Ed Winters

Challenge their beliefs; change the world

If you are a vegan, you’ll know all too well how provocative it can be – you never know when you’ll be challenged or how. But being able to face down and rebut arguments against veganism is hugely important. Not just because many of the arguments lack substance, but because every interaction provides a pivotal moment to create change.

How to Argue With a Meat Eater will teach you to not only become a skilled debater, sharing the secrets of renowned vegan educator Ed Winters, but it will arm you with powerful facts and insights that will give pause to even the most devout meat eater.

Providing you with the knowledge to become a better conversationalist and critical thinker, and the motivation to create a more ethical, kind and sustainable world, let this book be your guide and inspiration to know that, no matter what the argument, you can win every time.

How to Argue With a Meat Eater (And Win Every Time)

Sam Skurka

From a practical perspective, it's important to recognise that the more space and welfare an animal receives, the less profitable and viable the farming becomes. Factory farming doesn't exist because our aim is to be as cruel as possible to animals. It exists because it's the only way to meet demand in a way that is even remotely financially or practically viable.

In the UK, the average sheep and cattle farmers would actually make an annual loss of more than £16,000 if it weren't for subsidies and government support. And these are farms that carry out unethical practices and slaughter animals in industrial slaughterhouses. To create a life where suffering is minimised and overall wellbeing is increased as far as is possible for farmed animals would make the indus- try even less financially viable, leading to such a system being reserved only for those in higher socio-economic brackets.

The cruellest versions of animal farming, such as the farm- ing of chickens and pigs, are actually among the most sustainable and financially viable. In other words, there is a direct trade-off. However, that trade-off does not exist when you eat plants, as not only is eating plants more ethical, it is also more sustainable. Not to mention that growing plants is more economical and efficient too

Smash a car window to rescue a suffering dog on a hot day and the police will give you a pat on the back; rescue a piglet suffering on a factory farm and they'll arrest you.

This is an indicator that those who treat veganism as a health-based diet are more likely to stop being vegan than those who treat it as a lifestyle that can be used to achieve some form of social good.

Plants have predetermined responses to certain stimuli. For example, the reason a Venus fly trap closes around a fly is not because it's had a conscious reaction and has decided to close around the fly - it's because the fly has triggered the stimulus causing the plant's predetermined response to occur as a result. This is why anything that triggers that response will cause the same outcome, cigarette butts being an example. A pig or a cow, on the other hand, won't just eat a cigarette butt because you offer it to them as food. They have a conscious reaction, which is to not eat it because they don't want to.

If, for any reason, a foetus is found to be showing signs of life upon removal from the uterus (i.e. a foetus that has gasped and is now conscious), it must be immediately killed with an appropriate captive bolt or by a blow to the head with a suitable blunt instrument

It's easy to say we should all respect one another when we're not the victims. One of the biggest challenges the ani- mals face is that they are not able to properly represent themselves, so the debate around veganism becomes very human-focused. The lack of a victim right in front of us makes it easier to take the stance of live and let live' (or should that be 'live and let die' in this context?).

The notion of respect implies mutuality. It involves factor- ing in the needs, desires, rights and wants of those we are engaging with. What we do to animals is the opposite of respectful. It's a one-sided and biased approach that basically says, 'I can do what I want with animals, and as long as I'm OK with it that's all that matters.' And to not be vegan means we are actively disregarding the wants, feelings and desires of animals, which is the antithesis of showing them respect.

But the food we buy does dictate what others are forced to endure. When we buy animal products, we are forcing animals to live a life in which they are exploited, harmed, mutilated and slaughtered. A non-vegan can stop engaging with a vegan; a non-vegan can ignore a video of a vegan protest they don't like. Animals can't simply walk away from the situation they are in, and they can't ignore it either.

The reality is, the people who most often seem to bring up indigenous culture as a defence for animal consumption are white people who are not vegan themselves. But appropriating other people's culture to justify our own habits is not respectful. It's an attempt to hide our behaviours from moral scrutiny by aligning ourselves with a community and a group that we are not part of.

A case that didn't have such a happy ending involved an eight-year-old boy called Dalton, who was taking part in a farming scheme in the USA that involves children raising animals for slaughter. On the day that Dalton's lamb was to be taken away from him, he began to cry. His mother took a photo of him sobbing and posted it on social media, declaring how proud she was of him. She even said, 'My son ran the race and finished regardless of his feelings and emotions.

There clearly was love for the animal involved in this situation, but the little boy had to ignore those feelings in order to send the lamb to their death. This example speaks to the perpetual need for farmers to not allow feelings or emotions to get in their way.

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