Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you're listening to The Vegan Report.
If you're vegan for ethical reasons and you care to do more for animal rights,
but you're not sure where to start, then this podcast is for you. Every week, fall in love
with passionate, thought-provoking and inspiring animal rights leaders who will help you find
your voice, your own special contribution to the animal rights movement, however small or big it is.
Today we are going to talk about the negative impact of working in a slaughterhouse. And let
me introduce this topic by giving you some cold statistics from an excellent article called
For Slaughterhouse Workers, Physical Injuries Are Only the Beginning, published by the Organization
on Labor. And this is a US organization, but my belief is you can expect the same reality
everywhere. The article reads, slaughterhouse workers earn a medium average of just about
$14 and disproportionately come from marginalized and underserved populations. 80.8% of frontline
meatpacking workers are people of color, more than half were born outside of the US, and over one
quarter come from households with limited English proficiency. Nearly half of all slaughterhouse
workers live below 200% of the poverty line. In 2015, 5.4% of slaughterhouse workers experienced
a job-related injury or illness. Many of these injuries were severe. Over a 30-week period from
2015 to 2017, there were 550 serious injuries reported in US slaughterhouses, including 270
incidents, requiring the imputation of a body part. For many slaughterhouse workers, physical
injuries only scratch the surface of their suffering. A growing body of evidence has emerged
surrounding the intense psychological toll that slaughterhouses have on the workers that
allow them to operate. As one former slaughterhouse employee wrote for BBC,
I didn't suffer physical injuries, but the place affected my mind. At night, my mind would taunt me
with nightmares, replaying some of the horrors I'd witnessed. To discuss this topic, I have with me
Varun Joshi, who is one of those people contributing to expanding the body of evidence related to the
psychological impact of working on a slaughterhouse. Varun, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much
for being here. Thank you so much for having me. This is actually the second time that we have
recorded this conversation. We had some technical problems the first time that's podcasting for you.
So thank you so much for accepting to do this a second time. Absolutely. My pleasure.
So Varun, you're here because you're studying slaughterhouses and slaughterhouse workers.
Why did you decide to choose this field of study? What was your journey from being
interested in animal rights to making it into activism work?
I like the way you asked that question because I reflect on that almost every single day. It's like,
why did I decide to pick a topic like this? Because there's not really any money in it.
I am up against what I feel like is the world, but just Canadian culture. I'm based out of
Brampton, Ontario. It's part of the greater Toronto area. We're in a very agriculture heavy
province, a province and country that thinks big beef is a part of its heritage and one of the
foundational stones of the country, which it is, along with dairy and just overall exploitation
and violence against animals. For me, I decided to pick this topic because
I'm against any kind of violence against people for any reason and animals land. When I became vegan,
I realized when I wake up every day, I need to be doing some kind of job that aligns to that value.
Because if it doesn't, I just, I can't live with myself. Once you become aware of certain atrocities
in the world, whether it's related to sexism, racism, discrimination against someone because of,
I don't know, for whatever reason, you can't just ignore that and go on with your day. In the same
manner, once you realize what's happening to animals, I feel like the average vegan, you can't
just turn away. I'm not saying every single vegan has to become an activist. It's hard to go on with
daily life. It was for me as well. I figured, what am I good at? I thought, I don't know about
good at, but I'm passionate about arguing. I love to talk. I'm passionate about being
vegan. Academia is important to me. I pride myself on being a man of science, always trying to find
the truth. At the time I was going vegan, I was in the pursuit of higher academia. I was finishing
up my second undergraduate degree. I realized law school wasn't an option for me because I was
recovering from a concussion. Certain symptoms made it hard for me to study. I'm like, what else
can I do? It's a little bit less strenuous. A master's in criminology had seemed a little
bit more feasible. There's more reading, a lot of thinking, but not as much...
It's a different type of mental toughness that I felt I was engaging with than I realized.
Well, if I'm going to do grad school, what am I passionate about? I realized I'm passionate about
more than anything animals and focusing on why it is humanity as a whole likes to mess them up,
why humanity as a whole likes to be violent towards them. I always used to think, how can
someone slaughter animals? What makes someone want to slaughter an animal? There's lots of reasons
to that, but that's the initial question that got me interested in the first place. I did my
master's in criminology where I just dwelled right into it under my mentor at the University of
Windsor. Dr. Amy Fitzgerald, anyone who's listening to this, please go check her workout. I haven't
looked back since. No, that's a lie. I have looked back. I looked back several times, almost every
day being like, why am I doing this? But to answer the question in one word, I can't live with myself
if I don't do something. And I figured, let me give academia a chance as much as I can. Let's try to
influence some policy with research. If that doesn't work, we'll worry about that later, but
let's try to do activism through academia. That's why I decided to study slaughterhouse work.
So you mentioned now many times how this field of study is challenging,
partly because you're in Canada and the environment is not propitious for this kind of line of study,
but also because it is hard to study the exploitation of animals. I feel like you're,
I talked with many activists who are exposed to footage of animals being tortured or killed,
and that is a grind. It is difficult on your mental health. So explain what are the challenges of
studying animal exploitation, trying to answer those questions you posed.
I think the biggest obstacle is every single person from the political spectrum,
every gender, every ethnicity, any kind of social aspect of some person.
Everyone in the world is against you. Even other vegans might be against you. And I say that
not in a way to sound somewhat arrogant, but I genuinely believe that trying to protest and
create a more just world for animals is more revolutionary than anything else this planet
has ever seen because we've been fighting and killing each other for centuries,
for millennia. People have thought to do something about animals, but since the dawn of time, there's
been progress in almost every part of social and civil society except for animals. We still always
find a way to make it acceptable to allow them to be victims of violence for whatever means it is.
