A Financial Journalist’s Prescription for Making the Economy Work for Animals

Henry Mance: [00:00:00] There has already been such a huge amount of progress that I could not have been vegan 10 years ago, and I still thought it was pretty extreme to be vegan five years ago, and now I find it very normal.

Paul Shapiro: Welcome to the Business for Good podcast to show where we spotlight companies making money by making the world a better place.

I'm your host, Paul Shapiro, and if you share a passion for using commerce to solve many of the world's most pressing problems, then this is the show for you. Hello for and welcome to episode number 74 of the Business for Good podcast. I really hope you enjoyed the last episode with Katrina Spade of Recompose.

I thought it was a retting conversation about a better way to be dead than the conventional methods of handling your corpse. So if you miss it, go back and check out episode number 73. But don't do that until you've already enjoyed this episode because I promise you, friend, it is a particularly enjoyable.

It is not every day that hard news, financial journalists write about our ethical obligations [00:01:00] to animals, let alone an entire book on the topic. Yet that is exactly what Financial Times journalist Henry Man has done in Henry's new book, How to Love Animals in a Human Shaped World. Henry takes his readers on a wild ride through our relationship with animals, including getting a job working at a slaughter plant, Him.

Henry repeatedly weaves personal experiences like this one at the slaughterhouse into his narrative, while also making prescriptions for a bold reshaping of our parts of our economy that currently involve animal exploitation. In this episode, we will chat about everything from whether moral persuasion can work without technological advances for animals, what can be done to reduce demand for animal based meat, what the financial implications of Henry's prescriptions would be and more.

I really liked Henry's book, and I encourage you to pick it up, and I enjoyed the conversation even. I hope that you will too, and if you do, please take a moment to leave a five star review for Business for Good podcast on Apple iTunes. That will help more people get exposed to the show and hopefully be inspired to do some good in the [00:02:00] world for themselves too.

I now bring you Financial Times journalist and author Henry Man Henry. Welcome to the Business for Good podcast.

Henry Mance: Cool. Thanks so much for

Paul Shapiro: having me. It is my pleasure to be talking with you. I feel like I've been talking with you cuz I've been reading your book, which I really enjoyed and you know, when you read a book you kind of feel like you're in a conversation with the author, but I know that you don't feel like you've been in a conversation with me.

So I really enjoyed it and I look forward to chatting with you about it. And I just wanna ask you, you know, like you work for the Financial Times, Most people I presume would expect that if you're gonna write a book, it's gonna be like some hard nose economics book. But instead you wrote about the ethics of our treatment of animals.

Henry Mance: Look, there is a funny link there, which is when I started out at the Financial Times and I was a young journalist, the newspaper had divided the world up into beats that had been given to more senior reporters, and I was looking for something I could write a magazine piece on, and I suddenly realized that no one was writing about pets and that I'd sat next to a vet at a wedding who'd said Being a vet is quite depressing these days because a lot [00:03:00] of pets are just living so long.

And so I sort of did digging around and um, I read about sort of the increase in pet longevity. This is a decade. Briefly found Britain's oldest dog or what seemed to be Britain's oldest dog. Unfortunately, she died before we could, um, get a photo of her for the, for the, uh, piece.

Paul Shapiro: How ironic, As I said, so ironic.

Henry Mance: So that was a kind a way in, but then this sector has been exploding interest and I really think like social media is a big part of it, that it just. Allows people to put their own interest in animals and their own love for animals at the forefront of the agenda really. And it's forced newspapers like the Financial Times to respond to that because we see on, on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook that people care about their care about wild animals.

They find them cute and amazing. And so then that's something that we want to, to have in our magazines and our, in our newspaper. So that's how. I started writing about it and I've continued to write about food and of course, you know, the hard nose reality of the food industry and climate change [00:04:00] means that it's an issue for other, other reasons.

But yeah, the contradiction is not as big as you would think.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, well I can't let it hang out there without you actually satiating this statistics. So what is the oldest dog in Britain? How old?

Henry Mance: I think Blackie was, I wanna say 24 at the time, . Um, but we never could make her part of that story. But it was, and actually the data, I remember one stage trying to, trying to speak to Bucky and Palace about whether they had good data on how all the CO were living.

Cause I thought if anyone really kept the records, it would be them. They were not keen to collaborate on the piece. Last year, you'll know this, Americans spent a hundred billion for the first time on, on pets. It's estimated on their pets. And I think it's, it's incredible the transformation that's gone on in people's willingness to pay, you know, not just take out their their dog and shoot them brutally in the backyard because they've become a bit of a financial liability.

And I think for me, that's the springboard for everything. Once you get that, people are willing to pay for those sentient lives, then you can think about what they're willing to pay for [00:05:00] conservation and for a different food industry, etc.

