April 14th marks the release of the 40th Anniversary ebook edition of Peter Singer’s groundbreaking work, Animal Liberation, originally published in 1975.
Animal Liberation played a critical role in inspiring a generation of animal advocates. It was instrumental for influencing the activism of a number of Vegan Outreach’s Board members, including myself. If you are at all interested in animal advocacy and have not read the book, you owe it to the animals–and yourself–to do so!
Animal Liberation is divided into six chapters:
1. All Animals Are Equal
2. Tools for Research
3. Down on the Factory Farm
4. Become a Vegetarian
5. Man’s Dominion
6. Speciesism Today
I have always thought that chapter one, All Animals Are Equal, contained the most eloquent and concise argument for extending moral consideration to animals. In reading it again for this review, my opinion hasn’t wavered. Here is an excerpt that summarizes the argument:
“If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—insofar as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being. If a being is not capable of suffering, or of experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. So the limit of sentience is the only defensible boundary of concern for the interests of others. To mark this boundary by some other characteristic like intelligence or rationality would be to mark it in an arbitrary manner.”
Animal Liberation popularized the term speciesism. Singer writes:
“Racists violate the principle of equality by giving greater weight to the interests of members of their own race when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race. Sexists violate the principle of equality by favoring the interests of their own sex. Similarly, speciesists allow the interests of their own species to override the greater interests of members of other species. The pattern is identical in each case.”
Except for the parts cataloging the abuse of animals (Chapters 2 and 3), I find Animal Liberation to be a very enjoyable read and was glad I had a reason to reacquaint myself with it.
You can buy a copy of the re-released eBook by clicking this link:
Vegan Outreach recently joined with ReadingRewards to do a pilot study to determine the effectiveness of paying people to read our booklets. Participants were given a small reward as part of a rewards program.
We tested the booklets Your Choice (YC), Even If You Like Meat (EI), and a control pamphlet about immigration. Participants were then surveyed to see if they intended to change their diet. All participants were surveyed a month later to see how they changed.
You can see the basline report by clicking here and the follow-up by clicking here. As of this writing, I didn’t have an official study design report yet, but will add that as soon as I receive it. [Added Dec 18, 2014; click here.]
For the initial study, 223 people read YC, 181 read EI, and 213 read the control pamphlet. For the follow-up, 167 of the YC, 134 of the EI, and 158 of the control readers took part.
The takeaway messages were as follows.
EI was the stronger pamphlet in terms of getting people to change. Compared to YC, EI has more text, citations, and more graphic images. It doesn’t focus as much on trying to convince people based on the fact that others are also going veg.
The finding that people were more persuaded by EI goes somewhat against the social research that suggests that seeing other people like you doing something is the most powerful motivator for change. On the other hand, older people were more likely to change in this survey (which was a surprise), and YC shows pictures of college students, not older people.
Speaking of the age of people who changed, among those over 50 years old, 14.3% reported changing their diet due to the pamphlet. The rates were 5.5% for readers between 40-50 years old, 2.9% for readers between 30-40 years old, and 1.9% for readers between 18-30 years old. These differences were statistically significant.
Predictably, women were more likely to change than men as 6.8% of female respondents who read a VO pamphlet reported changing their diet due to reading the pamphlet, compared to only 1.4% of male readers.
In terms of how much change the pamphlets created, the results suggested that 1 out of every 60-100 readers may have become pescetarian, vegetarian, or vegan due to reading the pamphlet. These results are highly uncertain due to lack of statistical significance. If true, then at a cost of $0.44 per read, it would be $26.50-$44.15 per major diet change.
Some of these results were surprising. We had been planning to make all our booklets more like YC, but this has given us a strong reason to continue having a couple booklets with more graphic photos and more text and citations.
The fact that older women were more likely to change their diet than younger women or men was also surprising. It’s hard to believe that this finding isn’t an anomaly, but definitely worth paying attention to more for the future.
In the meantime, I don’t think this survey should necessarily be taken as the final word on which booklet to use. The fact is, for most leafleters, YC is a lot easier to hand out and possibly handing out more could overcome the fact that if someone reads the entire booklet, they are more likely to change from an EI. And we don’t really know the differences between the booklets among a large number of college students.
The benefits of this Pay Per Read model for studying our booklets is that it solves some of the significant logistical problems of going onto college campuses and surveying people over time (especially finding the people to re-survey over time). In the not-too-distant future, I am interested in testing:
Larger groups of people to possibly achieve statistical significance
Longer time periods
Reading pamphlets versus watching videos
Incremental approaches versus a harder sell for veganism
Environmental, health, and animal arguments compared to each other
On December 2, the Humane Research Council (HRC) released a report about vegetarian recidivism, How Many Former Vegetarians Are There? I would like to thank HRC and all the people who funded this important research.