It doesn't matter which circle you're in, it's always going to be animals getting the, excuse
my language, shit under the stick. It's always going to be, oh, we can make conditions for
them. We can focus on that after we focus on issue A or issue B. And for me, it's just,
it's not good enough. It's like, no, I refuse to participate in violence against people due to
their race, ethnicity, gender, class. But in the same way, I refuse to participate in violence
against anyone, any being based off their species as well. So I want that current mentality,
if I don't want to hurt someone if I don't have to, I want to be able to be able to be able to
do that. And there's no point to doing so, but I would like to see people extend it to animals
as well. And the fact is people don't. Like I think about my workplace, I love where I work right now.
I did a new job three weeks ago. We have a lot of anti-oppression training, which I love, man.
I'm all about that. I want to make sure that we don't reproduce any wrongs that we might
unintentionally or intentionally commit against anybody, whoever it might be. But I needed to
animals. And I noticed my coworkers, some of them asking, how does that look like in practice? And
like, it's frustrating. I can't really just say everyone go vegan because that's not enough.
Going vegan isn't enough. You know, with one animal liberation, there has to be something more. We have
to be anti-species, anti-violence. And it's just, it's such a large conversation to have.
You don't even know where to begin. So I think that's what makes it so difficult,
just at a really macro level. And then at a micro level for myself, you know, I'm, I have
history with mental health and depression, anxiety. I hope this isn't like trigger warning for anyone
who, you know, just on topics of violence and severe mental health stuff. I tried to kill myself
in March. Just a really bad series of events that my mental health was not really well. And
a part of that was triggered by me working on a chapter of the violence against cows in India.
And how people that are for it and against it are missing the bigger picture. There's violence
being reproduced everywhere. And I took a break from work and school to write that chapter.
I ended up traumatizing myself unintentionally without knowing. And then
it becomes one of those situations where if you aren't seeking therapy actively,
you aren't making sure you're exercising, eating, doing whatever you need to do to be in a healthy
mental space, you might really mess yourself up if you try to focus on anything animal related,
because you're ultimately looking at violence. You're reading about violence. Like I, my masters,
looking at slaughterhouse footage and then attempt to get myself familiar with what's happening.
I kind of traumatize myself there. I stopped doing that. I have to limit myself to just reading
stuff. Like it's still take a toll. So at the micro level for me and God knows how many people,
maybe yourself, Ryan, maybe anybody like just encountering these things at an individual level,
whether it's a book, a movie, maybe you walking outside at a mall and you see hunting gear
somewhere. It's like you're encountering violence everywhere. So I think that's what the most
difficult aspect of it is. I think that was a very long way to say that. Sorry.
No, it's okay. Thank you for sharing this experience and making it into a warning for people who
want to get involved more deeply in the animal rights cause. Yeah, it reminds me of that quote
from Nietzsche. Nietzsche, I think in English is pronounced where he says, if you gaze into the
abyss, the abyss gaze at you, it's, you're not unaffected when you expose yourself to that kind
of evil. Yeah. And what about the more technical challenges about your study of slaughterhouses?
I know that in our first conversation, you made a very good point about how slaughterhouses
are those isolated places that are very hard to get to, to observe, to study in general,
and it is done in purpose. So can you expand on that?
I got you. So there's a few different angles, which we've got to address this question.
Through the first thing being just physically slash geographically, it is very difficult to
study slaughterhouses ever since slaughterhouses came into the scene in the late 1800s in North
America. They started off in urban areas and metropolitan places like Chicago and very urban
cities, just cost-effective problem is unlike any other industry in the world, no other industry
comes nearly close to at least no other prop for profit industry comes as close to slaughterhouses
when it comes to the waste that's produced and the stimuli that the surrounding individuals are
going to know about. Think about the smells, think about the actual noises, think about the logistics
of getting things in and out, all the pollution. It is very difficult to keep that all contained,
especially as more and more people live in a concentrated areas. So historically slaughterhouses
have slowly started shifting out and spreading outwards in more isolated regions, partially to
keep themselves away from the masses. And this is done for a variety of reasons. You avoid scrutiny,
less people can see anything that might happen that goes on in there. There's less regulation from
external bodies. If anyone wants to do anything, they have to go usually a distance to access this.
And when it comes to waste, it's a little bit easier to handle that any of the effluent that
comes out of slaughterhouses, including blood, body parts, you name it, whatever it is, a little
bit easier for owners of slaughterhouses to deal with, easier for them to dispose with it in
non-legal ways or ways that are convenient to them, such as, but not limited to spraying blood in
nearby fields. That happens in Canada, in the USA, things like blood, feces, a mixture of body parts,
they're essentially heated up and sprayed into nearby fields as well, but they end up in local
homes and regions that are close to it. People usually living close to this. They could be
workers at the slaughterhouse, but they don't necessarily have to be. They're not going to be
workers at the slaughterhouse, but they don't necessarily have to be. But regardless, they get
screwed because they face the smells that this nastiness is produced from the slaughterhouse.
But in regards to the technical difficulty, just the geographical proximity, lack of proximity,
it makes it very difficult to engage with them, whether you're an academic or you're the average
person. At the political level, from a Canadian perspective, I'm sure, I know it's a little bit
pretty bad in Canada, and I'm sure it's awful everywhere in the world. But just speaking from
my personal experience, I believe it's called Bill 156, passed by the, I believe it's being
debated right now. I haven't checked just because life's happening and it's hard to keep track of
these things sometimes. I really should though. So Bill 156, I believe it's a biosecurity bill.
