Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you are listening
to The Vegan Report. Today we lift the veil on
a world of lies, confusion, spying, corruption
and hypocrisy. We expose the meat, dairy and
egg social media war strategy unleashed against
vegans. A real conspiracy of PR firms, scientists,
health experts, environmental organizations.
and more. To tackle this issue, I have with me
Maddie Houghton -Bokes, a senior campaigner at
Changing Markets Foundation. Changing Markets
has been doing amazing work in investigating,
documenting, and reporting on the current Miss
and Disinformation campaign about food systems.
The reports are fascinating. Visit the episode
notes to access them. And for more conversations
like this, follow and subscribe to the show,
please consider leaving a good review, and share
this episode with the vegans you know. We need
to alert our movement of these cowardly tactics.
confessing of, you know, being part of this misinformation
campaign. I think he was paid about $17 an hour
to create multiple accounts in order to disparage
people from going vegan or spread lies about
plant -based veganism. So I guess my first question
for you is, are you surprised by that? No, not
surprised. I'm not surprised by it. Our research
at Changing Markets has shown that this kind
of attacks on vegan products is, it's a classic
tool used by the meat and dairy industry. And
they have a number of different avenues for doing
this, including paying and training people to
attack these products online. There's a whole
program called the Masters of Beef Advocacy run
by the National Cattleman Beef Association in
the US. And it's basically like a training program
for kind of promoting meat products online, but
also in how to attack. Yeah. vegan products as
well. So we're not surprised by it. And we see
a huge amount of funding and attention going
towards influencers to attack vegan products
as well as promote meat products and dairy products
as well. So it's all just part of this kind of,
yeah, online battleground, I think. Before getting
into what's happening, you know, on the platform,
I want to just spend a moment talking about the
platforms themselves. So when I think of, for
instance, Facebook or Instagram, I think of the
owner of those platforms who is, you know, Mark
Zuckerberg, and how he is absolutely not, you
know, sympathetic to the vegan or plant based
cause. He actually is a rancher, he's raising
cattle on a Hawaiian island where, you know,
ecosystems are really fragile. And so do you
think you know, those platforms do you think
the game is rigged against, you know, this kind
of discourse in the first place? Is there any
evidence of, you know, post getting not as much
attention as they're supposed to get because
of the platform itself that does not want to
support that kind of discourse. And how should
we think about the fact that the owners of those
platforms are against the very causes that we
represent? Yeah, I think it's a really interesting
question. I mean, I think there's a huge amount
of research out there about the algorithms of
these platforms and how they promote kind of
sensationalist far right leaning climate conspiracy
information. And I think for a lot of people
talking about vegan diets or high plant -based
diets, they fall into this. category of often
being aligned with like environmental causes
and stuff and so they definitely suffer from
the algorithms in that way. I'm not aware of
any research and our research hasn't hasn't specifically
looked into this that really kind of shows a
direct anti -vegan kind of setup but I think
it's part of how these platforms are geared towards
that more extremist content and we see what our
research has shown is that We see a lot of far
-right ideologies aligning themselves with carnivore
diets and other very heavy meat diets. And we
know that those types of discussions are definitely
favored by the algorithms. And Elon Musk with
X is... I'm not sure if he's a carnivore diet
himself, but he's definitely friends with a lot
of the carnivore bros. Like they are, yeah, they're
very much in that world of kind of meat is masculine
and that's part of their identity. So it's, even
if it's not explicit, it's kind of part of the
broader bias that they have there. You don't
think you don't need to research that in order
to observe that it's quite evident. What is the
scale of this whole campaign of disinformation
and in seeding confusion? Yeah, it's vast, definitely.
So our first piece of research that we did on
disinformation and food systems was for a report
called Truth Flies Culture Wars, which we put
out a couple of years ago. And we started this
because we at Change Your Markets have been campaigning
on methane from meat and dairy as a major climate
source of climate heating emissions. for several
years now and we were really coming up against
this like a lot of misinformation online around
supposedly sustainable credentials of meat like
that that methane from cows and methane is a
very potent for people that don't know is a very
potent greenhouse gases 80 times more warming
than carbon dioxide over 20 year period and is
a key source of emissions to tackle. right now
if we're going to have any chance of kind of
keeping the 1 .5 degrees Celsius global temperature
increases within reach. And we were coming up
against all this kind of greenwashing trying
to suggest that cows are part of a natural cycle
and absorb carbon and all of this. And so we
wanted to look into this misinformation. And
actually what we discovered was that obviously
that's the stuff we were seeing because our algorithms
are geared towards the topic of methane, but
actually what we discovered was that there's
the vast majority of food system misinformation
out there around meat and dairy is kind of attacks
on alternative diets and alternative products,
vegan diets, vegan products, and undermining
the science and conspiracy theories. It was the
vast majority, vast amount of this misinformation
and it was quite a large data set as well that
we looked at. And the scale was quite shocking
to us. We hadn't really kind of tapped into that
before. And that's just one piece of the puzzle
as well. Our research since then has kind of
taken us into looking a lot at the meat and dairy
industry lobby tactics. And we know that the
narratives that we see online, like attacking
vegan diets and vegan products, are one piece
of the puzzle and they're doing this in their
lobbying efforts in parliament, the EU parliament,
and in lobbying efforts in the US as well and
in the UK. Those are the main places where we've
looked but also recently looked in research in
Brazil as well. Yeah, they're attacking all of
these alternatives, they're trying to undermine
the science and it's just part of this kind of
vast wheelhouse of trying to maintain the high
meat and dairy consumption status quo that there
is at the moment, at the same time as portraying
themselves as the victim. We often see this narrative
that like they're the underdogs and that, you
know, they're trying to go back to some time
when meat was viewed positively. Whereas actually,
if you look at dietary patterns in North America
and, you know, many places in the global north
in general, meat consumption and dairy consumption
is still really high. They're not the underdogs,
the people who are advocating for dietary shifts
and food system transformation and more plant
-based diets. That's actually like the minority
and trying to, yeah, to kind of shift the system.