The report had a lot of information, much of which they’ve summarized in the article linked above, and I’m going to comment on just a few aspects of it.
A quick overview of the report is that it was a cross-sectional survey of 11,000 people in the USA aged 17 and older. They found that 2% are currently vegetarian/vegan, 10% are ex-vegetarian/vegan, 86% of people who go vegetarian lapse back into meat-eating, and 70% of those who go vegan lapse.
Former vegetarians/vegans adopted the diet at an older age, were more likely to list health than other reasons for going vegetarian/vegan, and transitioned onto the diet faster than current vegetarians/vegans. Former vegetarians/vegans were likely to stick with it less than a year with one-third lasting three months or less; 43% found it difficult to be pure. This seems predictable – when making a resolution to improve one’s health, people often start strong and quickly fade.
The good news regarding former vegetarians/vegans is that about half are interested in trying again and the survey indicates they do not eat large amounts of chicken (on average one-third serving of chicken per day).
Of former vegetarians/vegans, 29% indicated suffering from at least one in a list of health-related problems while vegetarian/vegan. I have discussed this more in my post Vegetarian Recidivism Survey at JackNorrisRd.com.
I have traditionally resisted promoting a vegetarian/vegan diet for health reasons because it could cause people to give up the diet without much of an attempt to stick with it, go on to portray the diet negatively, and possibly eat more chicken than they previously did (in an attempt to avoid red meat, the most unhealthy of the animal products). Based on these results, I can see loosening that position somewhat.
On the other hand, I don’t see this survey as suggesting the health argument is necessarily the way to go, either. One of the big differences between former and current vegetarians/vegans is the extent to which they believed their diet was part of their identity and this was presumably because they had more than health reasons to be vegetarian/vegan.
HRC suggests that we view vegetarian/vegan advocacy as a long-term relationship, not just a single point of outreach. With the recent addition of our vegan mentorship program and blogging about vegan food and products, Vegan Outreach has been focusing more on supporting people in their transition. We plan to create another program to support people in the coming months.
One thing to keep in mind is that this is a cross-sectional study and, therefore, cannot show causality. I think it’s a great start at finding out some valuable information, but we shouldn’t assume it’s the last word and I’d caution against drastically changing tactics based on these results alone.
We are very excited to introduce our new version of Compassionate Choices!
Compassionate Choices is our main booklet for non-students – the pictures and content are tailored to an older audience. A number of the pictures in this version were tested and found to be appealing or provoke sympathy for the animals.
By Lisa Rimmert, Donor Relations Manager, Vegan Outreach
As Rebecca Gilbert’s book title says, “It’s Easy to Start Eating Vegan!” And you know what else is easy? Donating $20 to Vegan Outreach today and receiving a complimentary copy of the book!
Donate at least $20 today or tomorrow, and with your book, you’ll get practical tips from Gilbert, like:
• Easy egg and dairy substitutions
• Ideas to stock your vegan pantry
• Plant-based protein sources
• Sample meal plans and tasty, easy-to-make basic recipes
• Tips for navigating social situations
The book is a terrific resource for your transition to a plant-based diet, and your donation to Vegan Outreach is a terrific way to help spread the vegan lifestyle to many others!
What could be better? Well, since you asked… Your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar, so your $20 will become $40! A gift today will double your impact for farmed animals, and get you a copy of “It’s Easy to Start Eating Vegan!” to get you started on your journey to a plant-based diet!
Promotion ends Tuesday, Dec. 2 at midnight Pacific Time. Dollar-for-dollar matching on all donations ends December 31st.
Vegan Outreach is excited to wish the wonderful people at Tofurky a happy 20th anniversary! For 20 years, they have been helping vegans and vegetarians feel included during holiday festivities by providing a cruelty-free alternative to the traditional turkey centerpiece. It was my great pleasure to chat with Tofurky founder, Seth Tibbott, about the early days of manufacturing and marketing a product that would completely change the veg world.
During the interview I felt a great respect for several things not elaborated in the interview below:
First, Tofurky is a family-owned company and despite having multiple offers from investors, have remained the way they originally intended. This is important because they are the visionaries of the brand based on mission and ethics rather than money; and speaking of money, being self-owned means they can continue generously giving to organizations that are helping animals. Check out a Tofurky Trot near you!