It's a fancy bullshit term for people that defend animal agriculture to,
not people, the industries behind animal agriculture. This was the first bill that was
attempted to be passed during the pandemic, when the pandemic was raging on in 2020. And it's
intended to protect farm animals from biosecurity risks, but it is essentially an ag-gag law, which
is designed to stop anybody from the public from revealing whatever happens inside of slaughterhouses.
People that try to do that can be met with fines, potentially jail time, just sometimes
some kind of label from the law, from the criminal justice system, which can just make their lives
more difficult. And this is the worst part of the whole thing. It's done in the name of protecting
animals, but I mean, you can't protect animals from anything when you're ultimately harming them
yourselves. But at the political level, the point of me bringing that bill up is I'm operating under
a government that doesn't care. Not only does it not care, it will violently defend whatever it's
currently doing to animals. I attend the University of Guelph. It's the most animal agriculture heavy
university I can think of. On my first day, my first class was in the animal science building,
and I'm like, my program's in sociology. Why on earth am I, why am I in this building? And,
you know, when it comes to funding, I guess this goes away from political more towards kind of
educational slash social level. I'm going to be, there's more scholarships available. There's
more funding opportunities available for the animal agriculture sciences. And these projects,
they're not about the rights and justice of animals. It's about their welfare in regards to
how can we treat them as an object in the nicest way possible? They're essentially trying to find
a way to do something inherently wrong in the most nice, compassionate way, which is a fundamental
contradiction. If you were to go, anyone were to go to the University of Guelph website right now
and look at what their graduate students are doing. I don't think they should be harassed
or anything like that. I don't want anyone listening to this to go harass them. I'd love for people to
email them and ask the students, Hey, so how do you do this to the animal ethically with concern for
the animal when you don't need to have those conversations going, but like there's more
resources for these, for these people that essentially mess up animals. So, and that leads
like the fourth kind of angle, like economically, this ties in with school, but there's more money
invested into big dairy, big beef, big chicken, big, whatever animal agriculture related,
the resources they have to fight their, this battle is a lot more than anyone like myself would have
anyone like partners of this movement, like animal justice, which is one of Canada's premier legal
advocacy groups for animals, PETA, mercy for animals, you name it. No one has as much resources
as the big animal agriculture industries. When you think about those four factors I've listed,
and I'm sure there might even be more like there's human factors, like culturally it's in human
culture, almost in every culture in the world. You know what? No, I'm going to say confidently
in every culture in the human world in history to mess up animals. And I just say mess up as
another way for violence. I just, I get tired of saying the same thing, but there is those factors.
And I want anyone who's listening to this, think about other ways that I haven't mentioned,
including people, people, geography, economy, education, political, think of other ways that
animals are messed up in your vicinity. There's probably more. I'm definitely missing some.
Which makes even more admirable what you're doing because you're participating in
making the body of literature and studies about slaughterhouses, about animal exploitation from
your point of view, from the point of view of a vegan, bigger, greater, when you're confronted
with against all of those odds against all of those forces that stop you from doing what you're doing.
What is it like to be an animal rights activist in a university devoted to
serving the animal industry? I feel like you must feel like an anomaly
in this college community. First and foremost, I feel like a piece of shit.
I don't know how to say that more politely because
if I had stayed at the University of Windsor, I feel like I would have been doing better work
just because I'm not a part of a university that's so frankly disgusting in my mind when it comes to
supporting these kinds of things. But at the same time, it's important that I acknowledge I am at
the University of Guelph, which is very animal agriculture heavy, but it's got to start somewhere.
If there's no one else who is focusing on ways to address animal justice, I don't think I'm the first.
I hope I'm not the last. And wherever they are, whichever pockets of society that you're in where
you're dealing with a very, very uphill battle, I'm not saying go for the hardest thing, but don't shy
away from that challenge. It needs to happen because I've been able to raise questions and
concerns and make comments that no one else is going to think about in the sociology department
at my university. And if I wasn't there, maybe someone does, maybe someone doesn't, we don't
know, but we do know that because I am there right now, I can raise those. But I try not to be too
hard on myself there. It is hard not to be hard on yourselves though. But in regards to
how I feel generally about it, it sucks because a lot of my cohort, my peers, a lot of initiatives
on campus are about making sure we don't harm humans. We don't harm people or the environment
based on any arbitrary social aspect, race, gender, class, whatever it might be. And I'm all about
that. I'm all about that. It very rarely extends to animals. And when it does, it's superficial.
It comes in the form of animal welfare, which you're still hurting them. And it's just,
disheartening is probably the most appropriate word, frustrating and disheartening.
Well, that reminds me of a conversation I had with Dr. Heath. She's a veterinarian. She's an
activist. She founded an organization called Our Honor. And I recorded the conversation with her
called, Why do veterinarians eat their patients? And she mentioned how in vet schools around the
world, there is always so much mistreatment, unethical treatment of animals. But that this is
changing. A lot of colleges are now considering the well-being of the animal when they are studying
that animal. So for instance, there is no vivisection or things like that in order to form
the body of future veterinarians. And I told her, well, that's great. That means we will have more
vegan vets in the future. And she said, well, I would recommend to go to the worst colleges out
there who have not adopted those ethical standards, because we need to bring the fight to those
people. So if you're vegan and you want to become a vet, actually go and choose a school where it is
harder to be a vet. So maybe this advice applies to you.
