The Humane Deception with Lia Wilbourn

Hope is right at home this episode talking about one of her favorite subjects, humanewashing. Lia Wilbourn joins Hope for a conversation about their mutual frustration with the humane hoax and the deceptive marketing and cover-up tactics employed by the animal farming industry. They explore the detrimental impact of continuing to use the term “factory farming” and argue that the animal advocacy movement should phase it out. Lia and Hope also discuss the cage-free egg industry transition, challenging the notion that this industry shift is a positive development for animals. They also address the criticism of using the word “vegan” and how some people are saying that we shouldn’t use the word as it has too many negative connotations. There are lots of strong opinions on advocacy in this one, we unpack it all for you! 

Lia Wilbourn has been active in a wide range of animal rights activism, including street outreach, demonstrations, writing, social media, speeches and art as activism. She is currently the Farmed Animals Campaign Coordinator at In Defense of Animals, advocating via articles, petitions, videos, etc. and co-hosting a monthly online Vegan Mentor Support Group. She also works with Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, is a volunteer on the Humane Hoax Project team, and is certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University. 

Resources:

Lia’s Contact/Instagram: @liaforanimals

The Humane Hoax Project

Article: Fixating on Factory Farms...

Article: Stop (Saying) Factory Farming

The Ahimsa Living Circle monthly online gathering: info and registration

Support this podcast:

Hope for the Animals Podcast

Compassionate Living

Transcript

Episode 124: The Humane Deception with Lia Wilbourn

Podcast Transcript

Hope:

Welcome to the Hope for the Animals Podcast, a project of Compassionate Living. I'm your host, Hope Bohanec, and today we're talking about one of my favorite subjects, and that is the humane hoax, or humane washing in animal farming with Lia Wilbourn.

Before we get into our conversation, I want to first welcome any new folks to the podcast. We had a bump in the numbers last month so we likely have some new listeners. Welcome. Not sure how it happened. Maybe the algorithm fairies were smiling on us. Maybe one of the algorithm fairies went vegan and spread the word. So if you are new to the podcast, I'll just give a short bit of info here. I haven't done that for a while so maybe this will be new for quite a few of you. 

I've been vegan myself for over 35 years and an animal rights activist for that time, for three decades. And this podcast focuses primarily on inspirational voices within the movement. On the grassroots level, I interview activists and animal sanctuary folks and documentary journalists, people that are doing the good work on the ground. I also like to have authors and educators and academics and people who can dig deep into a subject, really explore aspects of animal advocacy in depth. 

What you won't find here are big names and heads of big orgs. There's a lot of pods out there featuring those folks. I like to uplift the activists that are on the ground in the trenches. That's really military term, huh? In the trenches, like warfare, what's a more non-violent way of saying it? Well, I'll just say the grassroots, right? The people that are doing the good work on the grassroots level. I also lean towards the spiritual, particularly Eastern traditions from India, and we talk about that sometimes here on the podcast. So if you go to our website, hopefortheanimalspodcast.org, on the top menu, there's a button called “Episodes”, and that has a drop down menu where I've categorized some of the episodes by subject. So you can listen to past episodes that are within your interest, if I want, for the environment, for spiritual for chickens, anti-oppression activism. Or you can hit the button “All episodes” and see what sparks your interest. I have over 100 episodes now. This is episode 124, but the further you go back in time, the worse the audio editing is, just a disclaimer. Audio editing is a skill that I've been cultivating now for a few years, and I'm getting better. I do this entire podcast myself, and I'm self-taught so please be forgiving of some of the earlier episodes. 

This podcast is just one of the projects of my nonprofit, Compassionate Living. We also organize two veg fests, the Sonoma County VegFest in Santa Rosa, California, and the Eugene VeganFest in Eugene, Oregon, coming up in May. Another is our Ahimsa Living Project. Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word meaning nonviolence, and this project focuses on spiritual veganism through the Dharma traditions. We have a monthly online gathering that we're reviving on November 8 after a short break called the Ahimsa Living Circle. Compassionate Living also has our Humane Hoax Project. This might be what I would consider our signature project or our main focus. I've written two books on humane washing and greenwashing. The first was a decade ago called The Ultimate Betrayal, and the more recent book is an anthology that I edited called The Humane Hoax with 18 contributing authors who wrote various aspects about various aspects of the issue. We have a volunteer team and a website, humanehoax.org, and we do webinars and other events on the subject and I'd like to just say to some people don't like to use the term humane hoax, because they think that it's my term, or that they’re using my signature term or something, please do use that term. That's totally fine. I have no claim on that term. I want it to be used far and wide. Please feel free to use that term. That's totally fine. And even though I started talking about this issue two decades ago, I feel that it's more important now than ever. 

The market for humanely labeled products is just growing, and they're lulling consumers into this false sense that things are getting better, that conditions for animals are improving, and that there's some humane ways to commodify someone's body and take their life, and none of that is true. So we are going to dig into all of this with our guest today, Lia Wilborn, who was really gracious in letting me put in more than my two cents worth in this interview. Of course, it's a subject that I am obviously very passionate about so I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Today on the podcast, we have Lia Wilborn. She has been active in a wide range of animal rights activism, including street outreach, demonstrations, writing, social media, speeches and art as activism. She's currently the farmed animals campaign coordinator at In Defense of Animals, a position that I may have held at some point in my life, and there she advocates via articles, petitions, videos, etc, and co-hosts a monthly online vegan mentor support group. She also works with Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, and she is certified in plant based nutrition through Cornell University. Welcome to the podcast, Lia.

