by Umbra Fisk
Whatever
you do when you meet Moby (eventually, we all will), don’t tell him you enjoy
his book.
“That’s
a strange word to use,” he said when I did the very thing I’m telling you not
to do.
My
face briefly turned the same shade as my hair as I attempted to explain how
exactly it is I enjoyed reading about
the grisly perils of factory farming in the newly released collection of
essays, Gristle,
which the musician and long-time vegan edited along with Miyun Park, the
executive director for Global
Animal Partnership.
Once
I regained my composure, Moby and I chatted about animal welfare, veganism, and
why a meal at McDonald’s should cost $75. Seattleites can listen to him further elaborate tonight at Town Hall.
Q. Did you draw the cow on the front of the book?
A. No, I didn’t. I wish I did. My drawing ability is mostly limited to little bald-headed
aliens looking to one side. I wanted the cow to look more worried, though. I
think originally it didn’t have an eye. So I told the graphic designer I wanted
it to have an eye, and I wanted it to look worried.
Q. What do you feel like this book contributes to the
factory farmed meat discussion that others in the genre do not?
A. It’s for people who might be interested in the consequences of agribusiness and
factory farming. And also, kind of like a companion to some of these other
books and movies. I really like the Michael Pollan book and Jonathan Safran
Foer’s book. And I have a lot of admiration and respect for the authors, but
their books are a bit more subjective and personal. And so I think we wanted to
make this as sort of a bit more factual, less opinionated, less emotional, and
just a factual companion to books like that.
Q. Why do you think you were a good fit for editing the compilation?
A. I think Miyun and I working together made a lot of sense because we both have
been in the world of animal welfare for a long time. It’s her day job, and I’m
more of a dilettante. I guess I was a good fit in that, with information like
this, which is not the happiest, funnest information in the world, the choice
was to make a very dry, factual book that wouldn’t get much attention, but if
you attach a well-intentioned, quasi public figure to it and give it a cute cow
on the cover and a nice yellow background, it increases the chances that more
and more people might actually look at it. If it just had a brown cover with
some bad printing, I think there would be 10 people on the planet who would
look at it—so just a sort of acknowledgment of the ways in which media are
disseminated.
Q. Factory farming affects a lot of areas like our health, animal welfare, and climate
change, but where do you think it has the biggest impact?
A. It’s hard to say because it depends upon who is being impacted and also depends
on the long-term impact. I think the biggest and most impactful aspect of
agribusiness is really going to be on climate change. The U.N. released a
report basically stating that 25 percent of all climate change is a result of
animal production, and they also released a statement saying probably the
easiest way to arrest climate change would be to change the practices of
agribusiness, of factory farming. But the effects of climate change are slow;
they’ll be drastic, but they are slow. So in the short term it seems like the
biggest impact, apart from the impact on the welfare of animals that are being
tortured and slaughtered, the biggest impact is on the communities where the factory
farms actually are. It’s estimated that when a factory farm is introduced to a
community, the price of residential real estate goes down 80 percent. I mean,
it’s impacting consumers and it’s impacting the animals and impacting the
environment, but it really is decimating the communities where the factory
farms actually exist.
Q. What do you think the solution is for getting people to cut back on animal
consumption? Is it education?
A. For me, there’s one simple solution, which the likelihood of it happening is
pretty slim, but still, my pie in the sky dream is to end subsidies for
agribusiness and end subsidies for animal production and basically let the free
market decide the cost of a pound of beef and a pound of chicken. If there were
no subsidies for beef, a pound of beef would cost around $25, and if every
aspect of animal production wasn’t subsidized, a family of four going to
McDonald’s for a quick meal would spend $75. So really it’s like the silver
bullet that fixes the problem. And I would almost think it would make for
interesting bedfellows, where you might even get some libertarian Tea Party
people to talk about ending giving subsidies to animal production. But then
again, not to be too inflammatory, but thus far every single person in the Tea
Party is a raving lunatic, so I don’t expect them to join our cause any time
soon.
Q. What sort of group activism would you suggest people get involved with that
would really have an impact on this?
A. Not to be overly simplistic, but the first thing that springs to mind is people
talking to each other—just communicating. Because I spent a long period of
time being a really annoying, militant, didactic vegan. And over time I
realized my militancy and didacticism was just irritating people, so now I try
to communicate a lot more honestly and respectfully and without judgment. So my
first thought is just talking to people. I mean a lot of it is more individual
action in terms of how people shop, because every time you spend money, you’re
voting for the practices of whoever’s produced what you’re paying for. Also, lobbying
local legislators. On a group level, nice things like invite people over for
dinner and surprise them with the fact that vegetarian, vegan food isn’t as
strange as they would think and is actually really tasty. And one of the
greatest things, and this plays perfectly into this, is the idea of building
community gardens. Just as agribusiness decimates everything with which it
comes into contact, community gardens benefit everything with which they come
into contact. They raise property values, they benefit the people working on
them, and they can actually produce healthy, locally grown food.
Q. Have you ever cheated on your vegan diet?
A. See, I also don’t want to be a judgmental like holier-than-thou vegan. Like
if someone is a meat eater but they maybe reduce their meat consumption for
environmental reasons, more power to them. And far be it for me to judge. But
in the last 22 years, I cheated twice. I had, and this is going to sound so
crazy, I had yogurt in 1992, and I have to say it was really good. And about
five years ago, I was talking to a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner,
and he said I should start eating eggs. So I went to the store and I bought
organic, free range, locally grown eggs and I tried to eat an egg, but I just
didn’t like it.
Q. Were you emotionally scarred afterward?
A. No, I was just reminded of why I’m a vegan, but really I don’t judge people’s
lifestyles. If someone chooses to eat meat or dairy, that’s their choice. I
just think that meat and dairy can be produced a lot more ethically than they
currently are being produced and with much less impact on communities, on the
environment, and on people’s health.
Related Links:
Have Jesus’ disciples been overeating?
Watching the green screens at the Environmental Film Festival in D.C.
HFCS study authors defend work against attacks