referring to herself as having become a "reluctant and temporary vegan" during the five days she spent testing the book's recipes on her family. She also misses the point about veganism by advising her readers at the end of her article: "[I]f you're already vegan, there’s plenty here you’ll like".

You can leave a comment on The Boston Globe's website at the end of Chang's review of The Vegan Cook's Bible.

The Vegan News Episode #8

Another episode of The Vegan News is out--Episode #8 can be enjoyed right here. Aside from covering the latest that's of interest to vegans, host Adam Kochanowicz also responds to a voice-mail from a younger listener requesting information on how to prepare easy vegan lunches to bring to school everyday. He obliges with a show-and-tell of various food items in his pantry. It's a longish episode and (as with previous episodes) is very well worth watching. Support this show made by vegans for vegans!

Incidentally, Adam's featured in a two-part interview with Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan Podcast this week. I just read her update about it on Twitter, so I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet; I'm looking forward to doing so as soon as I can fire up my iTunes.

HSUS' Paul Shapiro Reaches Out to Meat Industry

HSUS has been keeping busy trying to reassure farmers who raise animals for their products or for slaughter that HSUS is no threat to them. Back on July 1, I wrote about an AgriTalk radio interview with HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle, where Pacelle seemed to engage in a lot of damage control to assure the meat industry that HSUS wholly supports the continuation of animal agriculture. Yesterday, Lancaster Farmer (a trade publication of sorts based in Philadelphia) published an interview with Paul Shapiro, Senior Director of the HSUS' Factory Farming Campaign, that seemed to do more of the same sort of damage control. The former founder of welfarist organization Compassion Over Killing emphasizes throughout this interview that HSUS' concern is on making the animals comfortable--as they're raised for human consumption. For instance:

LF: What do you think is the most serious threat to animal welfare posed by agriculture?
PS: (Extreme confinement) is not the only threat, but it’s among the most serious. The top three (examples) are veal crates, battery cages for laying hens and gestation crates for pigs.

He elaborates upon HSUS' goals with regards to animal agriculture by stating that

[they] are supportive of raising the bar on farm animal welfare. That means working with farmers who want to help their industries move away from some of the most extreme forms of confinement.

And just in case anyone still thinks that HSUS is comprised of a bunch of wacky fringe-dwelling animal rights activists seeking to end the enslavement and slaughter of all animals, Shapiro makes it crystal clear just who and what they are:

Just think about it — we’re the largest animal welfare charity not only in the country, but in the world. Do you think that an organization that didn’t take mainstream views would be so influential? Just about two-thirds of Californians voted for the proposal we put on the ballot ... If you look at the breakdown of the vote, we won the majority of virtually every demographic ... even some of the largest ag counties.

So what does the "largest animal welfare charity in the world" do with all of those contributions that well-meaning folks fork over, thinking that they're helping them fight the good fight on behalf of animals? Well, it seems it's mostly spent on getting retailers to buy animal products. Shapiro says:

By working with retailers to drive demand away from the more inhumane practices and toward better practices. For example, take eggs. Just four years ago, only 2 percent of eggs sold in the country were cage-free. Now, that’s about 6 percent, and a lot of that has to do with our work moving retailers to cage free producers.

Ask the folks over at Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary what sort of victory a 4 percent increase in cafe-free eggs really means to the chickens. They'll show you if you're willing to handle the truth. Is this really and truly what HSUS views as being in the best interest of an animal's welfare? It certainly does nothing to defend or protect their rights. In fact, crunching numbers seems to be what's important. The rest of the interview is spent discussing various issues, such as regulationism in general and the profitability for egg farmers to go cage-free. For instance, Shapiro states that

Of course, the profit margins on cage-free eggs tend to be greater than on cage-raised eggs, so you’d imagine (it does help the farmer). [...] The egg industry’s own economic analysis demonstrates that it costs producers less than a penny per egg more to convert to and produce cage free eggs.

When asked about his own dietary preferences, Shapiro states that he's a vegetarian, but tempers it by stating his reasons for being vegetarian, as well as how HSUS manages to appeal to both those who choose to consume animals and to those who eschew their consumption:

Animal welfare is one of them. Personal health is another. Concern about global warming is another. I think that one of the important aspects of our campaign, (though), is it’s attractive to both vegetarians and meat-eaters. Whether we eat meat or not, all of us can agree that animals who are raised for food should be able to turn around and extend their limbs.