An incredible statistic I read on one of your
reports, excellent reports, I recommend people
to read them, link in the episode notes, was
about the money that those companies spend on
marketing and PR, which is more than product
development. Now that shocked me. Can you comment
on that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, these companies
know that the reality is that, you know, a lot
of the kind of the battleground is played out
in a kind of comms war these days. And again,
this was another one where we were kind of maybe
not surprised, but still shocked that yet, like
more money is spent on advertising and that includes
greenwashing advertising. Most adverts these
days have or often adverts have a really strong
kind of green focus within them and more money
is spent on that than actually developing products
that have got genuine solutions. So an example
of that might be like Nestle had a they produced
a KitKat that they claimed was going to be carbon
neutral by 2025 or they claimed that KitKats
were going to be carbon neutral by 2025 and there
was this big song and dance about it and then
it's just kind of quietly disappeared. There's
no update on whether that is now carbon neutral
and you know what have they actually been doing
in the meantime? I think it's just insetting
and which is a form of kind of buying offset
credits but within their own supply chains and
you know it's these really kind of shocking contradictions
between what they're saying out there and then
and then the reality of it and we saw this really
starkly last month when we were at COP 30 in
Brazil and there was so at COPs you have the
the climate conferences you have the official
blue zone then you have a green zone which is
for the public and at this one you also have
the agri zone which was this whole space kind
of dedicated to supposedly solutions from the
agricultural sector and what it was really is
just like a roadshow for the big agribusiness
giants and it had sponsorship from Nestle, from
Bayer, the major pesticides company. We also
saw JBS, the world's biggest meat company, sponsored
the media center in there. Like it was just really
their chance to showcase themselves and you know,
these weren't small sponsorships that they were
doing, and they put a lot of money and time into
kind of how they were presenting themselves as
having the solution, rather than actually investing
in genuine solutions to shift their supply chains.
And we see this So one of the solutions that
the industry pushes quite often, particularly
around the methane issue, is feed additives for
cows that essentially reduce the amount of methane
that cows burp out. And often companies... will
invest in trials of these, and then when it comes
to actually scaling that up within their supply
chains, and they'll make a big song and dance
about what an amazing solution this is, and then
when it comes to actually scaling it up in their
supply chains, they'll say that it's too expensive
and they can't invest in it enough and they want
public subsidies for it. And yet they've invested
all this in the marketing and then, and they'll
present themselves as having the solutions that
these kind of road shows at cop. Um, so the money
is being diverted into this kind of fanfare around.
Yeah. How great they are rather than actually
any kind of lasting solutions to the problem.
Here's a bit of a touchy question. Um, what is
the role that environmental nonprofits play in?
this game because, you know, I, I can't imagine
a nonprofit, you know, spending lots of money
to convince one of those big corporations to
make some positive efforts. And then what they
do is release all of that marketing content and
the nonprofits turns to their donors and say,
Hey, look at all the good work we've done. Um,
and then No accountability or you know an example
that is closer to home here you know i live in
quebec canada here the government decided to
give subsidies to different corporations that
were doing lots of harm to the environment with
the idea of them you know using that money to
offset their environmental negative impact. And
instead of developing, you know, technologies
or anything of the sort, they spent that money
on sponsorship and donations for local environmental
organizations. So that's something I witnessed.
Have you, you know, looked at this closely or?