Lia:

Thank you. Hope it's so great to be here and such an honor. 

Hope:

I'm glad you could join me. It's so interesting to me that you hold the position that I did at IDA, many, many, many moons ago. So that's really cool that you are carrying on that tradition. And how funny I didn't know that until I met you, I think it was about a year ago. 

Lia: 

We met briefly before that, and then I mentioned to you that that's what I'm doing now, and you're like, that's what I did. Yep. That's great. Yeah, I love it. So I do work for In Defense of Animals. I'm their Farmed Animals Campaign Coordinator, and I also do occasional contract work for Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, as you mentioned, though, and just in general, I'm representing myself independently today. So anything that I say or talk about isn't necessarily the views of either of those two organizations.

Hope:

Good to know. All right, wonderful. Well, Lia, we love to start by getting to know you with the question: Why and when did you go vegan? 

Lia:

Okay, I'm almost positive it was 2013 but I don't have a specific date or day. 

Hope:

I don't either. I just have a year. So yeah, I get that. 

Lia:

So it was, I would say, three or four different kind of pinnacle moments just that still, that I still remember to this day, in small ways, and then a much larger way, my entire worldview changing kind of in an instant, or at least opening up my mind and my whole sense of myself. So if I look back on it now, I believe the first thing that happened was I was in the library, and I don't even remember why, and I see this book called The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone, actress back in the day, and as clueless ever of the 90s. You know, I like her, but also she her mother and my mother were good friends, and they were pregnant together. And then when I was very, very young we all hung out together. But then they just both moved to different areas. They lost touch over the years. But my mom has only ever had positive things to say about Alicia's mom and then I'm like, oh, Alicia Silverstone is vegan, huh? It's not like I've been in touch with Alicia at all. Apparently, we played together as kids. 

Hope:

Oh, wow.

Lia:

So I check out this book from the library, and I still remember lying in bed that evening and opening it up thinking, I'm going to read about just her life and food. And I’ve got to give her props because I think it's just like the second or third page of the book before she even gets into recipes and healthy eating. And the whole thing, she goes into some detail, describing when she found out what really goes on in farms and slaughterhouses to farmed animals. And these are things that I had never heard of before, some of the things that she was mentioning, and it just had a visceral effect on me. I got a lump in my throat. I was just horrified, just by what I was reading. And then it stayed with me. And not long after that, I was in the grocery store, and I happened to be at the cheese counter. I wasn't buying any cheese. I was just hovering around it where they had all these fancy cheeses out, and the person behind the cheese counter was talking to a customer, and I can't remember their conversation. All I remember is hearing, Yes, too bad that the dairy cows are killed. Just that, that little piece of information, which actually I didn't read about in Alicia's book. And I was like, wait a minute, what? And I didn't interrupt them or talk to them, but I remember in that moment also being disgusted, and then at the same time looking around, and then feeling like I was in The Twilight Zone, like all these people talking about cheese, how wonderful it is, and doesn’t it taste so good. And look at these lovely labels, and look at these photos and these marketing images of green hills and happy cows. So for the first time, I was noticing the deception in marketing. And I can't believe I've never … how is it that I've never heard this before, right? So it's disgust that I didn't know it, ashamed that I didn't know it, but also anger that it seemed to me, in my world, nobody else knew this. 

And then the big thing was, I also think that is what prompted me to start doing my own looking into it. I must have been Googling or something on and searching on YouTube, and up pops a video. It was a PETA video that I didn't realize. I see Paul McCartney's face and he said, Hello. I'd like to tell you behind the scenes of what goes on in the animal agriculture industry. So instead of turning away and because as a kid, I grew up with The Beatles, had a soft spot in my heart for Paul McCartney and The Beatles, okay, I wanted to listen to him, and I'd known that he was vegetarian. I'd always known that, and his wife, Linda, in the 70s, was talking a lot about vegetarianism, and she influenced him to go vegetarian. Now this video didn't even mention the word vegan, but I just watched the whole thing, and that was the moment that utterly devastated me. And, yeah, I'd say traumatized me, but, you know, in the best possible way. I never wish trauma on anyone, but if it's opening your eyes to something that you're taking part in, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. 

And honestly, just circling back to right now, right here in my life, that is why I've become so involved, because I wish someone had stopped me and just told me the truth and was willing to show me the truth because it wasn't until I saw not just the slaughter, not just the blood, not just the factual, terrible things that are done, but I heard the cries of the animals, and I saw the fear in their eyes and in their faces and the terror, the terror, the pain, and it was an existential, spiritual moment for me, an epiphany, where I saw them looking right at me and begging me and pleading with me. Why are you doing this to me? That's what I felt in that moment. 

Hope:

Yeah, I love that Alicia Silverstone's book, The Kind Diet was your catalyst that drew you in. Because I don't like celebrity vegan culture for the most part, just because they can go back and forth so much, you know, celebrities go vegan, and they go back to not being vegan, and then they'll be very vocal about not being vegan. And they have such a huge platform, so I don't really like that. However, there are some like the two you mentioned, Alicia Silverstone and Paul McCartney. You know, they are in it for the animals. They are ethical vegans, longtime vegans, so that's really great. 