I'm glad you bring that up first, because I forgot to mention that Guelph has one of the few
veterinarian colleges in Ontario, my province. And people often forget, at least in Canada,
there's a significant portion of vet students, people in animal sciences that end up as vet techs
or vets working in the slaughterhouse industry or animal agriculture. And it's horrific. And I think
I love what you said, man. It's true. Going somewhere where you're comfortable is important.
Mental health is important. Feeling human connection, all of that is important. But there's
also something very strong, powerful about sometimes you have to go after places where there's not
weak, once established in the enemy. And this enemy of ours is violence against animals. And if that
means, I don't know what that looks like in practice for everybody, but I agree, man, there's
definitely some value in that very, very important value.
Talking about Dr. Heath, she recently tagged me on a post on Instagram, where it was a news coverage
of a high school in a very rural area.
Well, it's now home to a pretty unique program with its very own neat processing facility.
They didn't teach me this one in school. Fox 23 Spencer Humphrey spent the morning touring the
new facility at Hartshorn High School.
And they were very proud of themselves because they had created like a small slaughterhouse
processing facility inside the high school. It's like walking behind the counter at a butcher shop.
I would say that we've got just about everything in here that most processing plants would have.
To train their students to become the future generation of worker in the slaughterhouse industry.
For these instructors, it's a one of a kind program.
To mold the next generation of leaders in a vital industry.
It's fun to see the gears turn. It's just fun watching them grow.
And I commented on her post saying, okay, I understand that the slaughterhouse is doing this
because they have one of the worst, what's it called? Turnover rates. Turnover rates in every
industry. But I don't understand why this community is condemning their youth to a
horrible professional life that will traumatize them. So can you talk about what it's like to work
for a slaughterhouse? Why do workers in slaughterhouses quit?
Before we address this topic or issue, we have to always consider our social, geographical context.
When we think about Canada, it's a country founded on violence against animals. Starting from colonial
times, settlers from Europe were promised land if they farm that land or receive government support
for having animals and converting indigenous wild lands into farmland. Now, I disagree with even
indigenous relations to animals because they're still hunting, fishing, might be sustainable, but
there's still an uneven relationship with animals. But that is still measurably better than a
European relationship towards animals that came over to Canada in the early 20s.
There's a relationship towards animals that came over to Canada before Canada became a country
during colonial times. And this country is founded on that. Now, I don't know the region
in which the high school, you said that's going to be having a slaughterhouse still be in the school?
Yes. So they don't have to kill the animal, but they get corpses
that they have to cut. Okay. So in that regards, when we think about that example,
that's related to that colonial crap of bringing cows over, farming, all that, because
ensuring that you have land to raise animals, treat them as objects, inflict violence upon them,
to do what you want with them for your own goals, man, that thing, it's a mentality that's lasted
since then till now, and it's ingrained in Canadians throughout the country, Americans
throughout the whole world. And something like farming animals is seen as benign, normal,
harmless, but not just those more neutral terms, but positive bond building, all these, insert
whatever positive adjective you want. And it's honestly pretty horrific because when you do
look at the literature about what abattoir workers go through, it's messed up. Abattoir workers have
some of the highest turnover rates and you don't need much science to back this up, even though
the science does back this up, but it's like, no one wants to kill animals for 40 hours a week.
Now you can make the argument, no one wants to do anything for 40 hours a week. The problem is
with things like general labor or whatever other profession, there is a way to do it
ethically to a certain extent. There's a way where you can have consenting individuals involved.
You can have labor negotiation. You can have some semblance of justice and some kind of equilibrium
that doesn't exist in an abattoir, that doesn't exist in dairy houses or ag health, whatever you
want to call them. There's no way to kill an animal that doesn't want to die ethically.
And when you're doing that 40 hours a week, you're engaging in a lot of violent processes
and it causes negative consequences for everybody. So those high turnover rates,
they come as a result of physical injuries. Demand for meat is increasing throughout the world
day by day. There's more vegans than there are ever, but the world's also consuming more meat
than it ever has in human history. So industrialized meat production, people want meat more and more
and more. Even small scale farming, they have to upscale just to kind of survive. And that results
in injuries. It's impossible to do any kind of work at a constant exponential upscaling without
having to cut corners. And those corners often result in workers being harmed. The workers that
are often working in abattoirs are often people that have English as a second language, people that
have a lesser position to be able to negotiate better labor rights from, whether they're migrants,
they could be here on temporary worker permits, they could be here illegally, they could be
refugees, they could be a lot of things. But they're often in a lesser position to negotiate
better working conditions. So they're more likely to, you know, when they do get hurt, they can't
really do much about it. You either shut up and work or you lose a job and that means you lose a
paycheck, can't provide for your family, a whole bunch of issues there. So the high turnover rates,
the people that do end up sticking around are those that kind of have to, they don't really
have any other choice. But people do leave in significant droves because it's very, very
violent work physically. And then mentally, people have to understand that when you're working in
slaughterhouses, and I'd encourage everyone to read a book by Dr. Timothy Pachirut, I hope I
pronounced that name correctly, it's called Every, I believe, Eight Seconds. It's an ethnography about
slaughterhouse. And every 12 seconds, there you go. But trigger warning as well, a lot of graphic
stuff in that book, like make sure you're mentally in a healthy place before reading that. But
when you work with animals, you're not just working with like a pen, you're not just working with
a cup, you're working with a living, breathing being that's going to react with surroundings.