Yeah. We haven't gone into a huge amount of detail
on this specific problem, but in our big report
that came out last year, The New Merchants of
Doubt, we definitely highlight some of these
kind of collaborations between some environmental
groups and more likely kind of industry trade
groups than specific industry companies. But
there was also a really brilliant report by Dismog,
I think it was recently that shared examples,
specific examples around global roundtable for
sustainable beef. And, and they had access to
documents that showed that they were kind of
strategically partnering with environmental groups
to present themselves as having more of a green
facade and, you know, we're changing markets
as an environmental organization and we regularly
work in partnership with a lot of these kind
of environmental groups and in the kind of broad
food system campaigning world there are a lot
of different angles that have to be used you
know and there's the kind of campaign as we often
talk about inside and outside voices and you
do need both often to push for change, you need
the people working in partnership and sitting
in those meetings after meetings with a company
talking them through how they can actually make
a change. And you know, we in changing markets,
we also engage directly with companies. But yeah,
I think where it becomes a real problem is when
it's used as a greenwashing tool and as a kind
of maybe even a get out of jail free card and
We always talk about how we have no permanent
allies and no permanent adversaries, because
if a company is willing to change and to have
open, honest conversations with us, we will absolutely
sit down and talk to them about it and look at
how they can make improvements. If they start
reneging on that, we've got no loyalty. We're
not paid by them. We're not going to kind of
be friendly to them because they've been good
in the past. We'll absolutely call them out.
And I think that's one of the Sometimes that
doesn't always happen with environmental groups.
And that's where they run the risk of, yeah,
further kind of endorsing this green facade.
And, you know, we need both. We need the inside
and the outside. But we also need to to call
it out where we see, yeah, abuse of that. That's
an excellent policy that everyone should adopt,
including, you know, media platforms. um and
you know about that i think for someone listening
to this for the first time you know learning
of those facts for the first time um what's shocking
is that there's no law regulating this kind of
you know speech um you know i'm all for free
speech but this is this is you know seeding lies
and confusion and you know there should be some
kind of law to hold them accountable. Why aren't
there any? Yeah, there have been attempts, definitely.
So in the EU, there has been the Green Claims
Directive has been in progress. And that was
and a couple of other pieces of regulation as
well, which kind of combined were going to hold
companies accountable for any green claims that
they do make. And this policy has basically been
derailed through more or less, it kind of looks
like the wheels have almost fully come off now.
It's, it's really upsetting. It was a really
promising piece of regulation combined with other
different policies. And there've been a number
of studies showing links to lobby groups, including
from the oil industry and Yeah, no doubt, lots
of agribusiness companies were concerned about
this as well, because we see greenwashing claims,
we've done a number of investigations into greenwashing
claims from food companies. And yeah, this would
have held them accountable, you know, they wouldn't
have been able to use kind of general claims
like carbon neutral anymore. And so yeah, there
was a chance with this regulation and it's dying.
a death in the policy realm. We do see some optimism
in like small case, not small, but like individual
cases in different places. So JBS recently settled
a lawsuit in New York for greenwashing with it.
It had its net zero by I think it was 2050 claim
that was backed up by absolutely no evidence.
And no clear plan of how they were going to achieve
that, you know, this is the world's biggest meat
company, it's emissions rival, big fossil fuel
companies. And yet they just were like, yeah,
we can just go out and say net zero, whatever.
And they did, they did settle this, this lawsuit.
So there's these instances where the truth is
held up. And hopefully what, you know, we're
as an organization we're focused on kind of market
campaigns and a lot of that does involve because
we know that policy and regulation takes a really
long time so a lot of that does involve trying
to signal to other companies that if you do this
you're going to be held accountable and you know
this is going to impact your bottom line so it's
little signals like this that we hope kind of
reduce the impact, reduce the prevalence of these
kinds of of greenwashing. But you're right, there
is it's it's kind of crazy that companies can
just in the first place even go out and say this
with nothing to back it up. It's mad. Yeah, it's
must be, you know, very frustrating for plant
based companies that get sued because they use
the label milk on your package. yet those companies
can say whatever they want, and they have armies
of lawyers to protect them. And the lobbies,
of course. Yeah, yes, I would just on that, actually,
it's a really good point. And you know, we in
contrast to that. what I said about the Green
Claims Directive and kind of being derailed recently,
at the same time, you've got MEPs, members of
the European Parliament, voting to ban meat based
terms for vegan and plant based products recently,
saying that it confuses consumers. And yet, a
completely empty carbon neutral or green claim,
equally, it well is actually genuinely and there's
evidence to show that it does confuse consumers.
And yet there's no evidence really to show that
consumers are confused by like a vegan sausage.
People know that that's vegan. They're not going
to think they're eating a pork product. Um, and
yet that's where the, the politicians time and
focus has been recently. It's, it's a really
frustrating contradiction. Um, and you know,
it's got, it's got kind of lobby hands and imprints
written all over it. The double standard is just
incredible. Um, Okay, so we discussed the scale
of this whole operation and we touched on some
of the actors What about you know, the social
media space what I love is that in your reports
you actually name, you know those agents of Misinformation
you call them Miss influencers, which you know,
I love this term So who are those people active
on social media, on the payroll of a big ag and
spreading those lies? Yeah. Yeah. Misinfluences
is a great term. It was actually, you know, we're
using on our reports. It was the research organization,
Ripple Research, that came up with that term
and absolutely have to credit them for that because
that was fun. It was, yeah, we love it. Yeah,
it's we kind of forget in the work that we do
that sometimes that is really bold to actually
name the people. But you know, we're getting
the we're putting the information out there.