Paul Shapiro: I actually think that of that a hundred billion spent on pets, that my wife and I are like a non minimus fraction of that

I dunno, we, we were like holding this industry afloat with our dog Eddie, I think. But, but yeah, no, I like that it's goes from shooting animals in the backyard cuz they're an economic burden. To now essentially buying them holiday gifts and letting them sleep in our beds. It's a pretty dramatic transformation in a very short amount of time.

And the same thing you see even in countries with expanding middle classes like in China where pet keeping is on the rise. And that is certainly very good for dogs, obviously, for obvious reasons. But it does mean that there's a lot more farm animals needed since nearly nobody is feeding their dogs plant based diet.

So like there is this irony that the increase in pet keeping and increase in pet longevity, actually generally, not always, but generally does seem to have a negative impact on the welfare of, let's say, chickens and [00:06:00] fish. And so,

Henry Mance: Right. And I think that's why it has to be the start of the conversation, not the end of it.

You have to say, Right, I've got this other animal in my house, in my home, I love them hugely. So now I need to extend that compassion to, to other animals. And today I was looking at a photo, um, of a blessing of the animals in a church of in England that someone sent me. And you know, this incredible thing of a Bassett hound queuing up for a blessing by the priest and there were a couple of horses behind it.

I remember speaking to a priest in San Francisco about, And the priest saying, Look, we've just gotta extend this love that we have for the animals who belong to us in, in some sense. So other animals. And I think the reason I say, well, the reason the book is called You Know How to Love Animals is. People define themselves as animal lovers.

They say, I love animals almost as like a verbal tick. And I've seen Tucker Carlson say it on Fox. I've seen other people say it. And you can't allow yourself to be defined as someone who, who is indifferent to animals or willing to, to allow cruelty to animals, because [00:07:00] that would just, in the modern world, that would just seem evil.

And so nobody wants to be on the wrong side of this question, but it's where we go with it. What does it mean to be an animal lover? How are our responsibilities? Obviously we don't have to, you know, buy the prosthetics and provide the end of life care that we do for our pets, for every animal, but we can do so much better than we're currently doing.

And indeed, I think consumers want that, and voters want that. There are votes in being animal friendly as a, you know, we have a center right government in Britain led by Boris Johnson, and they are pretty pro animal. They're looking for ways in which they can dress themselves in the rhetoric of animal welfare and a conservation.

So it's across the spectrum.

Paul Shapiro: One of the wines in the book that I really appreciated was, uh, when you said, and, and I'm quoting you here, you said, If this is what happens on a planet of animal lovers, I wouldn't like to see a planet of animal haters . And there's a, a massive disparity, of course, between self profession of animal loving and the reality of, of what humanity is doing to animals.

But you point out, like in some cases though, there's way more people [00:08:00] out there who pay to watch birds. Then who pay to go hunting, right? So like bird watchers are a much, much bigger category of people and they're spending money to, on all the bird watching things that they buy than people who want to go out and and kill wildlife.

And so I've wondered, is it everybody who is just living with this contradiction or is it like a smaller portion of humanity that is doing these types of things that you're concerned about? Let's get into that. Henry, I wanna chat about, just like before we start talking about some of the financial implications of your prescriptions in the book, I just wanna talk about like what your prescriptions actually are, because you're basically arguing that humans ought to be owning fewer animals and having more free living animals.

That's like the bottom line of your book, that you want more wildlife and and less owned animals. So what do you mean by that and why?

Henry Mance: So, I think livestock farming at the moment is a disaster, really. I think it's a disaster for the animals which are being pushed beyond. Biological limits, whose sort of emotional lives and social needs are not respected in many of the farm [00:09:00] systems we've built and possibly all of the farm systems we've built.

So I think we need to really turn around, We're still at a global level. The amount of meat and dairy being consumed is, is going up fairly rapidly and we, so we need to turn that around. And, uh, starting with rich countries where, Consumption is high. We need to really start bringing that down and you can, you can start putting figures on that.

We've had a report for the government here recently in Britain, which has spoken about cutting the amount of meat we eat, uh, by 30% by 2030. I mean, that's nine years away. And you're talking about that would be the equivalent of going from. 4% of the population being vegetarian to over, over one in three, So, So it would be a really massive change in fairness.

Paul Shapiro: So Henry, like that would be if you had a certain portion of the population that never ate meat, but you could envision 0% added vegetarians and still get a 30% reduction.

Henry Mance: Exactly. That's not how it's gonna happen. Like just to sort of face up to the scale of the task, I mean, one of the, I guess one of my frustrations is that everybody has accepted a [00:10:00] rhetorical level that we should eat less meat, eat better meat people.

And yet I don't think people, It's really sunk in. Quite what we mean when we say by less meat, even on carbon storage grounds, for example. Even if you are just interested in hitting the climate change goals that governments like the UK have, you really need quite a significant cut. So that 30% is really governed by the net zero commitment that the UK has.

