Jonathan Safran Foer: 96% of voters have said that they think animals deserve legal protection from cruelty. If you can think of anything else in the world that 96% of Americans agree on, I would love to hear about it. Nobody wants pandemics. Everybody wants to be safe from these pandemics. They're horrible. We know how to make ourselves safer. So the challenge is actually not learning more and it's not the need to become better people in the sense of what we believe and want on the level of values. It's just how to translate that into the lives that we actually live.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast with me, Dr Rupy, where we discuss food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. And I'm speaking with author and activist Jonathan Safran Foer about the current pandemic, how he's coping and the inconvenient problem that absolutely dwarfs the impact of COVID. Yes, it's the big C, climate. Now, I know what you're thinking, yes, it's important, yes, I know I should be doing more and no, I'm not doing enough. It's too hard, yada yada, and they're exactly the same reasons that I find myself talking to my myself about. This is why Jonathan's latest book, We Are the Weather, How to Save the Planet at Breakfast, is such an important read and I thoroughly recommend everyone read it. Today, we talk about how the actions of ordinary people as a collective can yield huge impacts, and now has never been a more important time to be reflective of this fact. How we can't rely on governments for action and how we need to all act, and it's beyond marching. How the simplest, most effective solution is diet. And we go into a bit about why you don't need to be 100% vegan, why you don't need to be 100% vegetarian. If you are, that's great, but actually changing your dietary habits at breakfast, as simple as that, and doing it on a daily basis can yield massive, massive impacts. And also how we're all hypocrites, and I think having a layer of realism is really important in this conversation. We also talk a bit about how climate change and global warming has a bit of a branding problem in the same way lifestyle medicine has an issue because it lacks the immediacy effect. Jonathan's book, We Are the Weather, is out now, along with Eating Animals. It's actually one of my must-reads for anybody interested in nutrition and how food choices impact the environment. You can also listen to it on Audible, which is what I did as well. Remember, subscribe to the doctorskitchen.com, give us a five-star rating if you enjoyed this pod, and check out the podcast notes on the website for links to more articles and books on this subject that I think you'll enjoy too. On to the podcast.
Dr Rupy: Given the current scenario, it would be great to know how you're dealing with it, what things have changed for you, and I think it's never been a more important time to actually talk about the immediacy of a critical situation and how that actually is almost like an opportunity to describe what could happen with something that is just as catastrophic as climate change. So, yeah, does that sound okay?
Jonathan Safran Foer: Sounds great.
Dr Rupy: Great. So, how are you doing right now and how are you dealing with things?
Jonathan Safran Foer: You know, relative to what? You know, relative to how I was doing a week ago or two weeks ago, I guess I find that certain aspects get easier and certain aspects get more difficult. A lot of people I know have felt a kind of dip psychologically, that things that were interesting or bolstering or even the emotions of like fear and sadness get diminished as time passes and you're left just sheltered in place. In my case, I have two kids who are schooling from home and I've become more aware of just what we're what we're not doing, or what they're not doing in particular, what they're missing out on. And so that's difficult, but you know, as with so many of the big problems in the world, like climate change, it's not felt equally by everybody. In fact, the experience of COVID in the States is just radically different, radically different if you don't have money. So I have felt very lucky that my job has always allowed me to work from home and my job hasn't suddenly stopped. And I'm able to live fairly comfortably, but that has only highlighted how these extreme discrepancies for me. So it's something I think about constantly.
Dr Rupy: It's interesting. I'd be interested to know about what the, you're in New York, right? Is that where you are?
Jonathan Safran Foer: Yeah, I'm in Brooklyn, yeah.
Dr Rupy: In Brooklyn, yeah. My baby sister actually, she lives in Manhattan. I actually dragged her back a few weeks ago. I said, look, I'm watching the numbers. I know it's going to be, New York's going to be hit pretty bad and I'd feel safer in the knowledge knowing that you're home and that if anything did happen, I mean, I work in A&E and I've been working in intensive care as well. So I think from a big brother perspective, I really wanted her to be close. And so I dragged her back to New York.