We're looking at the data and their names are
there. And because of the way that most of our
social media misinformation analysis has been
focused on X, because it is kind of open source
content. Whereas if we were looking at meta,
we would have various rules around like not being
able to disclose that, but it's X is, is yeah,
how we've done it means that we can directly
name them. So our mis -influencers across the
different reports have definitely varied, but
there's a few kind of characters that pop up
fairly regularly. And they fall into kind of
different categories. So our top misinfluencer
in our most recent report Meet versus Eat Lancet,
which looked at the backlash to the Eat Lancet
planetary health diet report that came out in
2019. And then there was an update this year.
And we were kind of trying to preempt a backlash
this time, and because there was a huge one last
time. The top misinfluencer in that piece of
research was a carnivore diet advocate called
Sean Baker, who's this kind of like, almost caricature
of what you'd expect a carnivore diet advocate
to be really. And he has publicly claimed his
spot as a top misinfluencer. We've seen pictures
of him wearing a t -shirt saying number one misinfluencer
and things like that. So he's clearly very proud
of his position in our research. I'm curious
to know whether that's a real t -shirt or some
kind of Photoshop or AI or something in the photo.
Yeah, it's people like him, but then you also
have the slightly more kind of maybe palatable
to policymakers and journalists people or kind
of slightly more considered a bit more expert
is so there's Frederick Leroy, who is a researcher
based in Brussels. And he he's come up several
times in lots of our research. He's very focused
on the nutritional benefits of meat products.
And we don't directly dispute what he's saying
about the bioavailability of certain nutrients
within a steak and within beef and things like
that. But where he falls into becoming a misinfluencer
is because he is then attacking things like the
eat lancet planetary health diet on various grounds
and trying to undermine these things and kind
of suggesting that actually we need to health
implications like obesity are because of a reduction
in meat consumption. And the answer is more meat
consumption seems to always be his answer, despite
the fact that, yeah, it's, you know, conventional
and adopted kind of standardly recognized science
shows that there is an over consumption of meat
products in Europe where he is based. So these
are kind of two of the biggest names that come
up but there's like a whole host of them who
are very some are more focused on attacking vegan
products because of being supposedly ultra processed
and saying that that that like ultra processed
food is is the worst thing to ever happen to
to human diets and and you know all these kinds
of lenses and then you've got others there's
another one that came up is another scientist
called Frank Mitlohner, who is very tied to industry.
And there's been tons of investigation showing
his links to meat industry. And he's very focused
on the kind of greenwashing of meat products
and suggesting that there's ways of looking at
methane that aren't mean that it's not a problem
in reality. So there's kind of like a there's
a spectrum of these people and Some of them have
got very clear links to industry, some of them
we don't have any evidence that they are tied
to industry. But what we say is that their line,
their narratives are, they benefit the meat industry
and the dairy industry status quo and dominance,
you know, they're advocating for in the case
of Sean Baker and other carnival people, really
extreme levels of meat consumption. And others
are just trying to kind of overly defend as I
said at the beginning, overly defend meat and
dairy as if it's suddenly the underdog and no
one's touching it. When in reality, we know that
there's still, you know, super high levels of
consumption of both. Here's a weird question.
Could some of those misinfluencers be the victim,
be also a victim of big acts of, you know, you
mentioned that school of misinfluencers, people
who create multiple fake accounts. maybe they
can, you know, um, surround those people and
create the, um, a certain narrative, you know,
on their algorithm feed or on their comment section,
um, to, you know, support some of their claims,
uh, show that other claims are popular when they're
not, um, just a way to, you know, slowly, um,
you know, push them into the big ag. a friendly
narrative. Yeah, I mean it's entirely possible.
We haven't specifically looked into it and we
haven't seen any obvious suggestions of this,
but one thing we've been trying to keep our eyes
out for is this kind of inauthentic account activity
and that may be bot accounts or it may be just
like this Reddit example of these fake accounts
that pop up every so often and There in our data
set, there definitely are a lot of accounts that
are kind of what we call background noise. So
they're not the most engaged with people like
Sean Baker and others, but they kind of regularly
post on this and will like and boost and retweet
and other people's posts. But and lots of them
are kind of anonymous accounts and they could
well be fake, but it's really hard to to be certain
about that, and they could be tied to industry.
We haven't yet seen, but it doesn't mean it doesn't
exist, kind of mass bot activity on any posts.