Animals in slaughterhouses look for compassion and protection, and they turn to workers that are
ultimately going to be killing them and harming them or whatnot. And workers documents saying
that they realize that they have to do something really messed up to this animal. And one of the
only ways they can do that is by mentally shutting themselves off, disrupting their natural
connection with that animal, breaking that bond and trying to emotionally remove themselves from
that. You can't do that for 40 hours a week without negative consequences. The reason I say that is
you see communities that have, that house slaughterhouse workers, they experience higher
rates of mental health issues, higher rates of violence, higher rates of substance abuse.
That doesn't mean if you work in a slaughterhouse, you're going to become a violent defender. It
does increase your chances though, not to become a violent offender period, but to be in a situation
where you're engaging in unhealthy behaviors that are not part of a pro-social lifestyle.
Things like substance abuse, things like having mental health issues. And then when you add to
the fact that you're working in a slaughterhouse, in a community in slaughterhouse, you might be in
a geographically isolated region. Those regions, usually rural, don't have the best access to health
services, mental health services, labor relation services, any kind of service. It's just a recipe
for disaster. You have the physical injuries that come along, but you're also engaged in some kind
of emotional warfare against yourself when you train yourself to do messed up things to animals
that you're going to form bonds with. It's very difficult to not form, I'm not saying you have to
go love a goat or a cow or a dog or whatever it is they are, but it's very difficult to not form
bonds with any animal that you're around. If someone who isn't an animal lover, they see
someone's dog being kicked or beat up, they're not going to just stand their eye and say something,
they'll do something about it. Well, they'll feel something. That's the thing, that feeling that
you're going to feel because another being is being hurt, you have to constantly tell yourself
that that doesn't matter. And there's a variety of different mental gymnastics, coping techniques
that people might engage in to do that. And part of those results in toxic norms of
what it means to be a man, what it means to be a person that provides for their family,
where a good strong man should go kill that cow, it's a rite of passage for men. We see that kind
of crap in the 4-H program, you see that kind of crap in that high school you probably mentioned,
where you might be taught it's completely fine to, now what you're doing here is you're providing
a greater good for society, you're insert whatever excuse. That's how slaughterhouse
messes up individuals and then eventually in larger skills. Starts off with physical injuries,
but also emotional damage that you develop really, really negative coping mechanisms to try to deal
with. And those coping mechanisms become proliferated throughout society until they
become stereotypes and norms that we think are all right. And we start viewing as just
benign attitudes towards animal agriculture.
Would you say that the workers of the slaughterhouses are one more victim of this industry?
Yes. And I just want a big disclaimer out there. When it comes to politics, I am so far left,
like calling me a liberal is right wing. And a lot of friend circles I'm in, advocacy groups I'm in,
they want to defend human rights and I'm all about that. They want to defend the worker,
working class rights. I'm all about that as well. You bring animals to the equation,
it's very easy to put them towards a side of the equation. But I think that's the
way to put them towards a side and just push them away. And I don't want to say it thankfully
because it's horrible that I have to even do this, but one way to kind of infiltrate groups that
think human rights are more important than animal rights, bring up the fact that if you care about
human rights so much, why are you still okay with animal agriculture happening? Because in
slaughterhouses, there are no worker rights. You're not going to find any unionized slaughterhouses
in Canada. If you do, I would love to see it. I would love for me to do a study with them.
Let some academics, researchers, professionals, data evaluators, let them engage with you and your
workers. Have some open transparency. Let us study what you're actually doing, but that's not going
to happen. And it disrupts a lot of food systems in the country, that disrupts a lot of rose-tinted
lenses of what people think animal agriculture is. And yeah, animal agriculture workers are
absolutely victims of this industry too, at least in slaughterhouses. But I'm going to make the
argument in less industrial practices as well because less industrial practices like homesteading,
whatever the term, not hobby farms or whatnot, you still have to engage in some pretty messed up
relations with animals that you're not going to be traumatized by having a backyard egg chicken
necessarily, but you are engaging in a relationship that's a severe power imbalance. The way that
power imbalance, you kind of internalize and reproduce to the world by saying it's a benign
mutual thing, you're normalizing violence and you're doing a disservice to yourself and just
kind of society as a whole. So even small scale farming, hobby farming, whatever you want to call
it, there's still victims there. People themselves are normalizing violence. That's what it is.
That's why I make the argument that any way or shape or form that you're farming animals
or slaughtering them, you're, humans are definitely getting hurt there as well.
I feel like there is an argument, one more argument for veganism here. If you
are willing to do the extra mile, to walk the extra mile to get fur trade products, because
you don't want to see farmers getting exploited in underdeveloped countries, then why would you not
boycott in industry where the workers are exploited, used and have such poor wages?
The list goes on. You made a great portrait of what it's like to work for them. So I feel like
this is one more argument for veganism, not the most convincing one. I guess it comes down to the
fundamental logic of, if you're against human exploitation, it still makes sense to be closer
towards a vegan lifestyle, reduce your consumption of meat because there's no way to have meat the
way we have it in the world right now. There's no way to have dairy or eggs or any of that in the
world the way we have it right now without exploiting humans. I don't care what anybody
says in regards to that's a problem with capitalism or industrialization. There is no other industry
on this planet, whether it's clothing garments, producing cell phones, where the harms are going
to be as drastic and as multifaceted as they are in industrialized animal agriculture. If you want
to do something about that, being vegan, you can hate animals all you want. You can think that eating
animals is perfectly fine. But to do it for humans in that way, you are going to see rises in prices
for animal products. Put your money where your mouth is. Not your money. Put your ethics where
walk the walk, essentially. If you're for human rights, reject that kind of violence because it's
happening against humans. That will mean animal products will cost more, but that's fine. I do
want to preface that or add on that even if you find a way to make sure every slaughterhouse worker
has what's it called more labor rights, access to health care, housing, whatever it might be,
even in the most perfect condition, I still wouldn't advocate for that. As long as the
fundamental action of what's being happened to an animal and an abattoir is happening.