So Lia, we have a common concern or a common frustration in the humane hoax or humane washing. And you recently joined us on our volunteer team for the Humane Hoax Project, which is a project of Compassionate Living like this podcast. So what is it about the humane hoax that you feel is problematic? Talk about the humane hoax and why it bothers you. 

Lia:

Okay, so in all my years, not just kind of being vegan on my own, and then now, working for a couple different organizations, when I simply talk to people, whether it be vegans or non vegans, aside from the typical, most common objections, which tends to be, oh, we've always done it this way, you know, and taste convenience, that whole thing, but I'd say just as much, what comes up is, well, yes, I love animals, and they really need to be treated better, and that's why I look for and that's why I buy humane products. And then you get all the words that you start hearing everyone say, free range, cage-free, grass fed, organic, small, local, family farmers. So it's just so huge now. 

And the reason why that has become so much a part of our lexicon now in Western society, especially with all that marketing, I think in a way, it's an indication of how far the animal advocacy movement has come, actually, because of technology and YouTube and video and anyone can now share undercover footage, and this truth is getting out there more and more. But people are often referring to the bad, well, it's all bad, right? But saying this is what “factory farming” is. And so people are starting to get a sense, okay, it's this factory farming thing that's so terrible, and of course, I'm against that. But animal ag industry, of course, has gotten wise to the fact that more people are becoming more informed and seeing the terrible things that animals are put through, but most people are associating those terrible things with factory farms. So animal ag now is like, we just need to change how we speak about it so as long as we convince the public that, no, we're not a factory farm. 

Now you have some of the largest producers in the world, producers of meat, dairy and eggs, calling themselves in their marketing, family farms. Now, of course, it works so well because we want to believe it. Consumers want to believe it so we'll feel better. And as I like to tell people too, to make this point, I get it. I fell for it, too. I remember before I read The Kind Diet, I was just starting to question a little bit because I notice myself when I would go in and buy eggs. I would always look for the cage-free quote, free range. quote, you know, egg cartons. And I remember one day, I just thought to myself, this is probably BS, you know. Wait a minute. Why am I so quick to believe this label? Soon after that, I came across The Kind Diet, and everything else changed for me.

Hope:  

That's great that you had that feeling. I wonder if many people do…

Lia:

I hope they do, you know, because it just seems so obvious to me that it's so such blatant cover up and lies, but yet, millions of cartons are sold and millions of dollars are made. So somebody is wanting to believe it, right? And I think that's the thing. We want to believe it, and unless we come across more truth. Because here's the thing, when I went vegan, I didn't know any other vegans at all. I remember, I'd been working for this, like vegetable juice company for a little bit, and I was giving out samples somewhere, and this guy walked up to me, and he was in cycling gear, and somehow it just came up, and he went, I'm vegan. And that was the first person I remember who called himself a vegan, and it was perfect that he, of all people, was the person that the person that I met called himself vegan because he looked like an athlete. He was very nice and the whole thing, but, huh, interesting, so he's vegan. Okay, that opened up my mind a little bit, right? But unless you're kind of seeking out to find the truth, or you're coming across it, like I did, you know, on YouTube, or you hear something, you're getting these little seeds planted in your mind, and all you know is everyone else around you, all of society design, oh yeah, I'm an animal lover, and I eat animals, or I eat the milk and animals. Then you just, it's just not part of your it's not on your radar. That's the deal. That's where we all come in, right?

Hope:

Yeah, and I like that. You said it's kind of because of animal advocates and our success that this is all happening, and that's true. We have done a really good job of getting the word out about the horrors of animal agriculture, getting the videos out, getting the truth out. And so the industry has responded with this hoax, this huge cover-up, with the labels and the websites with beautiful pictures and images of animals in the fields and all of that when the reality it has not changed. It is, in fact, getting worse for animals for the most part. 

So you said it a little bit, but I wanted to dig in deeper to the term “factory farming” because this is, I think, a really interesting aspect of the humane hoax. So this term has been really successful. We've used it through the years for these last three or four decades to expose animal agriculture for what it is, what it truly is, turning the animals into machines, commodifying them, and it's really been a very powerful term, and it's done a good job. It's done its job. 

However, now that we have this humane washing problem, I feel, and I know that you agree with me on this, that we really need to phase out this term factory farming. The reason being that now people see two different kinds of farming, or two different aspects, or two different ways to farm animals, either the commodification, the commercial, the regular way, the way it's been done, which they have labeled factory farming. And that's because of us, because animal advocates have labeled that factory farming, but now they think that there's this other way, this kinder, gentler, whatever way to farm animals on small farms. Yet when you dig in, there is so little difference, even if it is a smaller farm, and most of the large farms, most of the big ag, is still using these terms. So it's not necessarily that it's a small farm, but even when it is a smaller farm, there are these inherent cruelties that are still being used for all farming practices, whether it's debeaking, whether it is artificial insemination, and all these horrible things that we've been exposing are still there under these labels, cage-free, free range, and on and on. So we are kind of feeling that as an animal advocate community, we need to stop using this term factory farming because it is reinforcing that separation, right, that there's factory farming and there's other farming, and we're telling people it's okay to support that other farming. So how, how does this term factory farming kind of play into the hands of animal agriculture?