Jonathan Safran Foer: You mean you dragged her back to New York, you said?
Dr Rupy: Sorry, sorry, to London, sorry, from New York. Yeah, yeah. I'd be interested to know what the sentiment is in or has been over New York versus London because in London, I don't know whether it's because of our media, but we love to portray the ugly side of things in particularly in tabloids. So I'll give you an example, and to your point about poor people being affected disproportionately. There's a lot of shaming going on about people having to use public transport right now, or people crowding into buses or going to the tube and stuff like that and say, look at these people, they're flouting the rules, they're putting everyone at risk. But scratch a little deeper and you realise that these are the most vulnerable people that can't afford or don't have the means to work from home. And if and if it's a choice between putting themselves at risk, let alone their own family, by going on public transport and having to make those journeys, they're going to, they're willing to take it because they are on desperate needs and they can't afford to take that pay cut. I wonder what it's like in New York in terms of, is that that same sort of sentiment? Again, like looking at the disparities and blaming certain people or?
Jonathan Safran Foer: No, fortunately not. I think that what's happened is that we have embarked on what I hope will be a long questioning of what is essential and who is essential. We'd grown to believe that certain preferences were actually essential, like meat, which I'm sure we'll talk about. And we'd grown to think about certain people as non-essential through systematised racism and systematised economic injustice. And it's become, it's interesting how in the last two months, there's been a real questioning of that. You know, what is it that we need? How do we measure those needs against lives? Like this has been acutely considered with Trump ordering slaughterhouses open, against very much against the protestations of workers. Six out of the ten largest hotspots in the country right now are counties where slaughterhouses were reopened by Trump. They have infection rates of 50% and higher of all employees. So is meat that essential and how do we talk about the disposability of these people and their communities? So, you know, New York is, there are a lot of ways to critique New York, but it is a very progressive city and a city that I think is capable of looking at itself. And right now there's been a lot of that. And I think there's a real understanding that there is not a person on earth who wants to take the subway right now or wants to take the bus. And that if somebody's doing it, in the same way that there's not a person on earth who wants to deliver takeout food, you know? We do these things because they're jobs and because we need jobs in order to feed ourselves and our families. So there's been no blowback against that.
Dr Rupy: That's good to hear. And I think it speaks to the perhaps the can-do attitude of the American sentiment. And I don't know, it's our fascination, I think. I'm a bit sceptical of the British sentiment when it comes to blame and shaming and we love to read an article that incites a little bit of outrage. We're constantly outraged, I find. And, yeah, and I think some, but against what I'm saying, like, you know, there are a lot of examples of community and sense of purpose and spirit and stuff with the the claps that happen every Thursday. Although in New York it's like every day, isn't it?
Jonathan Safran Foer: It's every day. Yeah, I don't know. You know, there there is another way of looking at all of this, which is some of the things that might seem like a deep questioning or might seem reflective are actually just excuses to continue living as we've always lived. Like the clapping at 7 o'clock, you know, what exactly is the function of that? Maybe it creates a certain amount of camaraderie. My guess is a large part of it is it makes us feel okay about the fact that other people are risking their lives. And even worse, other people who aren't adequately protected. You know, when we consider food services essential, like carry out. You know, I think things like grocery stores have to be open. We have to have access to food. Is it necessary that somebody deliver us pad thai on a Tuesday night? I think we call those things essential to sort of remove the burden of our own choice, to relieve us from having to admit we just want certain things more than we want those people to be safe. So, it's it's a very complicated moment and even something as seemingly simple as applauding for essential workers has a complexity to it as well.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I think there's a sentiment of that here as well because our politicians will be very willing to clap on every Thursday whilst underfunding the healthcare system. And this is really a healthcare system that has been chronically underfunded and one of the reasons why we're seeing such inability to respond or actually we are seeing a lot of flexibility, particularly in ITU, but one of the reasons why we're seeing the capacity stretched is because of this chronic underfunding. And I think a lot more people are becoming aware of that. This is a good segue actually into some of the topics in your latest book with regards to home front efforts and World War II when, you know, ordinary people coming together and working for a greater cause. I think it was something I heard you talk about how, you know, not everyone can say that they were involved in munitions manufacture or not everyone can say that, you know, they fought overseas, but they can be part of this collective action which essentially was one of the reasons why the war was won, this this collective home front action. How can we sort of utilise some of that thinking to our current scenario but also the the future scenario and the impending catastrophe which is climate, global warming?
