Animal Outlook Interview

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Every day you and I get bombarded with negative news. And just like our bodies become what we eat, our minds become the information that we consume. If you want to stay positive, it’s so important that you also listen to stories that inspire you and uplifts you in this podcast. We interviewed leading experts dedicated to solving the world’s most pressing problems. And if you stick around, I promise you will not only be as informed as if you watch the news, you will feel uplifted, inspired, and I’m more positive energy in your life. Welcome to great.com talks with.

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Welcome today, great.com talks with Erica Meier, who is the president of Animal Outlook.org, and if you haven’t heard of them before, they are a nonprofit animal protection organization that is based in Washington, D.C. And hey, if you’re new here into this podcast, you definitely want to subscribe, because today we’re speaking about how we can make the future better and brighter for our animals. Erica, welcome to great.com talks with.

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Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here.

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I’m excited as well. So how would you describe Animal Outlook to someone that might not be familiar with your organization or the challenges that you’re facing?

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Yeah, I mean, in a nutshell, Animal Outlook is a nonprofit organization.

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We’re based in the US and we focus our work on the US and we work to protect farmed animals. We go undercover inside factory farms. We have a legal team that challenges the status quo inside of these factory farms. And we do a lot of outreach, educating consumers, reaching out to people about what’s really happening behind the closed doors of these factory farms and slaughterhouses so that they can make more informed and compassionate choices in the marketplace. We do a lot of work to promote vegan eating.

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Ok, I, I really.

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Appreciate and admire the work that you do. If I were to donate money to some cause area within charity, it would be animal welfare, because I think probably the majority of the suffering happening on this planet right now is happening to farm animals. So when I saw your website, I saw you had images of the horrors that are happening in today’s slaughterhouses. So what effect does that have on people? Do you manage to reach and convert people using these images, or do you feel like maybe some people shut off?

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Yeah, I mean, I think the first important point to note is that the reason that we do the work that we do, going inside these facilities, documenting with hidden cameras that the day to day realities is because the meat, egg and dairy industries are working so hard to keep the public out.

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They don’t want the public to see what’s really happening. And instead, they’re using very happy images on their packaging of maybe a cow in a green pasture or a chicken laying eggs in a nest. And these are just very far from the reality of where our meat, milk and eggs are coming from today. So we’re taking the public inside these facilities through our hidden cameras to give them a glimpse of these realities, to pull back the curtains and show

them what’s really happening. And when most people see this, they’re absolutely horrified. They’re shocked, and they’re outraged that these animals are enduring so much abuse. And in the United States, at least, a lot of the abuses that we see on factory farms, if those same abuses were inflicted on cats and dogs, the same cats and dogs we care about and protect in our homes, that would rise to the level of criminal prosecution.

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But there are a lot of laws in different states that exempt what’s happening inside these facilities. So it’s almost like anything goes in these facilities. And that’s why we work so hard to bring that to shine that light and bring the public into these factory farms through our hidden cameras.

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I think it’s so needed, the work that you do. And I saw also that you recently did an investigation and you revealed horrors that were happening in the dairy industry. So when you make a reveal like this, what are the consequences?

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Yeah, so it varies the first result we always get is public outrage and shock when they see what’s really happening and to demonstrate that there’s a pattern of abuse.

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And when we conduct these undercover investigations, we’ve been doing them for the past twenty five years and other organizations conduct them not only in the US but also globally. And you can see this pattern of abuse. It’s not just one bad apple. These are standard practices in these industries. Cruelty is a standard practice. And so the first result we always see is public, the public being shocked. But depending on the investigation and what we’ve uncovered, we might be able to challenge law enforcement on why they’re not doing something to stop these abuses. We try to challenge the corporation on why they’re allowing these abuses to happen in the first place. And a lot of that requires the consumers that consumer base to speak out. These companies are making some changes. We’re seeing some of these practices being stopped, but it’s because the public is reaching out with their outrage. So really what we need from these investigations is that engagement from the public to express how angered they are and how they want to see things change. And we always get letters from people saying; emails or calls from people saying, I had no idea this was happening and I don’t want to support these companies anymore. I’m now on a path to becoming a vegetarian or vegan. And that is the most important thing that as an individual that we can do to stop these abuses is to stop supporting these industries by choosing plant based meals.