Lia:

So much to unpack there. Okay, well, you know, the first thing I would just like to give a little example in my own area. I live in a part of California where there's been this big controversy and, well, it's not controversy, it's a disgusting thing that's been happening in a national park up here. The small local organic dairy ranch in Point Reyes, National Seashore, in partnership with the National Park Service, had a huge fence erected that basically trapped the endangered Tule elk. It's supposed to be a Tule elk reserve in a national park, and over the course of a few years, over 500 Tule elk died of starvation because they were trapped on a peninsula and couldn't get around. And the fence was put up because the ranchers wanted to supposedly, quote, protect their, quote, cattle, right? 

So I got involved in that. This was around 2019, 2020, and we’ve since had a bit of a victory, which is great. The battle continues, but, and I was asked to give a speech about this, and that brings up another subject I was told to not bring up by some environmental advocates, don't bring up the V word, don't bring up veganism, but we can talk more about that in a moment. But I went out, I got involved. And the first protest that I joined was out, and we were in front of a, quote, small local organic dairy ranch. But I'm noticing all these wonderful people that are showing up to speak up against what was happening to the wild animals, the Tule elk. And I just happened to be having a conversation with a few of them, and I keep hearing them say, it's terrible what the meat industry and factory farming is doing. And I said, yes, however, do you realize that these ranches we just drove past, these are your small local organic farms, and these are dairy farms? So it's actually the actual standard dairy farms that have caused this horror to happen to these wild animals everyone loves so much, right? And I just started getting really frustrated realizing that all these good-intentioned people were continuing to eat their small local, organic animal products, and they kept saying factory farms are the problem. 

And then you fast forward to now. Have to give you a shout out, Hope, of course, because it was a few years ago. I can't remember when maybe I was at a VegFest and I saw a meme a postcard, and I come to find out later it was yours. And it was this great illustration of showing some animal advocates saying, please sign this petition to end factory farming. And then the person says, Oh, yes, I love animals too. I'm against factory farming. And then they run off to buy oh, now this makes me want to buy my Humane Certified products even more! The issue there was that the advocate wasn't educating them on the fact that all animal quote farming, that's another thing that comes up, right? Is language. I don't refer to it anymore as agriculture. I just think that word is too nice, and I sometimes say agribusiness, or I want to use the same word farming, because it connotes something good in people's minds. So all animal farming, not just factory farming, the underlying basis of it all is the exploitation of animals. Anytime anyone, whether it's a human animal or a non-human animal, is being exploited and commodified and treated like property, they will be hurt, they will be abused, and there will inevitably be cruelty. 

I then just started seeing so many advocates, too, continuing to use this term factory farming. And I would notice, like on social media, they're making posts about how bad factory farming is. All these commenters saying, You're so right. Good for you. Thank you for speaking up. Yeah, we really have to support our small, local, organic farmers! These advocates who are speaking up so passionately against factory farming, they don't really realize that it's actually just like you said, it's perpetuating this myth of humane, and making people look for those products, and then feeling even better if they sign a petition or they donate to an organization that says factory farming is bad, that actually makes us feel better, like we're helping animals, right? I'm going to donate to this organization that says factory farming is bad, well, they're not actually mentioning anything about killing the animals so I guess it must be okay. It must be okay that I'm going to continue to eat these products that have all these words on them that make me feel better. 

I wrote an article for In Defense of Animals, and there's a video that goes with it that I helped to create. And the article is called “Fixating on Factory Farms Limits True Reform for Animals and the Environment.” So I always come at it from the animals’ perspective, but there's also an environmental factor here, too, because advocates who are railing against factory farms often say that factory farms are so terrible for the environment, and the impression that that gives to your average reader, or who hears that, is that that's true right now. Of course it is true. However, the implication, if, again, they're only talking about factory farming and not all of it, is that grass fed must be better. And then you hear and you see are certain documentaries coming out all about, let's get back in touch with the land and, oh, this wonderful new term called regenerative culture. 

But if everyone were to switch, which is what animal ag wants us all to think, we just have to buy a product that says grass-fed or regenerative. If that really happened, if we got rid of all the big farms, but instead replace them with only grass-fed and, quote, regenerative animal farming, it would take up to up to two and a half times more land and resources and water and emit far more methane. Methane is 80 times more destructive than carbon dioxide, but this is a huge point to make with environmentalists too. 

Hope: 

Oh, Lia, I just honestly want to cry. Thank you so much for saying all that so beautifully. It's just the stuff that I've been saying for years, and it's so great to see other activists now get it and be talking about it. So thank you for that. And there was so much there that I'd love to respond to, but I'll tell a story of my own. Recently, I was standing at an outside a board where you post up flyers. And I was standing there with a vegan, with a fellow vegan, and there was a flyer for grass fed beef, to buy it. It was just like a very small local whatever. And I made a comment about it, and my vegan friend said, “Yeah, but at least it's better.” And I was like, no, no, it's really not. And so I ended up taking the flyer down. Of course, the radical hope in me took the flyer down, and I realized that even within our vegan community, we still think that it's a little better. We have to realize that anytime there is commodification, that there is exploitation, and there's killing, it’s bad. Just one cow kill, to me, is one too many. 