Jonathan Safran Foer: I guess I would begin by acknowledging that there is a danger in that way of thinking, in putting too much emphasis on the individual. And we're seeing it now with COVID where the government is encouraging these kinds of mutual help efforts, you know, neighbourhoods that are mobilising people who are making masks, because it relieves their responsibility to do those things. And in a lot of communities, people are now getting used to the idea that, hey, we can take care of each other in the absence of, you know, decent governing. And as with climate change, there's a lot that individuals can do and there's a lot that they can't do. We cannot solve climate change without individual action, but we also can't solve climate change with individual action alone. But and maybe that it's a false distinction because as individuals change and as habits change, the culture changes and industry and government follow. Tesla is now the largest automobile company in American history. Beyond Meat had one of the biggest IPOs in the last couple of years. And it's not because the government forced those companies into being and I don't believe it's because the CEOs are necessarily beneficent people. It's because there's a market for it. And the market was created by individuals. So, you know, the habits of today become the legislation of tomorrow. We need our governments to act. I imagine you feel this way about your government, but I can certainly say that I don't have any faith that my government is going to do what's necessary for climate change. And I don't even believe that, you know, regardless of who wins the next election, I don't believe that my government will do what's necessary. But I do believe that they can be nudged. That's the point of marching, obviously. You know, when millions of people go to Washington DC to march for climate justice, they're doing more than just having fun. They're hoping that their numbers will persuade politicians who are dependent on numbers and dependent on constituencies to to change. I think there are ways that are even more effective though than marching to nudge systems and they have to do with dollars. You know, companies live and die on consumer choice, whatever the company is. So I think that that can be a very, very powerful way to make one's values heard.
Dr Rupy: Do you think marching is a worthwhile activity in today's day and age? I got the impression or the sentiment from your book that marching, although the intentions are great, it isn't a very effective tool at mass change. It definitely demonstrates a point and you get enough numbers, it can certainly be a tool to nudge, but I don't know, I'm kind of sceptical about the the impact of marching these days and I'd rather do a or engage in a set of habits that are lifelong by starting small rather than put myself in a march. I don't know, what what are your thoughts on that?
Jonathan Safran Foer: Well, it's not a choice. You know, it's not as if we attend a march or we cut down on the amount of air travel that we do in a year. Global warming is a global problem and it's an extremely complex problem that will require global and complex solutions. And we're way past the time of either or. You know, either I drive a little less or I fly a little less or I look for energy efficient appliances or I try to eat, you know, fewer animal products or I attend marches. We really need to do all of these things to the limits of our abilities and our abilities are different. So some people find, you know, huge, obviously, you know, the majority of humanity has never gotten in an airplane. So it's easy for most people not to fly a lot and it might be very difficult to eat less meat, especially if you live in a part of the world where it might be your only access to nutrition. For me, it's very, very easy to give up meat, not effortless, but relatively easy. And it's much harder for me to imagine not flying. So each of us has to do as much as we can. I think that marching is an important thing to do and it is noticed and it does change the culture. I don't know to what extent it is pushing our legislators, although it's probably doing that as well, but it's definitely giving young people a sense of empowerment, a sense of camaraderie and cause and reason to make changes in their own lives. You know, if if all we do is march, then we're screwed. But similarly, if all we do is change how we eat, we're screwed. And if all we do is, you know, give up on air on airplane travel, then we're screwed. We need to make steps in in all of these different areas of life. But it's also important to remember that we don't have to be perfectionists in any of these areas of life. The planet does not require that we all become vegan. The planet does not require that we never have children again or that we never get on an airplane again. And it doesn't require that we attend every single march. It requires that we change our habits and we know more or less how much we have to change these habits. But we have to live with moderation, to be aware of our role in this chain of cause and effect. The more we do these things, the more of this we're going to have. The less we do these things, the less of this we're going to have. So I think when one feels vulnerable, it's easy to race to binaries, like should we march or not? Like is marching good or is it really just a waste of time? Is it realistic to think that people are going to become vegan, you know? Or or the biggest example of a binary is, are we going to save the planet or not? When the reality is we're not going to save the planet and we're not going to lose the planet. It's going to be something somewhere in the middle. And we determine where it will be in the middle by the choices that we make.