And so a 30% cut is a really significant cut. It's not just giving up meet one, uh, or ordering the vegetarian option once a week out of your 21 meals a week. It's, it's really thinking very differently about how schools. Restaurants, prisons, hospitals provide food. So I think however you wanna think about that commitment, it is more substantial than, than just making a few changes to your diet.

I think food is at the heart of everything, because if we farm differently, if we change what we eat, then we just liberate this huge area of farmland. So you'll know the figures around just how much more efficient plant based food is. At the UK level you're talking about [00:11:00] hundreds of thousands of hectare.

That could be freed up within a decade for woodlands, peatlands, grasslands, all of which will promote animal life, which have been neglected for decades, if not centuries. And so I think that is a huge opportunity there. But I also, I, you know, I wanna make some points in the, and I make some points in the book around zoos, for example.

And I think I'm someone who grew up with zoos, who loved going to the zoos. We had panders and elephants in in London Zoo near where I grew up. London Zoo is in some ways the first modern zoo created just under 200 years ago. And we were taught that that was normal and that was healthy, and that was a good place for the animals.

You know, zoos were not created to be good places for conservation or in, in the most part, certainly London Zoo wasn't they, They weren't cons, uh, created with ideas of animal welfare and it wasn't animals, natural behaviors might be, and whether they would be happy with this small amount of space and this climate, et cetera, and the noise around it and the visitor.

And all those things, and I think zoos are not a big part of what's wrong with our relationship with [00:12:00] animals, but I think that they can just remind us that we had this fantasy that we could keep animals in very small spaces, whether it be on farms or in zoos or even in our homes with the case of some under case animals that people used to keep as pets, and we just have to step back and say, No, these as sentient animals, they have their own patterns of.

And in most cases they don't fit into the spaces that we would like to them them to be for our sheer convenience. So let's find beauty not in owning animals and not in putting them in in city centers where we can go elephants. But in just having them out in the wild. And I think, you know, I now find in looking at wild frogs or birds, the beauty that I once found going to see elephants in a zoo.

We don't have to. Animals out of context and outta what would be happy social lives for us to enjoy

Paul Shapiro: them. Well, I'm in concert with you on that prescription. I guess my question is like, if you think about the economic changes that will have to [00:13:00] happen in order to switch to a fossil fuel free future, it's requires like a pretty dramatic reshaping of the economy.

Get us onto renewables in the timeframe that climate experts assert, we need to. What do you think is a bigger reshaping of the economy? Going toward a future that is based on renewable energy or the prescriptions that you're making in this book that would reshape our relationship with animals in a pretty dramatic way?

Henry Mance: It's a good question, and I think I see them as broadly compatible. I think 89% of the the time, what's good for nature is, is also good for for climate and I think less livestock farming is at the heart of that. I think there are certain cultural things around. Meat, which has obviously meant that getting people to give up meat over centuries has been a very hard ask and that it feels like such a personal thing.

And obviously there may be, there are questions of what we've evolved to taste and to find delicious and how we're brought up and, and all that. I think that, so meat I think is [00:14:00] particularly tough, but I also, you know, I think there is a, at the heart. Our model of human progress, there's a sort of desire for more, and I think you could sum it up in the rise of SUVs.

Why not have a slightly bigger car? Why not sort of take up this much more of the road? And I think having an ethic of restraint, which just guides how we treat other animals. So we don't try and breed dogs into ridiculous shapes because we find them cute. We respect. The health of pet dogs, but we also do not try and leave a huge footprint on the natural world by just expanding relentlessly forests that restraint hard for, That guides us.

I both, when we climate, we. Confront nature. But I have to say, I wanna be optimistic on one point, which is Coronavirus was a moment where people were presented with the evidence. They were presented with very clear guidance from politicians and scientists that, you know, real [00:15:00] restraint was needed and they adopted it.

And I think there is a model there that. Taxes on meat are very unpopular. Taxes on fuel are pretty unpopular, but if you say to people, Look, in the interests of our society and in the interests of nature, we're gonna have to step back and put some limits on then actually that's something that comes across to people as much fairer.

And there was a poll recently where people were not prepared to accept certain climate change policies in the uk. This is if they had a personal. But they were prepared to accept by I think a margin of 46 to 31, they were prepared to accept limits on how much meat they could eat. And they were also by a different margin, by a wider margin prepared to take, to accept limits on how many flights they could take.

And that, for me says that a just transition is not necessarily arrived at through taxes, which I think people resent for many reasons, but through social, A sense that we're all in it together, and if we can foster that with relationships with regards to me and with regards to climate [00:16:00] change, then I think we may have a better chance for success.

Paul Shapiro: That's interesting. I mean, I, I would've intuitively thought that taxes would be more palatable than just outright bans or restrictions. If you think about like cigarette taxes in the United States, for example, they have dramatically increased the price of a pack of cigarettes. But I do think they are less objectionable than just telling you, you can't have more than X number of cigarettes per.