But then also, like you said, there are environmental factors that are worse. Grass-fed beef causes more greenhouse gas emissions. There's so many factors there that need to be unpacked. So I really appreciate all that. And I'd also just want to say because I think people might be thinking, well, if we can't say factory farming, then what can we say? What can we say? You just say all animal farming, or all animal agriculture, or all animal agribusiness. 

Lia:

I've done a couple different evergreen campaign pages that are on the In Defense of Animals website, that are right there, if you look in the farmed animal section, but there's a humane washing exposed page, and then another page on speciesism we could get into. But I think it's so important to spell out the standard practices in all animal farming, right? And go down the list. I mean, it's the top five, right? But I don't say artificial insemination. I say forcible impregnation, mutilations. Without painkillers, people will say without painkillers, as if, well, if there were painkillers, it would be okay. Well, no, but why aren't there painkillers? Again, because farmed animals have no legal protections, and so if farmers don't have to give them painkillers, that's more costs, right? Why would they if they don't have to? Once I found out these specifics, these disgusting horrors that we would never inflict on a dog or a cat or any animal that we've gotten to know. You put the person, the reader, the viewer, you have them see it from the individual's perspective. And I think your point here is that this applies to every product on the market. Any product that you're going to buy, doesn't matter the label, it doesn't matter the farm where it came from. This applies across the board. So there is no separation between factory farming and humane and small and cage-free and all of that. 

Hope:

Lia, I really liked you using forced impregnation instead of artificial insemination. Language is so important, and I'm always talking about language and wanting to improve our language, and I really like that, and I'm going to start saying that. I want to change my language around that because it's true, that's what it is, forced impregnation and a sexual violation. And I often do say that that artificial insemination is a sexual violation, but I think that you're right. Artificial insemination, that's just too, that's just too clinical and too light a term for what it truly is. Then getting back to the term factory farming, I think the problem with factory farming is that it's become such a catchphrase in our lexicon as activists that we're just so used to saying factory farming. Factory farming, it's used and used. We don't even think about it, right? We don't think about the implications of it. So using different terms, breaking it up, I think, is important. 

Lia: 

Yes, when we use the term factory farming, I really think, from what I've noticed, animal ag doesn't really have a problem with that. In fact, it's really playing into the hands of animal ag. They just say, oh, yeah, we're not factory farming. Yeah, we're against factory farming, too. It's all bad. It's all cruelty, it's all exploitation and killing. The killing is often completely bypassed and not brought up. I mean, there's, you know, there's some animal protection organizations now, you go on their website and it just says, the problem, and it says factory farming is the problem. And then you're like, what's the solution? And some of them are actually saying, buy humane-certified animal products, perpetuating this myth. I'm so glad we're having this conversation. 

Hope:

It's good to think deeply about these things, how we express it in our in our articles, in our videos, whatever, in our webinars, how we express what's going on is how people are going to make change or not to decide to make change or not to feel it emotionally, right? So it's so important, and I appreciate you thinking so deeply about this and giving me things to think about now. 

Lia:

And you know, this is a common phrase too, food for thought. It's just food for thought. And Meatless Mondays and, well, just start a little bit at the time, that message is completely discounting the experience of the individual, and there's no urgency, there's no ethical imperative to change when you're only talking about veganism as a diet and a way of eating and a, quote, lifestyle that you can just go off and on and just try on occasion, and maybe it'll be your lifestyle for a little bit, and then maybe you'll go back and you just say, if that was a dog you were talking about right now, would it sound fine? Would it sound fine to you for someone to say, I'm only going to eat dogs day a week instead of…or, well, I know that that dog lived a nice, short life. That dog lived a nice life before we killed him because we like how he tastes and it’s just hard to break the habit. 

I mean, this has taken me years to feel comfortable talking about this and to advocate in this. And yes, yes, it is a quote abolitionist perspective, which to me just means that advocates for all freedom, for all liberation, for all oppression. This is the largest, really, and longest running and most widespread form of oppression in all of history of the world, and everybody's ignoring them. So isn't it up to anyone out there who really thinks of themselves as an animal lover? 

When I first went vegan, I was apologetic, you know, for a while, because it's so awkward. It is up to all of us, though, to challenge ourselves and allow for the person that we're talking to, or if we're sharing something on social media, just accept, ahead of time, it's an uncomfortable subject, and yes, it's going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Okay, we just have to accept that or where do we stand on things?

Hope:

I love that you said not being apologetic or that you used to be kind of apologetic about it. Karen Davis, the founder of United Poultry Concerns, who I worked with for many years, she used to always say don't be apologetic, you know, be strong. Be forthright in how you feel and what you say. And she said, you know, you can be kind, of course, let's be kind and be compassionate in our delivery, but at the same time, we should feel very secure in what we're saying because this is the truth, and this is the truth that needs to be out there and people need to hear. So we shouldn't be apologetic in our in our delivery. 

Yeah, I love that. So another thing I really wanted us to talk about is the cage-free conundrum. That's kind of what I'm starting to call it, the cage-free conundrum, the cage-free phenomenon. Now cage-free eggs are 40% or more of the US market. Actually, I think it's more than that. And some in the animal advocacy movement have recently been calling this industry transition to cage-free a win for the animals, a win for our movement of animal advocacy, which is just so frustrating to me, because, of course, this is not really a victory at all. We know that the conditions are no better. There are even studies where there are higher mortality rates in cage-free eggs. More chickens die before they go to slaughter, and they are all still going to go to slaughter at a very young age in cage-free. So is this a victory really? Let's talk about this. How do you feel about this cage-free conundrum? 