Dr Rupy: And to your point about like, you know, the number of different things that we need to do, it's not either, it's not or, it's it's everything essentially. That can be quite overwhelming for a lot of people, right? What I what I love about your book is that you present quite a an effective way of thinking about things by starting at breakfast as a means of saving the planet. How how has that come about? Is that from your own sort of frustration with knowing everything about how catastrophizing, you know, the future can be if we don't do anything now? And and why starting at breakfast in particular?
Jonathan Safran Foer: I was really writing from experience. I don't I don't have, I'm not better than anybody. I am not any less hypocritical than anybody. I'm probably more hypocritical than most people. My carbon footprint is probably larger than that of most climate change deniers. So with this book, I didn't want to share prescriptions or even arguments so much as my own struggle. Believing that my struggle would be familiar to other people. And it's the struggle of knowing what I know and having a hard time, first of all, believing what I know. You know, I I believe it in the sense that I know that it's truthful. I don't think scientists are lying to me, but I mean believing it in the sense of really taking it to heart, really listening to it and doing what would be required if it were possible to take it to heart. So I've had a very hard time doing that. I've had a hard time figuring out how to eat the right the, you know, the right way or to fly the right way. It's easy to say the right things, you know, at dinner parties or at marches. It's easy to make other people feel bad about themselves because you're more righteous than they are. That's easy and it's also worthless. The planet doesn't care what we feel. It really only cares what we do. So how do we act in keeping with our values? We don't have to be, we don't have to learn new values from anybody who is better than us. The desire to have clean air and clean water are universal values. They're not political. The desire to treat animals well, by the way, is a universal value. In America, 96% of voters have said that they think animals deserve legal protection from cruelty. If you can think of anything else in the world that 96% of Americans agree on, I would love to hear about it. Nobody wants pandemics. Everybody wants to be safe from these pandemics. They're horrible. We know how to make ourselves safer. So the challenge is actually not learning more and it's not the need to become better people in the sense of what we believe and want on the level of values. It's just how to translate that into the lives that we actually live. So we know that we need to eat less meat and consume less dairy. That's not my opinion, it's not anybody else's opinion. It's just scientific fact. We even know about how much less we need to eat. The most comprehensive analysis of the relationship between animal agriculture and climate change was published at the end of 2018. And the scientists who studied food systems all over the planet concluded that while people who live in certain undernourished parts of the world where animal agriculture is their only access to nutrition, they can afford to eat a little bit more meat and dairy. For citizens of Europe, the UK and the United States, we need to eat about 90% less meat and about 60% less dairy in order to avoid what they called catastrophic climate change. So that's a lot. It's a lot, but it's not 100%. So how do we, and it's also by the way, it's not that we need to do it tomorrow. We need to transition to those diets over the next five to 10 years. So we need to have plans. You know, and their plans will be different for different people. I was talking to a Danish friend of mine just right before right before we spoke. And he was saying, you know, where I live, we eat like a lot of cheese and dairy for breakfast, like yoghurts and stuff. It's really, really hard what you're saying. And I said, well, have then your cheese and yoghurt for breakfast. And then at lunch, where it's maybe more possible, cut back. So the approach that I take in the book is not that we all need to be in the same place and we don't need even to take the same path to get to where we are heading, but we do need to be oriented towards science. And science is absolutely clear that we have no hope of saving the planet unless we change how we eat.