Is this really raising the bar for animals, though? For those of you who refrain from consuming animals or their products, are this organization's ideals the sort of lowest common denominator at which you feel comfortable throwing your financial support? Or behind which you'll throw your vocal support? Shouldn't the non-usage of animals be the starting point? Shouldn't veganism, as abolitionist blogger Dan Cudahy put it, be your minimum standard of decency? It's certainly not HSUS'.

As Professor Gary L. Francione states, veganism should be the "moral baseline of an animal rights movement"--no exceptions. Anything else just endorses the perpetuation of their consideration and usage as property--as things. If this is the sort of "mainstream" stance that Paul Shapiro and the people at HSUS are embracing, then I think that vegans and animal rights activists supporting or sitting on the fence about HSUS need to do some serious re-thinking of their own positions.

The Sexy Vegan's Poutine

As a Canadian, there was no way that this reference to vegan poutine was going to slip by me for too long. This is from Episode #8, back in November of 2008. More of his videos can be found here on his website.

Since When Is Self-Preservation Ethical Eating?

Scanning through things in the news early this morning, I found yet another article that seeks to blend interest in supporting local farmers and in eating healthily with the idea of not harming animals. This new "conscientious consumer" fad has lumped so many things in together that they've become interchangeable to some as they're each given equal moral weight. It's enough to make you dizzy to read these pieces like this one from Tuesday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Take, for instance, the 20-year-old described as the first exemplar of conscientious eating who "doesn't want to hurt anything or anyone as she goes about her life" so she eats meat from "animals who are raised on the range, not in a cage". According to the article:

For decades, ethical eating was largely limited to vegetarians and vegans, who don't eat milk or dairy in addition to forgoing meat. But the movement has grown to include many kinds of foodists.

Their reasons are many: Some want to improve their health. Others hope to sustain the environment or to stop the mistreatment of animals. And a growing number of people hope to support local growers and businesses, rather than out-of-state — or even out-of-the-country — conglomerates.

So, how is it that wanting to improve your health makes you an ethical eater? I always thought that was just about self-preservation. And although I've certainly understood some of the ideals behind the locavorist tendency to buy from area farmers, I can't help but sense that it's turning into this whole us vs. them mentality, where it's no longer so much about protecting the environment anymore as it is about not supporting outsiders. But I digress...

The article goes on for the next few paragraphs to talk about people's interest in buying fresh local produce for health reasons. I glimpsed the word "vegan" for the second time in the article, only to find them describing a token vegan couple who run a vegan deli:

The Menseys chose to give up meat and its byproducts after learning more about the antibiotics and steroids used in some animals. Mensey said they both want to take care of the "best investment" they have on the planet, their bodies.

What does wanting to avoid polluting your body with chemicals have to do with veganism, honestly? I guess I'd hoped that in an article that's purportedly about ethical eating that someone--anyone--would have thought to actually discuss not consuming animal products at all for ethical reasons, rather than talk about veganism in terms of self-motivated health concerns, which really aren't what veganism is about. The article drones on about Oprah, healthier eating, organic foods, eating locally and includes a quote from some guy who "aspires to be more of a vegetarian" but who eats fish and chicken, because "'[i]f you eat meat that's high in fat, it's not good for you'". It's not exactly "good" for the party being eaten, either.

I thought that maybe there'd finally be some focus on animal ethics upon reading the title of the article's next section, "Treatment of Farm Animals", but then read its first paragraph:

Another factor is the environment. Rhodes believes a lot of land that is used to grow grains for animals in confinement could be used to grow crops to help curb worldwide hunger.

Aha! So it's wrong to confine animals since they eat up grain that could be used to feed hungry humans. Got it. The article then quotes a token vegetarian who is "opposed to concentrated feedlot operations" and quotes him as saying something about carrots not suffering when they're eaten. This vegetarian goes on to quip about his friends who are "devoted carnivores" and how he juxtaposes himself with them as someone who's thought about what he eats, while they have not. I can't help but think that he hasn't really thought things through, since if you really think about what you eat, not eating animals or their products at all (and the ethics of not doing so because they have an interest in not being eaten or enslaved) should, at the very least, be some sort of consideration on your radar, shouldn't it? At least, you'd think that it would have gotten a passing mention in a newspaper article about ethical eating. But who's really thinking these days, anyway?

