Point of Origin Episode 29
The Morality of meat
“What meat means in the United States…it means authority, it means unpaid, poorly treated immigrant labor, it means animal cruelty.”
Alicia Kennedy
Image Credit: Quentin Lebeau
On today’s episode we’re talking about the meat. What it means to consume it, to abstain from it, and how, as always on matters of so called morality, things get murky quickly, and impossible to detangle from the influence of culture, society, and privilege.
We begin with writer Alicia Kennedy, one of the clearest and most compelling voices in food media today on, among other things, veganism, and more broadly the politics of eating. We then travel to India where Dr. Yamini Narayanan discusses the politicization of beef in India, and in particular, what happens when cow protection laws and diet regulations are codified as a means of marginalizing lower castes and Muslims. And finally, we go to the Dominican Republic with Ysanet Batista, activist and owner of Woke Foods, who discusses her ongoing activism through plant based recipes as a means of healing and restoration. The politics of meat, and diet, diet and identity... Today on Point of Origin, it’s the morality of meat.
Available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, & iHeartRadio
Highlights
( 00:00 ) Introduction
( 01:12 ) The State of Vegan Food
( 04:49 ) America’s Relationship with Meat
( 09:30 ) “Tech Burgers” (Vegan Meats)
( 14:00 ) The Harm of the Meat Industry
( 17:58 ) Shaping a Better Media Coverage of Meat
( 22:55 ) The Politicization of Vegetarianism in India
( 31:00 ) India’s Formal Economy
( 35:15 ) Introducing Ysanet Batista
( 39:00 ) Fighting Systems of Oppression in the USA
( 45:43 ) Integrating Wellness Through a Plant-Based Diet
( 51:55 ) Talking with Family about Diet
( 55:10 ) Visions for a More Equitable Food System
( 58:35 ) Closing Remarks from Stephen Satterfield
How to Amplify the Message of Eating Less Meat
From Alicia Kennedy
Engage on a more personal level first, talk with family and those you know well.
Start small and intimate, don’t think you’ll have to change everyone’s mind because you won’t.
Encourage people to just consume less meat, not necessarily removing it.
Come with deliciousness, show them how they can eat something else that is delicious, cheap and well sourced.
Never come at people who are not already open to it, because you’ll just alienate people.
Talking food first is way better than trying to change someone’s heart and mind, that’s a lot more difficult than trying to change their stomach.
Cow Politics in India
“Vegetarianism is being mobilized specifically against beef eaters, so not against consumers of other meat (chicken, lamb, etc), it’s specifically as a way of marginalizing beef eaters because in the political narrative, Muslims and low caste Hindus are the only beef eaters, which is not true. If you actually do a demographic survey of India, everybody is consuming beef, even those who perceive themselves as high caste, so it’s across the board.”
The politics that have emerged from the cow in India are complex and nuanced in a way that it affects different religions, regions, socioeconomic levels, and castes. The majority of the Indian population are Hindus that abstain from eating beef due to the cow’s sacred position in their religion. The rest of the country, those who are lower caste Hindus and as well as Muslims, have no moral quandary in eating beef, but there are government laws against the slaughtering and trading of beef. While not inherently wrong, these regulations have allowed for the targeting and marginalization of those that are suspected of breaking the law.
Here’s a video from Vox that explains some of the ways that beef eaters have been targeted and marginalized.
India’s cow vigilantes are targeting Muslims (Vox, 2019)
“Tech Burgers”
( Impossible Meats, Beyond Burgers, Etc. )
When vegan/alternative meats emerged, many saw them as a positive way to decrease meat consumption. There was a lot of hope that this kind of “lab meat” would held reduce the massive meat farming industry that has built up in America.
However, since their release, they have faced a lot of criticism for their over-processing and their long list of ingredients. Companies like Chipotle and Whole Foods have rejected these products from their catalogues, with Chipotle’s CEO saying, “We have spoken to those folks and unfortunately it wouldn’t fit in our ‘food with integrity’ principles because of the processing.”