But, you know, I'm interested in, in seeing the polling that you're referring to. And, you know, my own view is that human beings are really wonderful at so many things. Restraining ourselves is not one of them . I, I just don't think that we're good at it. I think that people right now at least, are showing that.

Though eat as much meat as they can get. Countries like China and India and Brazil and Mexico, and as you point out in the book, like meat consumption of skyrocketing, You point out sobering, but truthfully that since Peter Singer's Animal Liberation came out in 1975, I think you wrote, that meat demand has [00:17:00] tripled since then.

And it seems to me like people will basically eat as much meat as they can get their hands on as they can afford, essentially. So as you have like swelling middle classes in the countries that I just mentioned, people, one of the very first things they do when they start getting a little bit more money in their pocket is eating more meat.

And it's great for them that they're coming out of poverty. Of course, that's what we want. But there is this, uh, negative externality of increasing the problems associated with raising and slaughtering billions and billions of animals for food. And so I wondered, and I'm interested in your opinion on this, like how much of the transition do you think is gonna be by what you're saying, Like, Hey, let's just restrain ourselves and maybe you have rules on how much meat you can eat versus coming up with new technologies that.

Say, Okay, well you want that meat experience. You talk about Queen meat in the book as an example. If we can, if that were actually a commercial reality right now and that were economically viable, people could eat all the meat they wanted essentially without causing so many problems. So why not just do [00:18:00] that?

Like why tell people, Hey, turn your lights off more, rather than just inventing a new light bulb that doesn't take up much energy. It's a great

Henry Mance: question, but they're much more compatible than people think. I mean, like who found it Impossible food, A vegan? It's sort of, you have that restraint and then it gets poured into a business that creates a product that brings more people on board.

So I don't see it as an either. I'm trying to, with this book, is to move the dial slightly from maybe two or three or 5% of the population feeling very strongly about these issues. Strongly enough to opt out a eating meat and dairy, and if we can get that to 10 or 20%. Then I think it's, there's much more leverage to, to go to a school and say, Look, can we make meat opt, legal limit of meat has to served certain of in the opt

are interesting for me because, The really the punitive measures on smoking. You know, the really heavy taxes, the banning on [00:19:00] smoking in public places in bars. That really only happened once. Most people had opted out of smoking. And you know, smoking was never as popular as meat eating. But at the moment we're at a stage where nearly everybody takes part in meat eating and they don't necessarily want to be pushed to the sidelines.

And so we have to find other ways of doing that, I believe. Behavior of change is a part of the Getting the ball rolling is how I would put it. It sort of provides a test bed for products like Lee and Impossible Burger, et cetera, and also provides the motivation of people behind those product. I think also there'll be people who don't wanna eat those kind of substitutes and who want to eat a different kind of food, and they will benefit from opting out because for a variety of reasons, and not just because they found a perfect substitute.

Paul Shapiro: It's funny because I work in the alternative meat space because I believe so strongly that this is what's needed to like satisfy the meat tooth of people, so to speak, without having to raise and slaughter animals. But personally, I'm quite happy to eat [00:20:00] bean rice burritos and lentil soup and hummus and other.

Foods that don't taste like meat at all. And I wonder how much room there is for that. Like do people, how many people need that meat experience versus would they be happy to eat other foods that taste good, but maybe, uh, don't taste like meat? And, um, I think that's yet to be determined. Like there's doesn't seem to be any like major food category that is in the plant-based space that poses a real threat to meat that isn't, uh, like meat alternatives.

But I'll be eager to see it if that happens. But just going back to a point that you just made, Henry, is that you're saying, Well, people could get behind, or at least not oppose the cigarette taxes once nearly everybody wasn't smoking. And you know, you make this point in your book, you say like, we stopped wailing, and then people started caring about whales after we stopped wailing.

Right? Like you're making the argument that basically it's easier. To act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting. And you're hoping that the same will be so for fish, that when we're less [00:21:00] reliant on the exploitation of fish, that maybe people will think of fish in a different way than we currently think about them, which is like basically mindless plants floating around in the water.

So you're arguing that basically we need to reduce our reliance on the exploitation before people start caring about the animals. Is that, is that an accurate assessment?

Henry Mance: I mean, I think if I have a criticism of animal activists is. They've focused really on cases which don't affect the majority of animals or which sort of easily othered.

So you think about a dog meat festival in China, which on sort of online and criticism over the few years, and people like Ricky j the comedian, going against it very strongly and likewise trophy hunting. And you know, firstly, I think with trophy hunting, there's a, there is a, a misunderstanding of, of, its.

In preserving wild spaces in Africa. But I also think it's very easy to say the problem is over there. The problem is with, with those people in China, rather than saying, Look, if we find a really inhumane to eat a, a dog, well, why are we happy to eat pigs here or [00:22:00] keep them in, uh, crates or to breed chickens to grow so fast that they're dead within six weeks and can barely stand up for, for some of that time?