Most importantly, not only does Tofurky taste delicious, but they also do their innovative work because they care about animals. Hearing Seth talk about the importance of working towards more cruelty-free products was inspiring, and studies have shown that their hard work is helping turkeys! In the last ten years, Tofurky sales have gone up 123%, while turkey sales have gone down 9.6%. I can’t wait to see what tasty products they come up with next!
Here’s my interview with Seth:
Tofurky is a clever name, were there ever any other possibilities?
First off, “Tofurkey” is a name that dates back to the 1970’s and refers most of the time to a Thanksgiving dish made by mashing tofu with seasonings, lining a colander with cheese cloth, punching a cavity in the tofu with your fist and filling the cavity with stuffing. The “curd” is then flipped onto an oiled baking sheet and baked with a baste. The first Tofurky Roasts we made in 1980 were using this recipe. The first two years, my friends Hans and Rhonda Wrobel of the Higher Taste made the tofu and gravy for the Tofurky Roasts and we made the Tempeh Drummettes and handled the distribution and marketing of the product. There was some discussion about calling it a “Stuffed Holiday Roast” or “Celebration Roast” (which now is a yummy Field Roast product) but I thought the name “Tofurky” was more fun so we ran with that.
What inspired you to create Tofurky?
Tofurky was inspired by years of unsatisfactory Thanksgiving experiments, many of which took place with my naturalist friends at Bill Mckinney’s cabin in the Cascades near Ashland, Oregon (see photo above). I became a vegetarian in 1972 and would either nibble on side dishes or actually backslide into eating turkey. Two of the epic vegan failures were a Stuffed Pumpkin that contained rice and veggies and lacked a protein rich savory component and a Gluten roast that took all day to prepare but was virtually impossible to cut, let alone digest. I was looking for a Thanksgiving roast that was “bombproof” to make, delicious and easy to prepare.
Original Tofurky Box
How did people respond when you first began this project?
The first year, 1995, inside the first 500 Tofurky Roasts, we included a self addressed, stamped postcard requesting feedback from our customers. With no internet, this was the primary means of communication back then.
We got great feedback. I remember one in particular that said “I have been waiting 20 years for this product. Finally I am not a second class citizen at Thanksgiving anymore!” That year we also received some great press from NPR and the NBC Today show.
In the early days, how did you convince retailers to carry your product?
Some retailers saw the potential right away and others were very skeptical, mostly due to the high price of the Tofurky (served 8/cost $34.95). The prevailing retail wisdom at the time was no product would ever sell in the freezer price above $3.99 so there was some sticker shock with the Tofurky. Two early adopters of the product were Food Front in Portland and PCC (Puget Consumers Market in Seattle). They both brought in substantial amounts of Tofurkys that year and PCC even had to add a “Tofurky Hotline” where customers could order them. Other stores were not so sure. When I presented to one large Portland chain, they weren’t sure if they could sell any but reluctantly ordered one Tofurky. The next day they called and said they had sold that one and could I bring them 2 more? This exponential growth went on right up to Thanksgiving and was a lot of fun to watch.
How many people purchase Tofurky roasts these days?
Today we sell between 350,000 and 400,000 Tofurky roasts per year. Along with our other Tofurky products like sausages and deli slices we produce about 10 million pounds of Tofurky each year.
Original Tofurky Feast Holiday Table
How has the world – and the market for veg options – changed over the last 20 years?
Well first off, I started Turtle Island Foods in 1980 as a tempeh only company. Back then there was no tofu, tempeh or meat alternatives available and barely any granola. My diet consisted of pressure cooked soybeans and tortillas and soy grit burgers, so tempeh was a huge step forward for me. When I first brought my commercial tempeh cakes to stores, the response was “Awesome! Do you have any more products? We are trying to fill up our shelves with products and are having a hard time finding enough!” By 1995, when Tofurky came on the scene, there were plenty of frozen burgers, led by the Gardenburgers and Boca Burgers, and also refrigerated tofu hot dogs but not alot of other good options. The variety and quality of vegan meat alternatives and cheeses available now is nothing short of amazing.
Did Tofurky ever experience the kind of corporate pushback that newer vegan brands are currently facing (e.g. Just Mayo vs Unilever)?
We have never been harassed by larger corporate entities though several have offered to buy us, something we have never been tempted to do. My stepson, Jaime Athos has worked here for going on 10 years now and is now our President and CEO. He is very sharp.
Knowing what you know today, what would you have done differently in the first few years of establishing your brand?
No regrets though I wish there was Kickstarter around as an option for raising money! As it was, I gave my brother 27% of Turtle Island Foods for a $17,000 investment in 1990. Oops! We are still on good terms and he was happy with his investment.