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And is the.

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Majority of the problem and challenge coming from that, the laws are allowing this or is it that the companies are breaking the law behind hidden doors?

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Yeah, I mean, it’s a little bit of both and a lot of cases. What’s happening is considered standard practice and the law might not be able to stop it.

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And in some cases where there are laws, they’re not very well enforced to ensure that the animals are being protected under whatever law there might be. So it’s a mixture of both its lack of enforcement of existing laws and its lack of laws to protect these animals. And that’s why it’s so important for us to shine that bright light so that we can show the public what’s really happening.

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So animal outlook has been shining the bright light for 25 years now. So how do you perceive the industry, the climate for these animals? How has it changed over the last 25 years?

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Yeah, I mean, it’s changed in so many ways and we still have a very long way to go. But one of the biggest notable changes that I think we can see and from a consumer perspective especially, is that there are so many more vegan plant based options available everywhere.

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Twenty five years ago, you wouldn’t be able to walk into a grocery store today and find a dairy aisle that is loaded with plant based milks with so many options, not just one or two. It’s a whole wide variety of options. And they’re front and center. So consumers can easily find where they are and see them and find the same thing. In the area where you might find hamburgers, you’re now finding a wide variety of meat or plant-meat options. These are plant based meat alternatives. So being able to find those alternatives is becoming easier and easier. And it’s making it more mainstream and it’s making it more accessible to the public. And that goes not just with grocery stores, but even just this week, McDonald’s in the US announced that it is going to be launching a McPlant line of

meatless options throughout US stores in 2021, and that wasn’t available twenty five years ago. So being able to make that choice, that compassionate choice of saying no to animal products and yes to vegan is one of the biggest changes that we have definitely seen. It’s a thriving and growing market today.

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Yeah, I’ve seen that, too, and I think it’s such a positive signal that a company like McDonald’s is introducing that option because cooking plant based meat is requires a bit of skill if you haven’t done it before, so to get it in a format of a hamburger, that is also something familiar. I think that’s a real good introduction to someone that hasn’t tried it before. So, yeah, but all that in mind, how do you feel? Like we have come a far away, but still there’s so much suffering that is still happening. So how do you feel about the coming 10, 20 years? What is the prognosis and what kind of outcomes are you hoping for as an organization?

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Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question and obviously we can’t predict the future, but if the trends are following the pattern that we’re seeing now, I think that we’ll continue seeing the growing market of plant based options from dairy to egg to meat.

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I think these are all not only other new companies popping up to provide these options like beyond meat, but we’re seeing the meat industry itself starting to embrace the idea of providing protein in the form of plants to consumers. So if that shift that we’re starting to see now that is really growing continues, I think that’s going to elevate the plant, the plant based market, and it is eventually going to start displacing, more significantly, the meat, egg and dairy market. And right now, we’re already seeing fewer and fewer consumers over the years, like generation after generation, are consuming less dairy. They’re drinking a lot less milk. And so that trend we’re already starting to see. And if that trend continues the way it’s going, then the dairy industry is going to need to shift and potentially start making plant based milk to stay in in tune with consumer demand. So that, I think, is something we’re excited to see or hopeful to see. And we will continue. I mean, we’ve been working for many years urging major corporations and food giants to make vegan options business as usual. And we’re seeing that happen more and more throughout the past several years.

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And I think that trend is going to continue, I think, and hope so, too. And I’m grateful that organizations like Animal Outlook and other animal welfare organizations are doing the work that you’re doing. So for your organization, then what are you working on now? What are the next projects coming up?

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Yeah, so we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, so some of the work that we had typically planned for this year and next year are shifting.