What to Eat

Once again, hours away from lunch, I find myself glancing through the latest posts of some of my favourite concocters of tasty vegan eats. I do so bravely, clutching a section of pink grapefruit while itching for ideas of what to make for dinner this week.

I'm always on the lookout for veggie burger recipes and cookbook author Bryanna Clark Grogan offered one up on her Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen blog last week, just in time for Canada Day and 4th of July celebrations. Bryanna shared some suggestions for making grillable kebabs, as well as two recipes for barbecue sauce and her Mushroom-Tempeh Burgers. I'm definitely going to give the burgers a try this weekend if I can fire up my feeble little Hibachi.

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Sinead from kitchen dancing posted a recipe a few days ago that included two of my favourite foods: beets and lentils. Her recipe for Lentil and Beet Salad calls for mustard, so she threw in a recipe for a homemade whiskey mustard for it. It looks like a really simple recipe that would taste anything but simple.

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I should also note that veganf has a really neat bento blog called Disposable Ardvaarks Inc.. Along with recipe ideas, including this recent post from last week for garlic scapes (Garlic Scape Infusion, Garlic Scape and White Bean Hummus and Potato Salad with Avocado and Garlic Scapes -- does it get any better?). If the recipes won't get you, the gorgeous photos she takes of the dishes she somehow manages to find time to assemble for her vegan family of six will leave you absolutely amazed.

Gilmer Dairy Farm's Edopt-a-Cow Program

A friend tipped me off to an eye-roller of a program being run by a place called Gilmer Dairy Farm that's being geared towards kids and their teachers. The program is called Edopt-a-Cow and it allows individuals or classrooms to "adopt" a cow and follow her "calving schedules" and machine-like milk production (they call it her "Cowography") and to view her pedigree. Take, for example, nearly-seven-year-old Kathy Sue, otherwise affectionately known as GDF #234. Kathy Sue's been successfully impregnated a whopping five times in her almost nine years, each time having her calves taken from her so that her almost 100,000 pounds of milk could be sold off to humans who don't need it.

The point of this program seems obvious. Under the guise of giving kids a close up and personal view of dairy production, it actually gives the whole thing a cold and detached spin. The cow becomes a machine with a cute nickname. No mention is made of the fate of her offspring or of the cruelty inherent of her being separated from each one so that the milk she produces to nourish him or her is taken from from her until her very last drop is produced and she is forcibly impregnated again. Gilmer Dairy Farm, however, presents the program as a teaching aide that helps kids learn to create charts and plot graphs, how to write business letters and most hypocritically, to "use the [cow's] pedigree to help teach the students about their family trees". Everybody knows that breeding programs are all about family, after all. Of course, no dairy propaganda--er, program--would be complete without a whole whack of educational links designed to make kids think that dairy farms are full of love and sweetness. I'm guessing that the Edopt-a-Cow program conveniently leaves out the fate that awaits Kathy Sue once she's too old to birth any more babies.

Although this page is from the NZ Dairy Cruelty website, the same information applies to cows in other countries like the U.S. and Canada concerning the ordinary lives of dairy cows. If you're concerned about the plight of animals humans raise for their flesh, but still consume milk products while reassuring yourself that there is less harm inherent in the dairy industry, think again. These sentient non-humans undergo immense suffering at various points in their lives. It is impossible to deny the repeated violations of the interest each one of those cows has to live a life that does not involve being enslaved, forcibly impregnated, having her offspring taken from her just after birth, and in the end, led off to slaughter.

There is no logical manner in which someone who chooses not to eat animals for ethical reasons can defend continuing to consume dairy. If you are merely seeking to somehow remove yourself from the cycle of animal slaughter, then every single male calf taken from its mother that ends up on someone's dinner plate is testimony to the fact that you're failing miserably. Furthermore, to promote vegetarianism where dairy consumption is presented (or defended) as one step further along the ethical path towards veganism is wrong-headed and speciesist.

For further information on resources to go dairy-free, visit the Go Dairy Free website or do a simple Google search for alternatives to dairy. Do Kathy Sue and others like her a favour--go vegan!