So I've been trying in the book to question our own practices that really the ones that are adopted by. 80% of or percent of the people here rather than to say, Look, these things which don't really matter to us and which we don't take part in, they're awful. And I think that's, it's too easy. Get our, I think, easiest things to are the things that don't, and easiest things to campaign against.

So I understand why people go against the dog. It easier to move against the meat industry when more people have opted out of it. That's not entirely an option. Just to go back quickly to your earlier question. There has already been such a huge amount of progress that I could not have been vegan 10 years ago, and I still thought it was pretty extreme to be vegan five years ago.

And now I find it very normal and easy. And in places like London, I asked a cafe the other day where they had milk and the guy looked at me like I [00:23:00] was a complete moron. He was like, Well, of course we got milk. It's London, it's 2021. You know, like this is completely normal. So the story's about like soy milk being a powder and you having to mix it up yourself.

And I did that. I have so much respect for you and you like, cause normally you rate at restaurants, which tweeted you terribly and that's just not the case anymore. And in London,

Paul Shapiro: People look at me like, like I'm a moron for a lot of reasons. Not necessarily necessarily oat milk related, but I mean, I became vegan in 1993.

I remember there was, um, there was like Eden soy, soy milk back then, but, you know, for the most part, I mean, I, I was actually mixing a powder. I remember that very well actually, and I did it. Eden Soy was available so I could have purchased it. It had two ingredients, soybeans and water. So, you know, so wasn't exactly like an advanced product.

But I remember thinking at the time, Well that's cool. I'm not using like a lot of packaging, I guess, when you're buying the powder. But anyway, I mean, I agree with you Henry. I do think there's been a lot of progress made. I think on the bottom line, things that matter the most though, like it is worse [00:24:00] today for animals than it was, uh, when I became vegan in 93 and it was worse for animals today than it was five or 10 years ago.

And so while I do think there's promising signs that are happen, Bottom line is that it's much harder to be a wild animal because of what we're doing to the climate and taking away habitat today at a very rapid rate. The lives of farm animals while in some cases, are somewhat better. The number of them being utilized is just grows every year.

And so chickens and fish, especially who represent the lions share of maybe like the chickens and fish share of the animals who are raising. Their wives for the most part, for chickens raised for meat and fish who were eating like their wives just really are, are quite horrible. So like for me, I guess what I would wanna know from you is you're saying, well, when we started caring about whales after we stopped wailing, you know, saying that's not necessarily a possibility with meat since nearly everybody eats.

But I guess the question is, can [00:25:00] technology reduce our reliance on these animals so that we can then start thinking about them differently? You know, as an example, we all know why we stopped wailing. We stopped wailing because kerosene was invented and it was a queerer more efficient way to light our homes than whale oil was.

Similarly, the animal welfare movement was really founded both in Britain and the us. Horses who were being abused in the streets and what ended up liberating horses wasn't humane sentiment. It was the invention of cars. We used to live pluck geese for their quills all the time. It was a very inhumane practice.

We stopped doing that, not because we cared about geese, but because metal fountain pens were invented. And since then, we've come to look at all these animals differently. You know, we look at whales so differently that we pay to go look at them now. You know, we used to have boats that sh that go, went out to hunt them.

Now we have boats that people paid again on your way to look at them. We think of geese in a pretty. Romantic way. Now horses are basically viewed as companion animals by most people as opposed to labor animals. And so I'm wondering like, why not the same, Why not the same thing for fish and for chickens and pigs and

Henry Mance: so on.

I agree. This is [00:26:00] a huge part of the solution. I'm totally with you and I, I think it's just gonna require, given that we're trying to turn things around in, in really quite a short number of years, we're talking a much shorter time than it, it took us to move against whaling, for example. Then I think we should use every weapon at our disposal.

And I think having people who are willing to, to ethically say, Now I just can't justify eating meat and dairy cause of the impact on the climate, the amount of land it's using up and because of the, um, way in which animals are treated on farms. I think that's just gonna accelerate the process hugely.

And we need the farming sector to be carbon negative really to. The emissions in other sectors. So we need to do a a lot in a small amount of years. I just think if you have people who are vegan, people who are really committed, or mostly vegan, who are in companies, who are in supermarkets, who are on school boards, who are in government, they're gonna get things done and really push that process.

And so I think [00:27:00] having a personal commitment for me can really lie at the heart of political action and corporate action on these. For sure. I,

Paul Shapiro: I'm, I'm not against it by any means. I'm all for it, man. Like, I, I mean, I've, Well,

Henry Mance: you're a perfect example of it. You're a living, breathing example of that. Yeah. I mean,

Paul Shapiro: I, I, I would love for more people to see the world the way that I do.