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, and I love that sort of, you know, it's almost like not really a plan, but you know, it's just a flexible way of eating because you're trying to encourage that that grey area, that middle ground of people who aren't staunch vegans or aren't staunch meat eaters. But if you tell them, you know, can you just relax the meat and dairy for one or two meals a day, they'll shrug their shoulders and be like, yeah, sure, I can do that. It's absolutely fine. It's, I mean, it's it resonates with a mantra that I'm trying to tell patients about and something that I spoke about on a talk about just adding one more fruit and vegetable to every meal time. You know, it's the cumulative actions of those simple little additions to your meal that can have vast impacts on your health and wellbeing. I mean, some of the research coming out on looking at the consumption of fruit and vegetables alone and its impact on non-communicable disease, cardiovascular problems, cerebrovascular issues, diabetes, metabolic disease is it's it's quite astounding how simple it can be. And the EAT-Lancet report, which I believe, which is the the study you were talking about, commissioned by eat.org, was, was again, I think, very welcomed because it didn't point towards going 100% plant-based, which is what some people would immediately become antagonised by. And this is a nice segue actually into another aspect of your book on the subject of being hypocritical. I think we're all hypocrites here. But I thought it was really brave to talk about how you ate, you've eaten meat from, you know, processed sources and probably coming from animals that have been have undergone a whole, you know, factory farming process. Was that difficult? Was that a difficult decision for you to put down on paper?
Jonathan Safran Foer: Well, yeah, I felt like an asshole. And I felt really ridiculous and like a massive hypocrite. Like, who the hell am I, you know, to be talking about these issues when I'm not perfect? But I thought it was necessary to talk about both because it because it's the truth and because I thought it might be helpful. Like, again, sharing accomplishments doesn't get us that far. I I hate it when people share their ethical accomplishments with me. I find them to be annoying and I want to, you know, run away. And even even worse, I want to offset their accomplishments with bad behaviour of my own, you know? If somebody says like, oh, yeah, well, I I learned about the relationship between air travel and and climate change, so I'm never going to, I'm not going to fly this year. That my instinct is to want to go book an, you know, an international ticket. But when somebody says to me, you know, I'm having a really hard time with this. Like, I I've been reading this stuff and I know this to be true and it would be great to just say, so I'm going to respond, but the truth is I just can't. Like, maybe it makes me lazy, maybe it makes me weak, but it is who I am. And I think the beginning of these conversations has to be this is who we are and we're in it together. It's not as if 10% of us are going to save the planet, you know, either we will do it together or we will suffer the consequences together. And beginning with a little bit of humility and acknowledgement that change, however important it is and however seemingly easy it should be, it's usually just not easy. But if we reframe it from these questions of identity, like you are a vegan or which is ultimately like a way of saying you are good or you are bad. If we reframe it to instead be about just choices and efforts, you know, first of all, an awareness of the choices that we're making. So often they're invisible to us. An acknowledgement that we have control or at least some amount of control over the choices that we make. Saying aloud what our desire is, you know, what it is that we want to be doing, which is risky because that puts us on the hook in a certain way. I'll tell you about an experience I had not that long ago that was really moving to me and changed, really changed my life. It was after We Are the Weather had come out. I was doing a reading in Belgium and at the end of the reading there was a signing and a young couple came up to me asking me to sign the book and they opened it to the title page, which is normally empty, but it was filled with their handwriting. And I asked them what it was. And they said, we're going to get married in a couple of months and we decided tonight that we need to have a plan because if we don't have a plan, we're just going to keep doing what we've always done because that's what people do. And their plan was eat vegetarian unless served meat at a friend's house and it feels like there's no no way out of it that they were comfortable with. Eat vegan two days a week, no more than two children, have no more than two children, only do car sharing and only 1500 kilometres a year. And then instead of having me just sign it, there's a line that said witness. So I found that very charming. You know, it's interesting to see how people navigate this moment. And their choices were different than my choices would have been except that I realised looking at that that I don't I didn't have choices. Like I didn't