Lia:

It just comes across to me as yet another form of humane washing because it's framed as it's better for the animals and it makes people feel better. And again, like I say, I looked for the cage-free labels. In fact, if I hadn't seen a cage-free label, I might not have even bought eggs. So there you go. If it says cage-free on it, I'm going to be more likely to continue buying eggs, right? And it does. It does conjure in a person's mind, and your average consumer, then you think that they're out roaming around in the grass in some way, because, oh, they're not in a cage. And what I always say is its one giant cage, they're all stuffed into in buliding, whether it's a smaller facility or a larger facility, but a lot of them are kind of piled right on top of each other. Some of them are crippled. They have osteoporosis. A lot of them are struggling and in pain, and some of them collapse onto their backs. They can't even eat, and all this is under this beautiful umbrella term of cage-free.

And then that's not to mention it does nothing to change the spread of zoonotic diseases. And look at the bird flu crisis right now, which is very scary and out of control. It's now in over 1000 dairy herds. But last year, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control said that a pandemic from this bird flu, H5N1 virus, is inevitable, that we are on our way to another pandemic that will be at least 10 times worse because it would be up to a 50% mortality rate among humans who get it, unlike even COVID, well, it's going to be worse because nobody's going to care, because everyone there was so much misinformation around the masking and the vaccines that nobody's going to do that this time around. It's very scary if we have another pandemic, and we could be in for a really scary time. 

Last year, we went up to the Farm Bureau, the California Farm Bureau in Sacramento, and there was an unusual public meeting between the cattle quote, health task force and then the California head veterinarian, the lead veterinarian in California, and a lot of animal ag executives and things were in this meeting. And a few of us advocates went in and we sat and we waited for when the subject of bird flu would come up. And each of us -- there were four of us, I was going to talk about ventilation shutdown. So no one knows that that is the standard way now that they are, quote, depopulating (another horrible term) mass killing in other words, the birds that are infected with bird flu then and some of them, if even one or two of them have bird flu, all of them have to be killed. They have to get rid of them. And the way that they're doing this is they shut off the ventilation system in the facility, and they turn up the heat so the animals, over a period of hours, die from heat stroke, a horrific death, and then they suffocate. You know, whatever comes first doesn't really matter. 

And keeping in mind that cage-free and free range, this is no solution to avian flu. It travels just as quickly in a cage-free operation. And if they do have access to the outside, which is incredibly rare in free range or pasture raised, that increases the likelihood of avian flu because of wild bird flyover and dropping, feathers into their area. So this growing cage-free movement, is really no better with avian flu. It's not going to be any kind of solution. And also, something I like to point out is that big ag is really getting on board with the cage-free thing now, and Big Ag is putting a lot of money into building new facilities, transitioning their battery cage facilities into cage-free facilities. It’s big business, with thousands of birds in these buildings. It's not just a little farm down the street with a few chickens in the backyard. No. These are huge, huge facilities with thousands and thousands of birds. And animal ag is eating this up because they're like, oh look, the public loves that. We're saying cage-free. Okay, no problem. Let's just go cage-free. Now we don't have to build tiny cages. Now we can stuff them all into one big building, and then you have some animal advocates promoting it, and then that makes them tons of money. And I don't think that most vegans realize how much energy, time and resources is now going to cage-free. 

Hope:

So I am privileged to be on kind of an insider email list. It's like an invite only email list for leaders in the animal rights movement. And when I'm getting these emails, it's not even every other email. Sometimes for five emails in a row, constantly, it's all about cage-free. It's this cage-free victory and that cage-free victory and we're now going after this big company to go cage-free, and now more and more, it's oh, so this organization isn't fulfilling their obligation to cage-free so we're having to do a whole other campaign to try to get them to fulfil their commitment. So much more energy and time and resources into trying to get this organization that already said they were going cage-free to go cage-free, and it's just, oh my god, it blows my mind. How much of our time, money, jobs, everything is going to this, and it's not even moving us in the direction of vegan. It's not educating the public, which is our job as advocates is to educate the public about what's really happening in this system. And that's something I like to say about, you know, when people are like, well, we have to have incremental change. We have to do things slowly, right? And have steps towards the goal of vegan, yes, I agree, but this is, I think, a good measurement of whether it's an effective step or not is that all of those steps need to be moving us in at least the direction of vegan. At least moving us in the right direction. And cage-free does not. All it does is divert us to a whole other way of exploiting animals. It just diverts to a completely different market where you're still exploiting animals in the same numbers. So how is that moving us in the right direction? It makes people feel better about eating animal products. 

Lia:

Yeah. It's very frustrating, I know. So yeah, I'm one of those vegans that just really advocates for education and speaking the plain truth. And it's past time now that a lot of us vegans need to kind of get over all of this, not wanting to be seen as a quote preachy or quote extreme, as I like to say, what's extreme is what animal farming is doing to the animals and to our planet. It's not extreme to simply speak up against it because calling someone extreme for simply telling the truth. 