It's like it's just, I'm all about workers rights. It's just there's not in an abattoir setting,
not in a setting where the fundamental act is violence against animals.
S1 05 Why would you choose that job? I feel like for all the damage that it is going to do to your
person, the wage is not a good argument. You should be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for
all that you're risking here, but you're not. I feel like when you were talking about
slaughterhouses, I was thinking about the army, which might be a comparable line of work.
S1 05 But at least with the army, you have like a mission, you're doing this for your country.
There is a whole ethos around it, and you're supported by your fellow citizens, and there's
a history, there is kind of a nobility around it. And when you're hurt as a soldier, people say,
thank you for your sacrifice, because you have sacrificed yourself. Now, if you're hurt as a
slaughterhouse worker, nobody is going to take that attitude with you. Who is going to care?
S1 06 And the thing is, people can't afford to care,
average person can't, because if you do, that means your meat is going to cost more, your eggs
and cheese are going to cost more. So it's a very tricky issue. But I just wanted to comment on what
you were saying about what motivates someone. It's such a complex and frustrating issue,
because I think about my heritage is Punjabi. My parents had a dairy farm in India in the middle
of the city. And growing up, it's so normalized. And that's just a cultural thing for my family.
S1 06 Like I joke that there's butter in my veins because of my Punjabi heritage. And I think about
a lot of Muslim communities, Pakistani Muslim communities that sometimes for certain religious
festivals, killing goats for in the name of God is seen as something perfectly valid. And it's
twisted and it's messed up. But like these individuals genuinely believe that they're doing
a service for someone, whether it's feeding the poor, pleasing God, whatever it might be. And
it just shows the insidiousness of how animal agriculture and violence towards animal is,
it's intertwined in every single aspect of our lives, whether it's feeding ourselves, wanting
to please God, wanting to do whatever it is. And, you know, this doesn't mean Islam is a bad
religion or anything like that. It's just because there's plenty of Muslim vegans out there that
are advocating how the interpretation of Islamic practices that result in killing animals for
certain holidays, how it's twisted and how it just doesn't logically hold in contemporary society.
But that's just an example of how that like is, it's just an important thing. Like these
individuals don't even look at animals as it being worth consideration because whether it's
tradition, whether it's their own ideals that just whatever it might be, they're holding so strong to
because they compromise that sometimes change can be scary, but like it might mean they have to do
various different things that each affect things like economy, affect things like their family
relations or whatever institutions they hold dear to their hearts for. So in regards to why someone
can choose to do that, like aside from like the obvious, like someone who might need a paycheck,
some people genuinely think they're doing something good for society, which
we're at a fundamental odds here. We just fundamentally disagree with that. And I'd like
to say we have evidence on our side, but now it comes down to like a social psychology. Like how
do you explain to someone? How do you engage in that kind of dialogue and explain like, yo,
what you're doing is not cool. My guy. Do you feel antagonistic toward those big industries?
Because I was recently thinking about silk, silk produce lots of milk blend plant based milk,
and they make this amazing mozzarella cheese. It's not real cheese, you know, mock cheese,
but it's amazing. And I recently discovered that silk was owned by Danone and Danone is this big
dairy conglomerate, I think. And that made me think, yeah, I will still celebrate that.
Maybe the key to this fight is not so much to be antagonistic toward this industry, but to make it
our ally to convert it to our ideology. What do you think about that?
Man, you know how to ask some good questions because, okay, so I first want to acknowledge
the humanness of what you're asking, because ultimately, you know, put it in the lens of
something else. Like I think about it from like a more human history angle. I'm Canadian,
but I'm also Punjabi. My family is from India and identify as a Punjabi person as well.
Someone would be like, hey, what can you do to have reparations for all the violence the British
Empire inflicted upon you? Would you take it? And a party wants to say yes, but like,
to do that in a contemporary world means a lot of wealth from places like England is going to have
to go to India, which aside from all the politics and logistics of that, that's going to actually
do anything. It's like, it might end up harming a lot of people as well. And in that same regard,
a party wants to say any of you that work in animal testing, that work in dairy production,
animal agriculture production, you have lost the right to have any say in what happens next.
Like in this new world that I want to build, it sounds so like a cult, in a world that I want to
build where there's no violence against animals or that it's to the least possible amount, because
you'll never get rid of it completely. Just like you can't get rid of crime completely. You just
try your best every day. It's like those people, those of you that are trying to get rid of it,
they're trying the most to fight against it for your economic, social, religious, psychological,
whatever reason. It's like, you don't deserve to have a voice in that. There's a part of me that
genuinely believes that. There's a part of me that feels like you, Ryan, our other vegan friends,
anyone feels like that. Because in the same way, I feel like when it comes to human violence,
you know, like I don't care what British people today have to say or feel about reparations towards
families that they, you know, cause genocides, I don't give two damn what they say. You don't
get to have a say in that. You're descendants of, you're benefactors of blood. But the world doesn't
work that way. And I bring myself down to another part of me that says, everyone is an imperfect
ally. You know, when it comes to racism, sexism, classism, someone who's against brown people,
black people, I don't want to kill the person. I don't want that person, I want the person to
stop what they're doing ultimately. And I want them to, they don't have to love me, stop propagating
violence against me. Someone who's being sexist, I don't want them to stop hating men or hating
women or whomever. I just, I mean, I want them to stop doing that. But more importantly, I just want
the actions to stop. They have those thoughts in their head, that's fine. Just I want the actions
to stop. Same thing with class warfare. You know, I don't want every rich person in the world to be
dead. I just want them to stop engaging in activities that do messed up things. So in that same regard,
I hate saying it because it feels like I'm betraying someone, but that maybe that's just my ego.