Links on My Face Is on Fire

I'm just scrawling a quick note to say that I'll be purging and reorganizing the links in the right sidebar over the next week. Some of the categories overlap and I need to find a way to put some order into them. If you have a vegan or abolitionist animal rights site or blog you think would be a good fit and would like to do a link swap, please drop me a line at m.of.the.maritimes at gmail.com.

Eva Batt and What Other Abolitionists Have Been Discussing Lately

A little over a week ago, Nathan Schneider of the Vegan Abolitionist blog "resurrect[ed] a bit of vegan history by posting an essay by early vegan advocate and longtime Vegan Society member Eva Batt. Batt wrote "Why Veganism?" in 1964, around 10 years after she'd gone vegan herself, and close to 20 years after the term was first coined by the Vegan Society's founders. Today, 45 years after the essay was written, some of its facts concerning food or animal usage may be a bit dated, as practices have changed over the years. Worth nothing, though, is that in 45 years, some of the more heinous practices in so-called "animal husbandery" have not changed at all. For instance, while describing the failings inherent in following a lacto-vegetarian diet, Batt wrote:

If, however, we were to compare degrees of cruelty, it would be clearly seen that of all the "food animals" the cow suffers far more than beef cattle. For the whole of her life, this soft-eyed, docile animal is regarded siply as a milk machine. She is kept going with drugs and "steamed up" with hormones, injected with anitbiotics, and still has to suffer the horrors of the slaughterhouse when she has at last become unprofitable.

Overall, much of what she wrote is still valid and the spirit in which she wrote it is more than significant. It's a piece of history in the vegan movement, but it's also a call to eschew the use of all animals which still resonates today.

Elizabeth Collins of the NZ Vegan Podcast wrote about Nathan's blog post on her own blog a few days ago and read the piece aloud on her most recent podcast, reflecting upon the points in the essay that she felt were most relevant and on how she feels it would make an effective introductory essay on veganism for many non-vegans. In her post, she also pointed out that Adam Kochanowicz (of Abolition Vegans) discusses Batt's essay in Episode 7 of his Vegan News video podcast. Please check out what Elizabeth and Adam had to say about Bett's essay and take the time to have a look at the piece itself.

My Face Is on Fire Is on Twitter!

After discussing it a bit with a fellow blogger yesterday, I've decided to take the plunge. If anything, it's a good way to stay on top of what my favourite abolitionist vegans are doing. It's also a fantastic way to keep my ear to the ground for the latest news.

So, I can be found here. Please feel free to follow at your own risk (and definitely feel free to post your own Twitter profile links in the comments below).

Oh My Poor Bones!

So yesterday, the results of yet another study into "vegetarianism" and its impact on bone density were released. This one is apparently a bit more comprehensive, involving the results of several studies. According to a piece about it on the Australian Science Alert website called "Vegan Bones a Bit Less Dense":

Researchers in Australia and Vietnam searched all peer-reviewed literature on the subject, selecting nine studies for analysis. The nine studies compared bone mineral density (BMD) of meat eaters and vegetarians from around the world, including 2749 men and women.

Their results showed that people on vegetarian diets have BMD roughly 5 per cent lower than non-vegetarians.

The article quotes one of the leaders of the study, Professor Tuan Nguyen, as reassuring people that

"Many studies tell us, for example, that countries with a high rate of vegetable consumption have a low risk of hip fracture. This implies that vegetable consumption is good for bone health.”

“Other studies have highlighted lower BMD measurements among vegetarians and have come to the opposite conclusion.”

“The truth, of course, encompasses many dietary and lifestyle factors. While BMD is important, it is not the only thing that contributes to fracture risk.”

Now, although the piece on the study is called "Vegan Bones a Bit Less Dense", the piece goes on to use the term "vegetarian" in describing the subjects of the mere 9 out of 922 peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic that Professor Nguyen's group found worth of including in their own results--less than 10 per cent of previous studies done on the topic. His group ended up looking at results for subjects who followed a number of supposed types of vegetarianism, including in their definition of the term those popular "vegetarians" who eat animals:

The term ‘vegetarian diet’ included 4 types of vegetarian diet: semi-vegetarian (excluding meat); lactoovovegetarian (excluding meat and seafood); lactovegetarian (excluding meat, seafood and eggs but not milk and dairy products); and vegan (excluding all foods of animal origin).