Hope:

Well, Lia, there was another subject that we wanted to get into, and our time is ticking, unfortunately. I love talking to you about all this, but there was another thing we wanted to talk about. I want to get into it so it's slightly off topic of humane washing, but recently, we were on a webinar, and during the Q and A,  someone was questioning if we should even be using the term vegan in our advocacy saying that it has too much negative connotation, too much baggage, that we should be using some other term. So I want to talk about this, and I have some thoughts too, but let's start with you. How do you feel about this? 

Lia:

I was in that webinar and I observed that too, and I hear that so often. 

Hope:

Do you really?

Lia: 

Yeah, among other animal protection organizations and even other vegans and animal rights activists. I mean, there's certainly animal rights activists who don't want to use that word. Yeah, I guess this is coming out more and more. When I applied for this job with In Defense of Animals, the main reason that my job description was advocating for veganism. So I was really pleased to see that because I'm aware that there are plenty of animal protection organizations that don't do that and don't use the word. 

Okay, so for me, I am continuing to use the word, and I also have an article on this, it's on the evergreen page on In Defense of Animals called “Vegan Wake Up Call.” And also another one, vegan is not a diet, but it's to realize that if we're going to call ourselves vegan, and I do, I really try to clarify what it means. I do tend to go by the definition, which is simply that it's a rejection of animal exploitation, that it's against the exploitation of animals. Because if you're just talking about treatment, or as practice, practicable and possible, that can become a mouthful because even that has implications of, like, yeah, it's a little not practical right now for me, it's a little inconvenient for me. There's that little note in the old definition that says, as far as is practical and possible, well, yeah, that means that I can kind of not be vegan. I just leave that part of the definition out which was the Vegan Society use that in the beginning, and then they update in, like, the 40s or something. I mean, it might not have been practical, then, right? 

We need to get to the underlying issue, which is the using of animals, right? Just using them is the problem. And God bless PETA, because they've been saying that from the beginning. They've just been saying animals are not ours to use. It's quite simple. You know, I think it's quite simple, but I also like to inject that it's also an anti-oppression movement issue for me, and that's what it comes down to. So I do use the word vegan, but I'm really clear that it's not about being a diet, and it's not a lifestyle based around what I'm eating. It's a way of viewing our world, and not just food. That's what's so important. 

Hope:

So for me, with the term vegan and whether or not we should use it, I think that this idea of not using it comes from people that that maybe more new to the movement. Possibly, I don't know that that's true, but I feel like maybe it's people that have only kind of seen the last 10 years or so. I've been vegan now 35 years, and the perception of vegan has changed dramatically, dramatically! I mean, it used to be so much worse, right? Back 35 years ago, first people didn't even know what the word meant. So we've done that. We've done that job. We now know what it means. We don't want it to be seen as only a diet, but at least people do know that it means avoiding meat, dairy and eggs, or not eating meat, dairy and eggs, like that basic definition is known. 

The perception has actually changed dramatically, improved dramatically, over the last 35 years. I've been vegan 35 years, and back then, 30 years ago, you know, whenever it came up that I was vegan, or someone learned that I was vegan, the reaction was always negative. I could be the butt of the joke, or people could be very mean. Or it was, it was very, very negative, every time, but that has totally changed now. When I bring up that I'm vegan, or it comes up that I'm vegan, people are much more positive. They'll say things like, Oh, well, we drink oat milk or something like that, like, they're basically saying, Yeah, we should do more of that, or that's great that you do that. You know, it's more of a positive. 

And of course, there's still negative. People still have negative reactions, that happens, but more and more it has gotten better. Now, why I say this, and why I think this is important is because it takes a lot of time to build a movement. It takes a lot of time to build something, to make people understand something. And if we abandoned this term now and tried to shift to something else, we would have to start at ground zero to rebuild something else for there to be a cultural understanding of it. I think that we should just keep going on with vegan and we need to embrace it. It's up to us to embrace vegan pride, vegan joy, you know, expressing that we love being vegan, that it's the greatest experience of our lives to be vegan. I often say it's changed my life for the better in so many ways. 

Lia:

Yeah, It helps me feel more like myself because it really does. It really made me look at these larger issues within myself and what am I really trying to be and accomplish in this world. Is it really most important that I'm just accepted and liked by everybody? No, of course not. That's not what's most important to me. It's not only just aligning my actions with my values, but not thinking that there's anything wrong with that and wanting to open people's minds and hearts to it. 

Because I know that if I'm being true to myself, I think all of us have to ask ourselves that question. Being vegan is being true to your own values, but also ask yourself why you don't want to talk about it. I had to really reckon with my own self when it came to that. And that more had to do with my own sense of low self-esteem, or that we all struggle with constantly. Yeah, and there's really important points that it's true, like you said earlier, it can be uncomfortable to talk about it with people that are not vegan, and so we have to find that strength in ourselves, that acceptance in ourselves, to feel comfortable with it so that we can embrace it and talk about it. 

Hope:

So yeah, really, really good points, but just a couple other things on this, that there's other terms, like, there's a history of other words in other movements in marginalized communities that have taken a negative word and embraced it and turned it around and turned it into a source of pride. So that's kind of what we're doing with vegan. You know, it's had this kind of baggage around it, but that is changing. And guess what? Products use the term, and stores use the term, and they are selling lots of products so the perception is changing. 