Current Tofurky Vegetarian Feast Packaging
Did you ever think Tofurky would be as popular as it has become?
Before you launch a product you never know really how it will turn out. But after reading all the feedback cards the first year, there was a deep sense that we had struck marketing gold. It was such a great “kairos” moment when we for the first time could finally see our way through. The world just opened up in a whole new way and changed our company forever. We were lucky enough to introduce deli slices and sausages of high quality in the coming years, using the same basic recipe which expanded the company’s opportunities beyond the holiday realm.
Are there any plans for new products?
Always. We will never stop innovating. It’s the lifeblood of the company and is in our mission to bring great tasting products out at a price that is as affordable as possible. We think the next 20 years will see great advancements in plant based proteins and in 100 years, they will be the dominant paradigm. A great deal of our hope rests on the outstanding work of organizations like Vegan Outreach who are exposing uncomfortable truths about the current meat based paradigm.
Vegan Outreach Cofounder & Executive Director, Jack Norris, has been known to say that “We want a vegan world, not a vegan club.”
That said, as we work toward a vegan world, Vegan Outreach wants to build a really big vegan club!
Become a member of Vegan Outreach today by donating at any of the levels listed on our new website – from $30 per year to become an official Member of the Vegan Club, up to $50,000 to become an Advisor of Vegans and provide high-level guidance to help VO reduce animal suffering. Check out the thank you gifts available at every level. And if somewhere in the middle works best for you, consider becoming a member of the Vegan Police at $300 annually (or $25 a month). At this level, you’ll receive a Vegan Police T-shirt – available only by joining the force!
And what better time to donate than right now, when your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar! Which brings us to…
Year-End Donation Matching Has Begun!
Your Contribution Now = DOUBLE the Booklets =
DOUBLE the Vegans = DOUBLE the Animals Spared
From now until December 31, when you donate to Vegan Outreach, your impact for the animals will be doubled. A small group of generous donors has stepped up to match every donation dollar-for-dollar up to $155,000! That means your investment in Vegan Outreach will reach twice as many people with messages of compassion – and save twice as many animals from suffering in factory farms!
Your contributions to Vegan Outreach directly increase the number of people who stop eating animals. And today, you can do twice as much! That’s twice as many booklets, twice as many new vegans, and twice as many animals spared!
Thank you to everyone who has already made a year-end gift, and to all our supporters who give automatic monthly and quarterly donations!
Steve Erlsten, VO’s Northern California Outreach Coordinator, leads the pack handing out over 80K booklets at over 90 schools this fall so far!
Our total booklet distribution has reached 24.4 million since our inception.
As of October 31, we have already sent out 2.6 million booklets for 2014.
Adopt a College leafleters have placed booklets into the hands of 12.2 million students since we started keeping track in the fall of 2003.
This fall, our leafleters are on pace to have the best semester of college leafleting ever! Through November 10, they have given booklets to 845,401 students at 752 schools, well surpassing the previous record year for the same time period (800,161 booklets at 701 schools in fall of 2013).
Thank you to all of Vegan Outreach’s amazing outreach coordinators and volunteers for your hard work, and to all the donors who make it possible!
Here is a sample of the feedback we receive on a daily basis:
I reached 970 students at Florida A&M University today. The take rate was excellent most the day, with many seen holding their booklet a while after they’d gotten it from me. Many students stopped with comments on how interesting they found the literature, and a bunch passing by after said they’d been moved to give up eating pigs, cows, or chickens. Three came back to me after getting the leaflets and said they’d been thinking of going veg, and were surprised finding out how many substitutes there were to choose from now.
One student named Chris has a mom who is vegan, and said he’d been wanting to try it for a while. Another student said she’d been feeling bad about eating animals already, but had no idea how to eat differently. Both got Guide to Cruelty-Free Eating booklets plus veg shopping guides and said they’d be giving veg a go after today.
A student named Kenya [above] came back a few minutes after getting her leaflet, asking what it was about and was also curious how she might get started changing her eating habits. She was really happy hearing about all the alternatives available everywhere now, and asked me for good recommendations on where to get started. She also got extra info; and after hearing what ideas I had on how to transition easily, she said she was going right from our meeting to the supermarket to stock up on all the veg groceries she could find!
A number of other conversations came off really positively through the day too. Really good visit here – I’m hoping we’ll be hearing even more results come next time.
We tested the booklets 
EI was the stronger pamphlet in terms of getting people to change. Compared to YC, EI has more text, citations, and more graphic images. It doesn’t focus as much on trying to convince people based on the fact that others are also going veg.