And the indications of this would be like really
big surges, but it doesn't mean that it's not
possible because there's, you know, growing amount
of evidence and research showing how feasible
it is to kind of mobilize these bot armies as
they're often called on particular topics and
it's actually fairly cheap and would work quite
well for the industry to sway around these kind
of critical moments. We've not seen evidence
of it but it's not out of the realm of possibility
that this is happening. Yes, because, you know,
audience capture is a thing. And if like 10 %
of your audience is made up of bots and misinfluencers,
then you know, it's easy to, you know, change
your opinions or, you know, make you cover a
certain topic under a certain light. Yeah. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's Yeah, it's just
another tool that can be in the wheelhouse of
people. And then, you know, they know that this
kind of social media battleground is really key.
And we also know from our research that Gen Z
audiences are like a really target audience for
meat and dairy companies. They've been quite
explicit on that with several campaigns. And
there is full likelihood that you can sway Gen
Z audiences by using, yeah, bot and fake account
activity across multiple different social media
accounts to kind of create that noise and that
kind of consensus online. Another actor are the
PR firms. Can you talk about them? Yeah, they
are. Yeah. So the PR firms as there's Several
examples in our big report, New Merchants of
Doubt, that really draws out kind of key PR firms
that have been involved in some of these pro
meat and dairy campaigns. So one is Edelman,
which is a big PR firm that's got ties to the
oil industry and also tobacco industry. They're
kind of your real like textbook bad guy PR firms
and they Yeah, have been involved in in kind
of very pro meat campaigns. Another one that
was pushed attacking vegan products was by a
guy who apparently is quite proud of his name.
Dr. Evil is how he's called. His actual name
is Richard Berman. And he yeah, he was part of
this campaign to focus on the ingredients in
vegan products. basically using this idea of
like a children's spelling bee and if you can't
spell the name of an ingredient uh in a product
then maybe you shouldn't be eating it um and
he again has been tied to oil industry and tobacco
which is why he's got this nickname dr evil um
like he's he's one of these only seems to work
for dark actors type figures that you see about
in the in the pr world um And then what we really
wanted to show with our report, The New Merchants
of Doubt, is that this kind of textbook and the
use of PR firms like these as part of it is being
used by the meat and dairy industry. And it's
the same playbook used by oil and tobacco before
them. And it's being used to distract, delay,
and derail climate action. the attacks on vegan
products and on vegan diets is part of that and
the use of PR firms to kind of muddy the water,
greenwash products and part of these attacks
is a tool that has been used by multiple industries
before. LR Yeah, very interesting. Dr. Evil,
my gosh. It's more impressive than Bob. Um, okay.
Are they successful at, you know, spreading those
lies and misinformation? And of course I'm asking
that and I know the answer is yes. Um, because,
you know, prior to this conversation, um, actually
yesterday I had dinner with my parents and I
mentioned that I was going to record this podcast
and that, you know, there was a campaign of misinformation
from Big Ag on social media. And their answer
was, oh, do you mean artificial meat? Like they
were confused. And I started, you know, asking
some follow up questions and they had that opinion
that, you know, I was not aware of that, you
know, artificial meat was horrible for your health
and that they're trying to impose that on us.
And, you know, it's something clone, something
like grown in the lab, but it's horrible. And
I was just shocked by that, you know, to discover
that my parents, you know, who should know better
since I'm present that they had developed that
opinion from, you know, their social media consumption.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, I mean, I think there's
multiple strands to that. There's like the power
imbalance that we are pushing back against the
dominant perspective and also generations of
marketing around the meat and dairy industry
that suggests that meat and dairy is some kind
of natural, fluffy industry. I became a mum last
year and it's been super stark to me how that
kind of idea that farming is lovely is really
ingrained in children from so early on. I think
I knew it, but it's really shocking reading all
these books to my daughter and just realising
that the farmer is always this lovely... you
know, I'm not saying anything about farmers,
like, but you know, it's this idea that the meat
and dairy industry is, is just one happy farmer
in a field with his animals and, and it is often
a he and so we're kind of fighting against this
dominant idea with these new developments. And,
you know, some of them aren't new, some of them
are more new, some of them are like been around
for generations, but So there's that power imbalance,
but I think in many ways, they are winning in
lots of areas. They've got a lot of resources
because they are the dominant industry. But at
the same time, I think there is, you know, there's
growing evidence and growing consensus around
the health impacts of an over consumption of
meat and dairy, despite the efforts to suggest
otherwise by lots of the misinfluencers that
we've identified and various other spaces. There's
the kind of the evidence and the scientific kind
of backing of this is becoming more and more
robust, which, you know, often, not always, but
often the science and the evidence does win out,
particularly in relation to policy. And we see
journalists and others becoming I think more
clued up on this as well, which is obviously
a really crucial area where you can communicate
to the public the reality of the situation. So
I think they're winning in some areas, but maybe
they're also going into it a little bit more
guns blazing at the moment because they see a
real risk. There is a decline in meat consumption
among younger generations and that terrifies
them and it terrifies their shareholders because
that's Yeah, a big drop off in demand for their
products. And at the same time, they're increasingly
being held accountable for their climate impacts,
not enough yet. But we're seeing the emissions
of the meat and dairy industry and agriculture
sector, big ag and kind of industrial agriculture,
rising up the agenda steadily. Again, not enough.