And another important point is we do have other terms that we have kind of played with, like “plant based”, right? Trying to make vegan interchangeable plant based. There's also “speciesism” that is not as well known. And if we tried to shift to using a term like speciesism for our movement, then we'd have to start at ground zero, trying to explain to people what the heck it is. I mean, I still think it's an important term to use, and I think that we should be talking about it, but I do think we've got to stick with vegan because that is the only thing that now defines not eating meat, dairy and eggs. There are products out there that are labeled plant based but have animal products in them, so it's kind of a gray area. Wishy washy. It's not as cut and dry, vegan means no animal products, that's only vegan. 

Lia:

And the word “based”, like it's based on plants, okay, even that's open to interpretation, right? I never use the word plant based. I only use it when I'm talking about the food, you know, like, food I'm making, that's the way I eat. But it's such a huge difference between those two terms. Really, there isn't another word that explains that it's against the exploitation of animals. I do use the word speciesism, but not with your average, everyday person that I talk to, necessarily, because with most you have to explain it. In general, when you use the word vegan make sure that you clarify what it means. And for me, I like to always say it's a principle against the exploitation of animals. And what I've noticed is that most people get that. Because usually, people think, Oh, I thought vegan was just about what I was eating. Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm kind of letting you know this, to try to clarify. And most people don't know, just like I didn't until later. I've been vegan for a while, but it didn’t dawn on me that animals used for their wool are also killed. Not to mention animal testing, of course, and the horrors that happen in that entire industry. That's usually not even brought up either when we're talking about the word vegan. 

Hope:

That is a really good point that we should embrace it. Use the term vegan, but be sure and clarify that it means no exploitation of any animal, any sentient being. It's an ethical stance, ethical veganism. Well, Lia, we do need to wrap up unfortunately, so I'm going to ask you our last question. What gives you hope for the future? 

Lia: 

Oh, my goodness. What really gives me hope is really my own experience. I didn't have much hope in the beginning because I felt so alone, and all I knew is I couldn't live with myself any longer if I was going to continue doing what I was doing. But there was so much sadness and despair, and there still is, you know, I have my moments of utter despair, and I still cry over what's happening. But what gives me hope and belief, really in knowing that someday, of course, just like racism still exists, just like human slavery even still exists, the oppression of women still exists, you know, LGBTQ folks around the world, however, I do believe that there will come a day when it will be seen in the same way that the enslavement of humans is seen now, like a horror and atrocity, and we will look back and feel shame at what we've done to animals. 

So right now, what gives me hope and fills me with love and gratitude is all the incredible, brave, courageous vegans who decided to become activists and who decided to start speaking up, whether that's in their own lives, regardless of whether they do it for a living or not, which to me, what a privilege it is to be able to actually say that this is what I do as my career. And many don't get that opportunity. I'm just so grateful. And I like to say that it was all those years of being uncomfortable and having to practice how to talk about it and how to reconcile within myself that I just didn't feel too good about myself when I was constantly staying quiet in order to appease other people, to make everyone else feel okay that didn't feel okay to me. So what inspired me all those years ago and still does is people like you, Hope and so many incredible activists. And the handful or so of bold, tell-it-like-it-is people. Animal rights organizations who don't shy away from just speaking truthfully, but do it with maturity and compassion. 

I would just say to everyone, keep following people who inspire you and the people who are speaking the truth. Just allow yourself to be inspired and allow yourself to really delve into some of this. And I also think of like you mentioned, I mean, 20 years ago, or when I went vegan, there weren't nearly as many products in the store that I could eat and buy that were vegan, and now there are. And now when I bring it up, just like you said, I've absolutely noticed a sea change in when I even say the word vegan in social situations, people are becoming a little more embracing, and what I've noticed, it sparks their curiosity. And we can have even a moment where, even if it's not a conversation, I'll just plant a seed. I'll give them a piece of information that I wish someone had done for me so we're just passing it on. I know that we're on the right path, and even if I don't see the end or I don't see a massive change collectively, even in my lifetime, I think we're going to but even if I don't, I will at least know that I was on the right path and I was part of this incredible movement of change and peace. 

Hope;

Beautifully said, thank you, Lia, so much for all your work that you're doing on this important issue. Thank you for joining our Humane Hoax project volunteer team, we’re glad to have you.

Lia:

I'm so honored to be part of it. 

Hope:

Yes, it's very exciting, and we'll be doing more work on the humane washing issue, but I really oved talking to you, and I'm so glad you were on the podcast. Thanks. 

Lia:

Thank you. Hope it's been my pleasure and honor. 

Hope:

Thank you for listening to the Hope for the Animals Podcast, a project of Compassionate Living. As I mentioned in the beginning, we are going to be reviving our Ahimsa Living Circle. It will be returning on Saturday, November 8. And this gathering is for anyone. It's free. It's on Zoom. It's for anyone who is interested in spirituality, leaning towards the Dharma traditions, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and how those ancient wisdoms and ancient traditions intersect with veganism in the modern world. So I hope you will join us for our Ahimsa Living Circle. It's every second Saturday of the month, starting again in November, November 8, 2025, and ongoing after that. And you can go to Compassionate Living's website to register, compassionate living.org, and we'll have a link in the show notes of this podcast, and the Ahimsa Living Circle information will be on our homepage and our event page, and you can click there to register for free. I hope to see you there. Okay, I hope that you are able to bring some of the things that you learned today out into the world, spread the compassion around and live vegan.