You know, I want to make sure my ego is not participating too much, even though sometimes
the ego needs its place to speak. Sometimes you need to let your heart speak as well. I feel like
at times I don't want Tyson Meats, I don't want Danone or Man, insert whatever company that currently
messes up animals at a large scale. I don't want them to have a say in this at all. I'm also
recognizing they have a lot of power. And for now, to have better lives for animals or to participate
in these steps for what's it called, you know, a better world, they're imperfect allies. That's
what they are. And I do think that you place more scrutiny on them and you just hold them accountable
to a higher level because at the end of the day, they'll do it for profit. And if they open up
vegan mozzarella products or insert whatever vegan product, you're doing it right now for money and
not for ethics. And it's our jobs to hold them accountable to that. And if they turn their backs
tomorrow, don't be surprised. These are not your friends, they're imperfect allies. You don't have
to be friends with your comrades necessarily, but you have to sometimes you have to acknowledge
that they're going to you can't kill them. You can't get rid of them. Because that's just
reproducing the same violence they're doing animals. I don't want that. Just recognize where they are,
where their position is towards you and see how you can get them to change. But keep that scrutiny
always.
I like your answer. Yeah. I mean, I, I kind of agree. And I love that silk mozzarella cheese.
Thank you so much for that gift. I know what you're talking about. It's pretty good. It is.
Okay. My next question for you, Varun is, you know, this podcast, this initiative is to encourage
vegans to do more than just be vegan, to make the extra step to join the fight for animal rights in
their own way. What would you say to people who are listening to this conversation and are thinking
of maybe following your footsteps and doing something in academia, studying this animal
exploitation?
Hey, man, first thing I'm gonna say, hey, y'all stay the hell away from academia. That's what I'm
talking about, man. Forget academia. I'm not, I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that.
I'm not. Okay. Look, if you could, first and foremost, recognize wherever you are is going to
be an uphill battle and make sure you have the resources and coping mechanisms that you need to
deal with said uphill battle, because it's not going to get easier. I don't care what anyone
says. It's getting, life's getting better to a certain extent for vegans, for animals, no,
not necessarily. Recognize that it's going to be an uphill battle, but then don't overthink it.
Don't overcomplicate it. Think about the steps you can do in your day to day lives. Not just your
personal life because going vegan isn't enough, but think about your professions, think about your
hobbies. How can you incorporate justice for that there? You know, when I'm all about racial justice,
I like, I love to see my representation and music, TV and video games. And I asked for it whenever
I have the opportunity, whether it's filling out a survey, talking to my friends about games and
just talking about how, oh man, it sucks that there's not enough brown people in movies. Just
that right there, that's, you're doing advocacy work right there. Not all advocacy work has to
be holding a picket sign somewhere or, you know, being in a court, arguing in front of a judge.
Advocacy is a very multifaceted thing. It happens in a variety of ways. So the same way that you
talk about justice for people because of their race, because of their sex, because of their class,
think about how you do that for animals. And then aside from just that, you know, think about how you,
your everyday jobs. This one's really, really just, you can get creative with this, you know,
let's say you're a nurse, you're working in a hospital and you don't have to be vegan,
but maybe you want to do a bit of activism for, or maybe you are a vegan nurse, but you want to
do a bit of activism, see what you can do to get more vegan options into the hospital. It's one
small, small like piece of the puzzle, but someone's got to do it. Let's say you're working in an office,
you're just a data entry, you have an anti-oppression training. Ask them, so what are we
doing to address violence against animals? I bet you a lot of money, no one's going to be asking
on a regular basis. Like, let's say you're a dog walker, man, buy some vegan treats. See if you can
get the dog a vegan treat. See if they like it, introduce it to the owners. Just buy dog treats
that are vegan. Offer the dog's owners that you're walking, be like, hey, your dog loves this,
heads up. You don't have to say that it's vegan. Just be like, hey, I got this treat. Just be sneaky,
be creative, put your passion into it. And just remember not all protest and not all advocacy
looks like picketing, marching, or in a courtroom. Civil rights, we still haven't achieved.
We haven't achieved equal rights for all genders. We're still in class warfare every single day.
And the fight against equality for us and justice for us in that regard, it just doesn't happen in
the streets. It doesn't happen in courtrooms only. And I don't think it just needs to be that way for
animals as well. So I hope everyone decides just be more active when it comes to that. Be political,
vote when you can. Think about in your day to day lives. Consume more vegan content. Just consume
more content that is a bit more considerate of animal rights because there's not going to be a
lot of it. I'm not saying everyone go watch Dominion or Forks Over Knives or whatever documentary,
but if there's a character that you like because they happen to be vegan, talk about things like
that. These are important things. As a kid growing up, every time I saw someone brown on TV, I'd talk
about them quite a bit. I had my favorite TV show, Avatar Lost Airbender. I love that television show.