Having just been a cop, it's like not enough.
It's not on the table firmly yet, but it's it's
getting close. So Yeah, maybe like two steps
forwards and one step back is happening. Well,
we should say a few words about the recent COP
conference. What kind of experience did you have?
And, you know, did you at the end of the conference,
did you feel more optimistic or, you know, more
negative about our future prospect in terms of,
you know, creating an environmentally friendly
world. Yeah, it's really difficult. I've been
trying to figure this out since getting back.
I think I've been back like two, three weeks
now or something like that. I've been trying
to figure out how I feel about it and I'm unsure.
But I think, so we went into it with quite a
clear focus. So we, before COP, we launched a
report called The Meet Agenda that looked at
So I mentioned the agri zone earlier, and this
really looked at the kind of the run up to the
agri zone and how Brazilian big ag companies,
particularly the likes of JBS, the world's biggest
meat company, how they were kind of preparing
themselves for COP. And we saw that there was
like a year -long series of events where time
and again this narrative that we have the solutions
and we're kind of coming to the table to be part
of changing the climate game was the primary
message and the primary focus and it's all just
these big kind of conferences and chances to
really refine their communication strategy collectively
essentially it looks like. culminating in the
agri zone where they had events and policymakers
and journalists coming along and hearing all
of this stuff and these kind of trade show examples
of their so -called solutions which yeah, they're
massively over inflating the impacts of. So that
kind of element of it was very much on our radar
and we went into it with quite a strong focus
of seeing how it played out in reality and we
did see a lot of industry narratives and they
were firmly in kind of crucial conversations
around food system transformation where you would
hope that the discussion is much more on the
evidence -based side and time and again it kept
coming back to a need to kind of preserve livestock
in very certain situations but that almost being
used as a reason to to not have the conversation
about reducing meat and dairy consumption in
some places. So that's a kind of worrying trend,
but at the same time, it was really heartening
to connect with so many activists and organizations,
particularly with it being in Brazil, where there
is a really strong, amazing grassroots movement,
and to connect with so many of them that are
fighting industrial agriculture companies on
the ground and running amazing investigations
into deforestation and human rights abuses that
take place in Brazil. So I think that's why I
started with that uncertainty of not knowing
how to answer it, because on the one hand, we
saw this industry PR machine working really effectively.
But at the same time, an increasingly well connected
and grassroots connected Yeah, kind of alternative
voice that is making some good progress. And
all of that is obviously, you know, that we've
got the backdrop of escalating climate emergency.
And we heard from a minister from Tuvalu, one
of the Pacific islands, talking about the urgency
of tackling methane emissions. And it was, you
know, I've been working on methane for three
and a half years now and even to me someone who
talks about the urgency of tackling methane time
and again to hear him talk about the fact that
methane really is an emergency break like if
we cut methane emissions because it's such a
potent greenhouse gas and it is also a short
-lived gas so it disappears from the atmosphere
between 12 and 20 years after 12 and 20 years
whereas carbon lives basically forever or over
a hundred years. If we cut methane emissions
this decade, then we can really slow the rate
of warming. And that for someone living in Tuvalu
is the difference between their planet, their
country being livable and being underwater. Like
it's huge for them. And it was, yeah, I think
really like stark to hear that reality. you know,
voices like that maybe weren't cutting through
on the methane issue before and they're rising
up the agenda as well. So it's, yeah, this is
a very long winded way of saying lots of conflicting
feelings about it, which I think anyone working
on climate, you have to maintain the hope. But
at the same time, you're like starkly aware of
the real horrific reality. You raised the point
about, you know, big agents visiting those events
to get a better understanding on how to counteract
the points and all of that. And this has been
on my mind for a while now. It reminds me of
that book, Siri, the tree body problem, you know,
you have aliens and they can read your mind and
they're coming to conquer you. And so they need
to think of a way to protect the earth. without,
you know, making it explicit to those aliens
and their technology that is amazing and can
read your mind. And, you know, I have this podcast
and I have those conversations and it's public.
And I'm sure that some agent of big ag, you know,
would listen to that for, you know, to counteract
those arguments to get a better understanding
of who the enemy is. who the target is to use
a less loaded word. So what do you make of that?
Should we, you know, limit the things we say
in public because of that? Yeah, interesting.
I think no, like, you know, I've been quite open
about the fact that at Changing Markets we have
no permanent allies and no permanent adversaries.