In conclusion, Nguyen emphasized that the difference in bone density between meat eaters and vegans is "small" and that "whether the difference translates into increased fracture risk has yet to be resolved".

Another story about this study, again out of Australia, quotes Nguyen as stating outright that "the study found vegans were no more likely to be treated for bone fractures than non-vegans" and that vegans tend to be healthier, living longer and with lower rates of hypertension and heart disease. So basically, a vegan's bones may be 5% less dense than those of an omni, but there's no conclusive evidence that this means anything whatsoever in terms of a higher incidence of breaking said bones (in fact, the opposite may be true) or of the development of osteoporosis, and furthermore, vegans tend to live longer by avoiding one of the major killers in Western society--heart disease.

Five bucks says that by this time next week, the US media will have jumped on this, regardless, with milk industry types and their public relations people (think Center for Consumer Freedom) reinterpreting the results for their own agenda and praising the benefits of dairy, while warning people of the dire consequences of following an animal-free diet. Five bucks, I tell ya.

Wayne Pacelle of HSUS Makes It Clear That He's No Abolitionist

Just yesterday, AgriTalk (aka the "talk radio program for rural America and agriculture") aired an interview with Wayne Pacelle, a self-described vegan and the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). For those of you who may have been rooting for HSUS, keeping your fingers crossed and hoping that maybe the animal slaughter industry's labelling of Pacelle or HSUS as having a so-called "vegan agenda" held the slightest bit of promise in terms of ending the use of animals in agriculture, please listen to this abridged version of the podcast.

The fact that Pacelle and HSUS have been standing firmly in the new welfarist camp was (yet again) made more than clear. In the interview, host Mike Adams of AgriTalk asked Pacelle where HSUS stood with regards to animal rights or animal welfare and Pacelle responded.

Adams: We have had a lot questions about where you come down on animal rights and welfare. The livestock industry and people I know believe in the humane treatment of animals. There is a difference between animal welfare and animal rights. How do you define the two? Are they same or different?

Pacelle: We at the Humane Society of the United States don’t talk about animal rights, but human responsibility. That places us more with the comments that you represent from the agriculture community. In almost al of our campaigns and activities, whether it’s Prop 2 in California or prior ballot measures in Florida or Arizona, or in our Hallmark/Westland investigation, where we exposed the terrible mistreatment at a cull cow slaughter plant of the spent dairy cows, or in some other campaigns, those fit squarely in the realm of animal welfare. They relate not whether animals should be used for food, but how they are treated during production, transport and slaughter. [...] We’ll have some disagreements depending on what your orientation is, but I don’t think anyone can reasonably claim that our work is moving in the direction of eliminating animal agriculture as some of the folks in the industry keep repeating.

Pacelle goes on to assert that it's his

core belief that Americans are going to continue to eat meat, milk and egg products. That is the way it is. These are long-standing cultural practices. Our diet has been at work for a long time with people and it will not change certainly not overnight and it’s not going to change over a decade or 50 years.

In the remainder of the interview, when asked about his veganism, Pacelle makes it clear that it's his personal choice and that it has no impact upon and nor does it reflect HSUS or its policies. He goes even further to emphasize how, in fact, very few of HSUS' volunteer board of directors are even vegetarian, as if not eating animals somehow leaves you incompetent to help determine their best interest. When asked if he's stated that he wishes to put an end to all sport hunting, he denies it firmly and then dodges a question about whether he opposes hunting in general, stating that HSUS merely focuses on its "worst abuses" such as "canned hunts, bear baiting, contest shoots, shooting of endangered species [and] pure trophy hunting". When asked if he supports the closure of zoos, he says no. He even calls farming a "noble profession". You can read a transcript of the full interview here.

I think it's important for vegans to be aware of these facts--of this reality. It concerns me when members of the vegan community come out in support of organisations like HSUS, defending them for making supposed small inroads for animal rights. The truth is that organisations like HSUS do absolutely nothing to benefit animal rights. They collect donations from the guilty and wage minor public relations campaigns. What they accomplish isn't merely insufficient; it actually sets animal rights considerations further back. These campaigns invariably end up making those same people who donate feel better about maintaining the status quo concerning society's treatment of non-human animals as property. Is that what the vegan community really wants? Is this man who the vegan community really wants to champion?