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But we’re also noticing that in the midst of talking about this pandemic, that there’s a lot more dialogue about what’s really happening in factory farms and slaughterhouses as a lot of employees who are being forced to work inside these facilities, like they’re forced to stay open, that they’re not getting the right protections that they need from covid. And I think that’s the mindset of these facilities in terms of always focusing on profit and putting workers, animals and the environments at the bottom of their list of priorities. And so these profit driven industries, I think it’s sort of blowing wide open as to who they really are and what their mode of operation is really focused on. So that’s given us a lot more opportunity to talk about some of the slaughterhouses as an example where workers are at higher risk and so are animals. And these are slaughterhouses that are allowed to operate at a higher kill line speed. So the government is allowing them to run their slaughter speed a lot faster. And so that means animals are suffering increasingly as a result. And so are workers who are put at higher risk because of faster moving lions. And they’re not allowed to slow the lions down. And there have been some exposing it, highlighting how some of these workers can’t even take bathroom breaks. So they’re forced to wear diapers in order to relieve them so that they don’t get in trouble if they need to take a bathroom break.

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So, you know, being able to sort of expose these industries for who they are, not just how they treat animals, but that it’s a machine designed to exploit everything and everyone in its path. And animals are one of the victims of these factories. But workers are also victimized by these facilities as well as the profit is number one. So we’ve had a lot more opportunity to talk with other organizations and build bridges with a lot of labor unions and environmental organizations to highlight, like we have a common interest in seeing these, seeing how these factories operate and trying to change their practices. So that is something that will continue going forward. And we have been working with coalitions on some lawsuits, trying to stop some of the programs that the USDA, the US Department of Agriculture is putting forth, allowing these line speeds to increase. We’ll continue our undercover investigations and we now have more opportunity in a virtual world to connect with more people about vegan eating and a virtual world that’s always been available. But now with covid, it’s just become more normal and we’re realizing that it increases our opportunity to engage with consumers, to engage with people interested in learning more about these issues and reaching out to companies to demand more vegan options.

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Hmm, yeah, I.

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I’m happy to see so many things are coming together to stop these horrible practices and there has been a power shift in the US where you are from. And I know the new president, Joe Biden, is going back into the Paris agreement. There are similar things which will help the environment. And are similar things being done to help the conditions of animals? Is that going to have an effect?

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I mean, I think if we think about climate change and what’s causing climate change and there are a lot of things that are causing climate change, but it has been shown in the United Nations has even acknowledged that raising animals for food is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions that helped lead to climate change.

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So if we highlight climate change as one of the important focus factors of how we can make an impact personally and how we can work on policies that have an impact globally, how we raise animals for food, and the fact that we don’t need to eat animals in order to thrive and be healthy, that we can shift to a vegan diet as a way to protect the environment and fight against climate change. Just the idea of using our force to fight climate change. So I think that’s one of the issues that hopefully will have a lot more dialogue and conversation. And I think Gretta Thunberg is a great vocal person who’s talked not only about climate change, but she’s a vegan. And so making those issues connect. And if we want to personally make a difference and we want to stand for something that can make a difference with others. And I think, you know, choosing plant based options is one of the best ways we can protect the planet.

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I couldn’t agree more and.

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Imagine how someone listening to this and they want to do something to help put a stop to these horrible practices, except for using their forks to make a difference. What can someone do to help out and also stay up to date with the animal outlook?

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Well, our website, Animal Outlook Dog, is a great place to get started. We have information about your learning, about vegan eating.

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We have you can link to our website, tryveg.com. You can also get more engaged in our corporate campaigns like we were working on pushing McDonald’s to add a vegan option, and they just announced that. So those are some of the campaigns that we work on. And you can read more about our undercover investigations and sharing this information with your friends and family, whether it’s by email or talking with them or posting on social media is really an important way to spread the word and get that information out there.

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And, of course, if you’re so inclined, we are a non-profit charity. We run on donations from individuals. So if anyone wants to make a donation to support our work, then we would be incredibly grateful. And it is our 25th anniversary. So we even have a matching campaign going on right now where if you make a donation, we have a pool of donors who have agreed to match it so it’ll be doubled. And that will go a long way to help keep our hidden cameras rolling, our legal team active and our campaigns going in and winning in more and more campaigns.

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Beautiful. I urge anyone listening to this to get excited and join the calls. Erica Meier, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with Great.com Talks With… today.

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That’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

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Thank you. And for you listening. If you enjoy this conversation, please consider helping us out by pressing subscribe in your podcast app or on YouTube. That will greatly increase our chances to reach out in different lists. Some more people can hear these important conversations on how to make the world better for humans and for animals. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.

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