Like we haven't got anything to hide because
we, and I'm sure you as well, like, you know,
we're coming from a place of real focus on evidence
base and issues that are important to us. And
we, you know, we're not gonna put our strategies
up for like public consumption but we're also
like fairly open about where our focus is and
what we're looking at and what we're trying to
achieve and I think that's important because
you have to build trust and yeah and also like
I said we you know we haven't got anything to
hide in that sense I think where you know we
do a lot of investigations and trying to um unpick
coordination and plans and strategy of the meat
and dairy industry and some of theirs will be
very public and very open and out there and I
think that's because they also believe they don't
have anything to hide, they really believe what
they're putting forwards and our argument is
that they're often only looking at a very small
piece of the puzzle and not the broader kind
of evidence base and picture and the things that
they will you know, is maybe a little bit harder
to obtain. And some people have amazing abilities
in getting leaked documents and things like that.
That's often the stuff where you hit on a real
nugget because they don't want people to see
that because they know they're doing something
wrong. So, yeah, no, I don't, I think we, I think
it's good that we keep the conversations open.
And in fact, you know, when we, one of the panels
I saw was included someone from Alltech, a big
feed company in the US who have just funded this
film called A World Without Cows, which is, I
haven't seen it, but it's kind of supposedly,
you know, sensationalizing this idea that we're
all calling for any of us talking about food
system transformation and plant based diets are
calling for a world without cows, which, you
know, I'm sure none of us are doing. And Yeah,
so it's kind of sensationalizing and fueling
that. And on the panel, they were saying, we
really want to open the discussion. We want to
engage with people and broaden the debate. And
so we were like, OK, we'll go along to this screening
of this documentary. That'll be great. And we
registered online. And we got an email back saying,
I'm sorry, we have to consider each registration
because of demand. And we got an email back saying,
due to too much demand, there isn't space for
you to come along to. The screening and then
we know someone that went along and sent us a
picture and actually it was really empty and
there was like tons of space So I don't think
they wanted us in the room. I don't think they
wanted to broaden the conversation And again,
it just makes you wonder like what are you trying
to hide? If you if you really don't want us there
and you don't want to talk to us face to face
again the double standard they have access to
our spaces, but we don't have access to their
spaces, you know the There's an organization
I love. I'm blanking on their name, but they
infiltrate meetings of lobbyists in Washington
and in also state meetings. And of course, they're
not welcome to those meetings. They have to use
all sorts of deep strategies to get in. But ah,
the double standard. Yeah, yeah, completely.
I mean, you know, often money and resources buys
people entry into these spaces, right. And definitely
in the case of cop like the it's not cheap to
have a what you call a pavilion that which is
basically the stands that take up the official
blue zone and where you have the various events,
it's not cheap and industry has the resources
because despite what some people say, they're
not the underdogs. It is a very very wealthy
industry. And, you know, they'll talk about the
kind of vegan elite being this incredibly well
funded machine and all of that. But yeah, it's
it's a again, it's a double standard. But yeah,
there is there's some really exciting and there
always has been people who have got ability to
find a way into these spaces and these rooms.
And it's great. Thank God. Yeah, I joke a lot
about that, that I'm part of the global elite.
I guess I did not know that. Yeah, we were told
that we were part of Big Pharma because of our
recent report on the meat versus eat Lancet.
I'm not sure how they got that because we've
done campaigns into the pharmaceuticals industry
before, so I'm not really sure how we're Big
Pharma. And apparently we're like incredibly
well resourced in that and then i'm like well
i'm yet to see the evidence so thanks. Yeah that's
amazing um we should laugh about it you know
instead of crying that's the healthy response
um what what did i want to bring up oh yeah there's
another layer of frustration on top of all of
this which is that they're getting subsidies
from the government. So they're basically using
our taxpayer money to fight our interest to fight
against our interests. And people are not aware
of those subsidies. That's, you know, another
frustration. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's, again,
this is something we've looked into, and others
have looked into that the level of subsidies
that goes towards industrial agriculture in general
but yeah also meat and dairy and it does it massively
skews the system and it makes it really hard
for competing products and companies to have
a chance at kind of shifting the game in any
way and you know in Europe and North America
and many places in the world, actually, there's
this talk about wanting a fair and free market.
And the reality is that the market is massively
skewed because of these kinds of subsidies. There
was a recent investigation in Europe that showed
that subsidies and taxpayer money is going towards
funding campaigns that are basically meat industry
greenwashing and talking about like the sustainability
credentials of meat and dairy products in Europe.
And it's, it's part of a campaign to promote
European products, but it's because of this,
the farming system and the food system in Europe,
it massively favors these big companies and industrial
animal farming. And yeah, people aren't aware
of that. People aren't aware that their money
is going towards this and We're also hear this
thing about not telling people what to eat all
the time. And we hear this being reiterated by
policymakers who absolutely should know better
and should be evidence -based. And you mentioned
like, you know, we'll bring up needing to shift
food systems and encourage more plant -based
diets or even just diets in line with healthy
eating guidelines. And we're told, yeah, but
we can't tell people what to eat. But the reality
is that people are always being told what to
eat through these subsidies that show more marketing
for meat and dairy products, also through like
school education programs that are funded by
meat companies and dairy companies saying that
milk is like essential for your development throughout
life and is this core part of a healthy diet.