This type of food system is simply replicating the work of the meat system. It is pushing consumers further away from the source, and disconnecting them from food. Like corporate meat, it is prioritizing a centralization of food, and is forcing people to rely on corporations to feed them.
Read more: Meatless meat is becoming mainstream — and it’s sparking a backlash
Dr. Yamini Narayanan’s Book
Religion, Heritage and the Sustainable City
Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur
This book explores the historical and on-going influence of religion on urban planning, design, space utilisation, urban identities and communities. It argues that the conceptual and empirical approaches to planning sustainable cities in India need to be developed out of analytical concepts that define local sense of place and identity. Examining how Hindu religious heritage, beliefs and religiously influenced planning practices have impacted on sustainable urbanisation development in Jaipur and Indian cities in general, the book identifies the challenges and opportunities that ritualistic and belief resources pose for sustainability. It focuses on three key aspects: spatial segregation and ghettoisation; gender-inclusive urban development; and the nexus between religion, nature and urban development.
Woke Foods
Woke Foods is a food service and food justice worker-owned cooperative focused on innovating Dominican and Afro-Caribbean plant-based foods. We provide catering services, dinner experiences, and food justice workshops that serve both communities and organizations.
Woke Foods envisions a world where our people can prepare, eat and indulge in delicious food rooted in ancestral cooking practices. Where our people are able to affordably steward land to grow whole and nourishing foods for the loving-care of bodies of all sizes, both inside and out. We envision a world where Mother Earth’s survival is always centered and uplifted and our consumption and utilization of food is seen as a direct connection to our mental, spiritual and physical health.
Also donate to their COVID-19 Meal Supply
Meet our Guests
About Alicia Kennedy
Image Credit: http://alicia-kennedy.com/
Alicia is a writer from Long Island. Her work focuses, generally, on culture, climate, and cocktails, with a heavy focus on veganism—its history, its politics, its ever-evolving definition. Her podcast, Meatless, features conversations with chefs and writers on issues around culture and meat consumption. She currently writes a weekly newsletter on food culture, politics, and media, and is writing a book on veganism for Beacon Press to come out in summer 2022.
She is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico and has been covering the island’s culinary scene and foodways since 2015; in 2019, she wrote a major package titled “Isla del Encanto” on its agriculture for How We Get to Next that was translated for publication in Spain’s El País.
Alicia Kennedy’s Newsletter
Alicia sends out a weekly essay on issues in food, from politics and climate change to culture and labor.
About Dr. Yamini Narayanan
Image Credit: https://vegansci.com
Dr. Yamini Narayanan is Senior Lecturer at Deakin University in International and Community Development. Her work is focussed on two major themes: the nexus between animals and urban planning in India; and the intersections of speciesism, casteism and racism in the ways in which animals are enrolled in nation-building projects. Her forthcoming book will offer one of the first empirical critiques of India’s cow protectionism discourse and politics from a critical animal studies standpoint, examining bovine realities in both sites of production and protection.
Yamini’s research is supported by two Australian Research Council grants. Yamini is the founding Convenor of the Deakin Critical Animal Studies Network, and has served as the founding co-convenor of the ‘Animals and Sociology’ thematic group at TASA. She is a lifelong Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, an honour that is conferred through nomination or invitation only.
About Ysanet Batista
Image Credit: https://ysanetbatista.com/
Ysanet is a queer, Black-Dominican, born in Harlem, NY and raised in between the Dominican Republic and Hialeah FL. She is a plant-based cook and farmer-in-training. She is committed to food & land sovereignty through racial equity and community organizing. In 2016 she created the culinary arts & food justice worker co-op Woke Foods where her team and her got to offer Dominican plant-based food to organizing movements in NYC. She received a certificate in Urban Agriculture from Farm School NYC. She also has a podcast that she co-hosts with her friend Aysa called Free The Bag Podcast.