As somebody who wants to do the most for animals, I figure like we gotta play the cards that are dealt and try to do what I think is gonna be like the most effective, most efficient way to help them. Even if that doesn't mean waging a moral persuasion campaign right now, but rather instead telling people you can enjoy, um, these same tastes and experiences that you like without the downside.

I live in California and there was a case here about a month ago where a group of cows fled a slaughter house. They escape. They walked around residential neighborhoods for the day, and it was a big news story. This group of refugees from the Slaughter house were walking around residential like Southern California neighborhoods, and as you can imagine, [00:28:00] every single person is rooting for the cows with all these people tweeting for the cows to be sent to sanctuary people were rooting for the cows.

They're cheering them on in the streets as they're walking through. People are so happy that these cows escape. Of course, nearly everybody cheering for the cows is eating meat as well. And to me that underscores that people want meat. They don't necessarily want slaughter. They want that experience. Like in the same way that you know, you flick a light switch on, like what you want is the experience of an illuminated room, but you're not thinking about whether it's coming from renewables or from fossil fuels.

You just want light. I think most people just want meat. They don't really care if animals are slaughtered for it. In fact, they probably would prefer that animals not be slaughtered for it. And if we can deliver them that experience, Without having to RA in slaughter animals, it seems like maybe the most promising thing, in my view for what could happen.

So let me just pivot from that then and ask one whether you agree, but then two, like what do you think in Henry Man's world right now, 2021, what are the most promising things for the prospects of animals that you see? Is it technology? Is it behavior change? Like [00:29:00] what are the things that you think are the most promising going on for animals?

Right.

Henry Mance: I absolutely think that the step change in alternatives to me is the most exciting thing. I'm someone who would easily say that an impossible burger or a b burger is as good as a, as a beef. And I argue with this people, not everyone agrees, but I basically, I think it's the case. I'm really excited to see what happens with clean meat, and I really hope that goes on sale at a decent price as soon as possible.

What we need to get to it. Nobody's talking about in the foreseeable future banning meat, but if we can get to a stage where three out of the five options on a restaurant menu are plant based or involve clean meat, then that is really gonna be a very promising situation. So, yeah, I'm excited by clean meat, by meat alternatives, by milks.

I think the amount of money going into milks, alternative milks just suggest to me that the, there's gonna be something for everyone like armed milk. It's not for me. Milk has been brilliant, but [00:30:00] again, and I was speaking someone yesterday who's full on carnival, who was saying they just prefer milk in their coffee.

So I think that's brilliant. That wouldn't have been the case five years ago. I really look forward to more investment in that area. What I haven't quite seen yet, at least on this side of the Atlantic, is the cheeses. I think I would love hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of investment to go into alternatives to dairy cheese, because that is a hangout for so many people.

And I think ultimately I'm excited that there can be a political process and also a process within supermarkets, which is now looking for constructive ways to reduce me consumption. Like I think it's become recognized that our food choices are not really free choices in so many, You know, that's why we, we eat junk because of the way it's marketed, because they're, there's obviously in ultra processed foods, there are just things we can't get enough of, like salt and sugar, and we find very difficult to resist.

And so I think organizations are now feeling slightly empowered to shape [00:31:00] those choices in a healthy direction. So government's thinking about how does it provide healthy food to people? Well, look, if there's a problem about, you know, people need to eat, they don't need to eat more protein. People, really what they need to eat is more fiber, more vegetables.

We need to get, make those available for people. And I'm excited that the government is recognizing its role here in supplying vegetables to people. We'll see how, how exactly that shakes out, but it could be just free boxes of it being delivered. I'm also excited that supermarkets just cause they're now having to declare their emissions.

They're now thinking about, Look, how is our product offering? Affecting the, you know, our carbon footprint and how can we squeeze it down? How can we promote more plant-based products within our stores and get them.

Paul Shapiro: All of that I, I think is wonderful and I am in total concert with you on it. I do wonder, I think it would be like a really interesting experiment if giving people free vegetables led them to be less meat or not my own experience giving homeless people vegetarian [00:32:00] food, not a small portion of the time.

It's rejected, sadly, and I just think that people want meat so much. If they could get free vegetables or pay for meat, I think a lot of people would still pay for meat. But I don't know. I mean, it'd be an interesting experiment to run, but I agree with you on fiber. I'm constantly shocked. Like every food product, it tells you how many grams of protein there are.

There is like on the front cover, like, oh, you know, 10 grams of protein. Neither you nor nobody you've ever met is protein de. You've never met a protein deficient purpose than ever, yet. Probably you and every person you know is fiber deficient. And so like at least in America, more than 90% of people are fiber deficient.

And the rda, the recommend daily allowance of fiber in America is still pretty low. Also, like it should be probably higher, but even by the pretty portion that we're told that we need still, most people aren't meeting that. And so I hope in the future people will not be asking where do you get your protein?