And And even when you go into a supermarket,
the products that you're faced with and the pricing
of those and the deals and offers, this all kind
of tells people what you should be eating and
the advertising and all of it is, yeah, people
are always told what they need, what they should
be eating. It's part of a food environment. And
yeah, I think that even comes down to the kind
of consumer level and people have these ideas
about Being at being eating a vegan diet or more
plant based products is kind of scary to them.
And yeah, it's part of this this kind of advertising
wheelhouse. Yeah, and the food guides, which
is so you know, explicit invitation to eat more
dairy meat products. There was a whole scandal
about that in Canada a few years ago that at
the current, you know, food guide, although the
old one was the product of lobbyists and not
nutritionists that, you know, yeah, who, but
no one is held accountable for that. You know,
the harm is done and then people forget. Yeah.
And, you know, the really kind of bizarre thing
is that we hear particularly from someone I mentioned
earlier, Frederick Leroy, one of these kind of
pro -meat scientists, often talks about the fact
that national food guidelines are, he says, like
skewing it the other way, away from meat and
dairy and encouraging too many grains and too
many plant -based products, and that that is
causing like obesity and other health problems.
Yeah, it's like this bizarre world where you
look at the evidence of which industries have
lobbied for guidelines to be put in place in
a certain way. And then you hear someone saying
that they're doing the opposite. And it's, it's,
it's confusing. Yes, I think, you know, people
don't realize the how much you can manipulate
opinions, true, you know, crafting a message
or uh, you know, storytelling, um, as an example,
you could say something like, um, Hey, I'm a
vegan. I've been vegan for five years. Not true.
Um, and you know, I like being vegan, but it
causes me lots of problems in my health. And
then you go into the list of problems. Like,
first of all, you don't know if this is coming
from a genuine person, you know, and then you
think, This is not helping. Is the person realizing
that this is not helping and doing it on purpose?
It's maddening. Yeah, and it's this, I think
as well, this is a symptom of social media, right,
more broadly, but it's this idea that a person's
personal story can be taken as evidence. And
like you said, you have no idea if that story
is genuine, if that person is genuine. And we
started by talking about that Reddit post. And
when I read it, I was curious about whether this
person was real. saying this story, like it's
very likely, but you have no way of knowing like
who are they and all of this. And but yet someone's
individual story is taken as evidence when that
won't even necessarily be based on any kind of
research of what's actually going on with their
bodies or kind of evidence is built up with you'll
have like control variables and science is really
detailed and complex and nuance and Yeah, instead,
we're fed this, like, my story is the truth.
And it just, yeah, it creates such a minefield
for people in trying to determine any information
and social media is often the main source of
information for most people now for news stories,
but also for dietary trends and interests. And
there's got to be a lot more stringent content
moderation where these are health claims. And
when it comes to food, they are often health
claims, and it's going to have a real damaging
impact on people. And you can't, you know, say,
let's teach people critical thinking. No, it's
deeply, you know, psychological, it's, you know,
some of that messaging is sometimes, you know,
speaks to your subconscious, you know, mind.
It's, you don't understand how much you're getting
manipulated by those algorithms. It's about feelings.
And so you can learn all about, you know, critical
thinking and even major in philosophy or whatever,
but you'll never, you know, protect yourself
against that. No, no, exactly. And that's why
we need this kind of like evidence based science
that really looks at Yeah, it looks at the bigger
picture, it's evidence -based, rather than these
kind of, yeah, select stories as being the ideas
because we can't, it's not down to us as individuals
and it's not down to us as consumers even to
make these proper decisions. There's got to be
kind of policies and regulation in place that
ensure that we're navigating, yeah, we're navigating
evidence. Well, I'm so thankful that your organization
exists. Truly, I mean, you have so much work
to do. It's been a long year. And, you know,
what if we want to support changing markets?
How should we do so? Yeah, please just kind of
follow along. We're on most social media platforms.
We have a newsletter that people can subscribe
to on our website. We are on LinkedIn and Instagram.
And yeah, please just kind of follow along and
engage with what we're doing and talk about our
work. We really love hearing about instances
of where our reports pop up and conversations
and kind of seeing the information being used
out there in the wild and prompting these discussions,
because that's really what we're trying to do
when we put out quite a lot of reports. And they're
always about increasing the evidence base and
the knowledge and prompting conversations in
these spaces. So yeah, just keep engaging. Amazing.
Thank you so much, Maddie. Did you want to add
something before we stop the recording? Thank
you everyone for listening. I kindly invite you
to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action. Again,
thank you so much for caring and I will see you
next Tuesday for a new episode.