But that's my show. That's my show, man. I love you, Ryan. The look on your face, that's your show,
too. Hey, you know how it is. I got to keep it real when it comes to that. I'm not saying everyone
has to go watch these certain shows or whatnot, but I was bringing that up because as a kid,
it was lovely to see a culture like that. It wasn't exactly all from India, China, Japan,
whatever. There were different parts of different worlds that were being introduced there. There
was one term, Agni Kai. Agni is a word in Hindi. It means fire. That got me hooked. I talked about
the show so much. In that same show, Ang, he says he's a vegetarian, but I personally believe he
should be vegan because I'm just based on his logic. That's a whole different conversation.
But what I'm saying is find these small pockets of things that are important to you because you're
already most likely going to be doing it in your life, whether it comes to other things,
just include animals. It's not that complicated. So Agni Kai, I think it's that fight with-
Like a fire duel. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I was thinking about Avatar Lost Airbender because he was
vegetarian. I remember being a kid. I found it so awesome that he was vegetarian and that he cared
for animals because I was always naturally attracted to that. Watching that, talking about
that, it's activism. When you watched as a kid, I watched Teen Titans, a character named Beast Boy.
He was also vegetarian. Not the same as vegan, but it was as close as it got when I was a kid.
Talked about tofu. I ate tofu as a kid, culturally. I talked about it with my friends. I talked about
people. That's just one example of how you can engage in that. There's so many more avenues,
some of the live music you listen to, regular music you listen to. Find ways you can integrate
animals into that. Obviously, people make better choices about who you support. Don't be supporting
people that are actively promoting violence against animals. Don't be critical of what you
engage, but have fun with it. Our kids are going to have kids. There's still going to be a lot of
violence against animals. Let's try our best and let's try to have fun with it while we're here.
Let's be creative with it. That was my next question. Do you think that we will witness
some amazing positive change in our lifetime, or do you think that it will take a few more generations
for that? I hate this question because when I look to evidence around me, humanity can take
a thousand steps forwards, but then we'll take 999 steps backwards. There's so much progress
in civil rights, human rights, environmental rights, all these things, but there's still so
many issues that are wrong with the world as well. I think about the racism still rampant in our
world. I think about the discrimination women face. I think about the messed up things we still do
to the land and how people still don't believe in climate change. I think with time and ever-belief,
things should get better, but the problem is we don't have that much time. This isn't like some
kind of doom scenario. We live in a planet with finite resources and sitting here in Canada,
we're going to be fine. We might just face more extreme weather. There's other parts of the world
that people are going to die. People are going to lose their homes. Animal agriculture is a part of
that problem. The violence against animals, the way we treat animals is a part of that problem.
I genuinely believe that humans will find a way to kill themselves with our behavior. I genuinely
feel that way, but here's my appeal why we still have to give a shit and still be vegan, be anti-racist,
be anti-sexist, whatever it is. Man, you can't live life knowing that you can do the right thing and
you choose not to do it. I'm not going to go outside and just kick a kid if I see the kid
because I feel like it. I'm not going to just let someone get away with saying a racial slur to
someone if I go for a walk outside. Why would I do that for animals? Even if you think the world's
going to end and we're all doomed, do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. We can't
live with ourselves any other way. To answer the question, I don't think things will be better. I
think we're going to kill ourselves off as a species before that, but I still will do the
right thing till my last day because I might as well. Well, I'm more positive than you. I'm more
optimistic. God bless. Yeah, I think that just talking with vegans who became vegan in the 1980s
and sharing with me their experience of what it was like and then reflecting on how we are today
and how veganism is accepted and all the progress that we have made in such a short time.
I just, I am optimistic. I think that we will see some drastic positive change in our lifetime
and I want you to hold onto that because when you hold onto that, it might be more likely that people
like me find some solace in that. And if there's ever a chance for me to be more optimistic about
this whole situation, it's only because brothers like you keep that hope alive. And I genuinely
hope you and myself as well, we try our best to enjoy the roses along the way, find joy where we
can, even though we recognize all the messed up things about the world. But I just answered that
from a real honest perspective, but I would like to be where you are at and where other people are
at, where you have a bit of that hope because it's honestly nicer to hope than not. You need to talk
with older vegans. Send them my way, man. There's not too many of those out in Brompton.
Okay. So Varun, did you have something more to add before we stop this conversation?
Just anyone listening, don't take my word for anything. All right. I'm not a full fledged,
I haven't completed my PhD yet. And if you think anything I'm saying is full of crap,
go verify it for yourselves. All right. There's a lot of literature out there. I believe I sent
Ryan some literature to post last time and if he has access to it as well, but anything,
any claim I've made, man, go Google it, chat GPT at yourself to see whether it's true.
All right. And I wish all you the best. You as well. I hope you got some self care planned
after today. I got my self care plan. I'm going to take the dog out in the back, listen to some
metal, just enjoy the weather. Nice. So thank you again, Varun for having been a guest on this
podcast. Thank you so much for this pleasant conversation and thank you for the great work
you're doing against all odds. It is truly, you have my respect. I love you as mom, my brother.
You're doing amazing work too. I don't ever want you to forget that. All right. But you have an
amazing night as well. Thank you for having me. Thank you everyone for listening. Varun was kind
enough to provide me with a few references from the key scholars studying slaughterhouses and
slaughterhouse workers, like Dr. Amy Fitzgerald, who wrote a social history of the slaughterhouse
from inception to contemporary implications, or Dr. Arnold Arluke, who wrote the touching,
managing emotions in an animal shelter. So visit the description below and discover their great work.
As always, please tell your friends about the show and why you love it so much. Let's inspire
more people to take action. If you're listening to this on Apple podcasts, please leave me a
five stars review. Finally, you can always follow me on Instagram at vegan report podcast.
Thank you again for listening. Take care and see you next Tuesday for a new episode.