But rather they'll be asking, Where do you get your fiber? That would be good. That would be. That's an interesting look at what is going on right now. That [00:33:00] might actually be good. Interestingly, on the cheese part that you mentioned, Henry, like it's fascinating because in the US at least fluid cows milk consumption has been going down.

However, the number of dairy cows hasn't really been going down, and that's because cheese consumption is going up. And it takes about 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese. So even though you see a big dent being made in the fluid milk market, it hasn't actually translated into really fewer dairy cows in existence just because cheese is going up so much.

So in other words, if you really want to reduce the number of dairy cows in existence, doing alternative cheese will probably go a lot longer, a lot further than doing alternative. The total number of dairy cows is pretty small compared to the number of chickens and fish, for example. But it's still, if that's your goal, it does seem like cheese, maybe, um, like a bigger ethical bang for the book, so to speak.

Henry Mance: It's a very hard one to, for people to get their head round. The fact that dairy cows may have worse lives than beef cows. [00:34:00] Some of you know, beef cows can live pretty decent lives in some cases, and dairy cows, you know, just because of the, the rhythm of impregnation and separation from their calve. Often at birth or within 24 hours, and then often kept inside on hard floors because that's the most efficient way of being able to milk them regularly.

I think because people look at the cheese on their plate and think that this doesn't look bloody, this looks humane, that even vegetarians eat a whole lot of cheese. So I, I think people reading my book, they found that the most. Powerful thing in many cases, but they also find it the hardest thing to give up the Derrick.

So I would love more more tech in that

Paul Shapiro: area. Yeah, it does seem like you do hear people all the time saying, Ah, you know, I can totally do it, but didn't ever given up cheese. Which is interesting because it actually pretends some pretty good things because cheese is like a pretty novel culinary experience for humanity.

Like it was only in the last couple thousand years or so that we learned how to make milk cur. And before that, nobody had ever dreamt of Guda or Bree or [00:35:00] Cheddar or whatever like that. Those are all kind of novel, culinary experiences on the broad map of human's existence. And so then the question is like, what other new technologies will create entirely new categories of food that people will similarly love and will have these new experiences that people will say, I could never give it up and hopefully this will be animal free.

And my hope is that the food technologies that we've been talking about will actually create not just mimicry of, of meat and other animal products, but we'll create new categories of food that are just so good that people just can't live without 'em in the same way they declare about cheese. Right.

Henry Mance: That's exactly, I mean, I'm really keen that the message is not one of doom and gloom. It's of. We can have a better world with. When I think about climate as well, I think of just more green spaces, cleaner air, getting out there and enjoying the, the natural world and eating great flavors. I mean, like, I don't think anyone thinks our diet is brilliant at the moment.

You know, you can eat lots of cheap chicken and just, you know, feel bad about yourself the next day. And so I'm hopefully looking forward to a world where people eat more vegetables, [00:36:00] Interesting taste, seasonal food that doesn't taste like cardboard. That's an exciting thing for people to aim for rather.

Feeling like, Oh, we're being pushed into this funnel, which we, you know, don't enjoy. And we, we, you know, we have to do this, but we'll drag our feet as much as possible. No, like, it's a better future. If in my neighborhood there were fewer cars and some of that space on, on roads were given up to other things and benches and, you know, trees, et cetera, we would enjoy living here more.

And I really feel if, like, if more people got vegetable boxes, if more people were taught about vegetarian food, vegan food, they would enjoy. When people come around for dinner, they always say that they, they enjoy the food, and it is just that lack of knowledge and that break with tradition that means that it's not quite as inbuilt.

I think we need to sell a positive vision and we need to, you know, that's certainly what the most successful companies in this space do is certainly how you keep your head above water when you are otherwise confronted with slightly miserable statistics around the number of factory farm animals, carbon emissions, et cetera.

Paul Shapiro: Yes. Well, speaking of a positive vision, Henry, [00:37:00] what would you recommend to folks? You are a smart guy. You wrote a really interesting book. You work for, you know, one of the most prestigious financial newspapers in the world. Like, do you have recommendations for things that you wish that people would either read or listen to or experience that you think would be useful for this or any other

Henry Mance: topic?

At the back of my book, I have a list of sort of works that, that I recommend, but a couple that aren't in there, but that I've enjoyed. Books, short readable things. One is a book called Losing Eden by Lucy Jones. It's just about our connection and how much we derive from the natural world, and also about starting with kids who is something we haven't mentioned is that my book has really aimed at my daughters and it's about kinda the experience of becoming a parent and then thinking, what life do I want my kids to leave?

What ethics do I want them to have? Can I sort of find a way for them to live with these animals that they're surrounded by in the form of story books and comics and teddies? Can I find a way that they can live with those animals into their adult? So Lucy Jones', [00:38:00] Losing Eden is really good on this subject of just becoming connected to the natural world.

And there's a new book, which is on themes that you've written about Paul brilliantly. And, but it's a fun one called, uh, A Brief History of Motion by Tom, who's a editor at The Economist. And it's about sort of how we went from the chariot to horse-drawn carriages to the automobile and what comes next.

And I think it's a really good one for people to, to think about, you know, how technologies come of age and how we sometimes take wrong parts and he's firm of the view that the car age is, is coming to an end and that something else will replace it and that will be a sort of hybrid. You know, scooter higher, um, walking, um, ride hailing some electric vehicles, probably not autonomous vehicles in a very big way, et cetera, but it just gets you thinking about change and possibility and what technologists can offer, but also what regulators have to do.

Because in so many instances when it comes to transport regulation has been perverted by [00:39:00] lobbying, and that's given us a, a bad urban environment. It's given us inefficient use of fossil fuels, et c. So we should try and undo some of those mistakes. But I found those two really powerful books. All right,

Paul Shapiro: cool.

Well, we'll certainly include that in the show notes. Also, I'll tip my hat to you, Henry, for your first response, saying if you wanna know what you should read, you should get my book. Cuz in the back I have, I have recommendations in there. So,

Henry Mance: Well, I feel guilty about, Paul is repeating myself for things that I've already written down.

So it, it wasn't a, uh, it wasn't a marketing that's,

Paul Shapiro: Hey man, you gotta sell books somehow. You gotta sell books somehow. No, that's great. And I, and I appreciated your list in the back of the book also, which I, I thought was good. And I actually on, on the driving front, I mean, you were to read that book. I hadn't heard of it, so thank you.

I will definitely buy that. Surprising to me how whi focus that there is placed by animal advocates on the institution of driving. Cars are responsible for, in the United States, hundreds of millions of wildlife deaths alone. Way more than hunters kill [00:40:00] way, way, way more than hunters kill. And then not only just the actual direct impact of running over animals, but also the roads that crisscrossed through their habitat and destroy their communities basically.

And it's like there's this view that, oh, like people who hunt or these like animal haters or whatever. Obviously you in the book point out why you don't believe that's true. But cars are a much bigger enemy of wildlife than hunters are without even a close competition. So I hope that prediction comes out to be true, that we are the age of cars is coming to an end for a lot of reasons that that's one of 'em.

But let me then ask you finally, Henry, so you are literate in the financial space. You follow a lot of companies, you've named a number of the companies here. Are there any companies that you wish existed that don't? Is there anything that you wish a company would get formed to tackle this problem?

Henry Mance: Not quite in those terms, but look, I think the stranded assets argument with meat is slightly different to it is too, with oil and gas, I mean like one of the reasons why the livestock industry [00:41:00] is, is not great, is because it uses so much land.

And that land will still have a value even if we stop eating meat, so it won't be stranded. A stranded asset like a coal mine will be a stranded asset in 20 years time. I really think that there should be more emphasis on using that land in a trustworthy way. The whole offset market is a disaster and could do with much better players within it.

Look, I think we've gotta stop flying around the world in so many ways. And so I'd love to see more domestic tourism in my country in Britain, and for that to be invested in using former farms, turn them into tourist spots and reil them. And I also think we just have to like stop our, reduce our use of raw materials.

And I think any platform or network that is facilitating the reusing of goods, the purchase of secondhand good. The selling of spare parts needs to be really encouraged, and I think that will come of age. You've seen some of that in the fashion space where people, you know, [00:42:00] looking to sell on clothes and people looking to buy second hand, partly for ethical reasons, but I just think across the board.

There is a lot of wealth tied up in people's homes in the form of gadgets that they don't use, other things they'd like to get rid of, and they just need some easier platforms to to share and get rid of it. I think any investment in that space is welcome. That's great. We

Paul Shapiro: actually did an earlier episode with Goodwill, the massive chain here of secondhand good stores and the good that it does, like Basical.

Even if you're a vegan, I would argue that actually buying a used weather shoes from Goodwill probably does a lot less harm than buying new plastic, like fake weather shoes. I'm a big believer in power of Used. Well, let me outro us here, Henry, with a quote from your book that I really enjoyed where you concluded by saying that you hope for a future where humans recognize.

What they share with animals, where we put less effort into owning [00:43:00] animals and more into accommodating them alongside of us. If you Henry could sum up your desired relationship with animals in one sentence, it would be deliberate. Domestication is a dead end. Wilderness is the path that takes us where we need to go.

So I couldn't agree with you more. I recommend reading your book. It's called How to Love Animals in a Human Shaped World, and I really appreciate all that you're doing to help give such. Nuanced and insightful view of our relationship with animals, as you do in the book, Henry. So thanks for everything you're doing,

Henry Mance: Paul.

I admire your work hugely, and thank you so much for having me on. Been a pleasure. Thanks

Paul Shapiro: for listening. We hope you found use in this episode. If so, don't keep it to yourself. Please leave us a five star rating on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. And as always, we hope you will be in the business of doing good.