have a plan. And it had never even occurred to me to have a plan for how to live in this moment. And I went back to my hotel that night and I wrote a plan, which was no animal products before dinner. I eat vegetarian at dinner, although when I'm at home, I eat, we don't eat animal products at dinner either. No flying for vacations in 2020, which as it turns out is very easy to do. It's a very easy thing to do now, yeah. Yeah. An electric car, volunteering one day a week for either an environmental advocacy group or the New York City public school system. And it was so revelatory for me, the difference between being the person I was, which is somebody who said, I'm going to try to fly less, and being a person who says, this is exactly how I'm going to try to fly less. And it was very, very difficult to do because the reality is my ambitions are not that ambitious. Like, I wish I could say I'm not going to fly, but the reality is I'm going to fly more than most people. You know, I wish I could say I'm not going to consume in this way or drive in this way or, but it's just not the reality. So being honest about the reality and trying to concretise the reality with numbers, days of the week. It's like you're saying, if you tell people try to eat more fruits and vegetables, nobody's going to eat more fruits and vegetables. If you say try to eat one more with a meal, I bet you most people do that. And that's like the difference that makes all the difference.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it's it's nudging people who don't want to be nudged and don't know that they can actually achieve a lot by just doing one small thing at a time. And I think, yeah, to your point, I mean, that that's made me want to write down a plan right now because I know I'm passionate about the subject. I understand it. I come from an educated perspective on what could be happening, or what is happening rather. But you feel powerless to do anything about it when the the issue is so grand. And it's almost like you want it to be out of your control. You almost want it to be the government's responsibility and something that you're kind of not tied to. Like, oh, I'll I'll eat a little bit less meat, but really some people in an important office somewhere in parliament are going to be making these decisions on our behalf and that's why we've voted them into power.
Jonathan Safran Foer: I think it's a little like what we were talking about, the the definition of what's essential. Like, right now, like when something is described as essential, it removes the choice that you're making. You know, like there's no ethical burden on you anymore because it's been deemed essential. Whereas if nobody stated that and we had to make those decisions for ourselves, it would be very uncomfortable.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And I also think it's because climate change or global warming or whatever you want to call it, whatever the fashionable term is now, it it lacks the immediacy effect. Like as you can't see it happen, even though there, you know, bushfires in Australia and there's lots of information and people are generally aware of what's happening, because it's not affecting you right now in this moment, you're disempowered or you're unlikely to do anything about it. You're not moved to do anything about it. It's it's I kind of I draw a parallel between how I explain blood pressure to a patient who I've just diagnosed with high blood pressure in clinic. I tell them about the importance of this. I tell them about what the potential is if we don't control it. I advise them obviously about dietary and lifestyle changes. And I try and empower them as much as possible to make things do things right now to prevent catastrophic things that can happen in the future. And high blood pressure is something that affects one in five people across the globe. It's a major issue. And you know, you go through the whole thing, kidney issues, higher risk of strokes, cardiovascular problems, etc, etc, losing your eyesight. But because when you have high blood pressure, majority of the time you can't feel anything. You go about your day not really thinking about it at all. It lacks that immediacy effect. And so we're less likely to do anything about it right now unless we're made to believe it's quite easy. Do you think there's anything that we can learn from our current situation about how to advertise better, sort of more more attention on a on a daily basis?
Jonathan Safran Foer: I'm not sure. You know, I on the one hand, what we've experienced is like proven definitively that we're capable of making huge changes quickly. Like, I'm shocked that we were able to do what we did. Like I'm shocked that we have a government that regardless of what we were facing was capable of shutting down cities and businesses, of spending trillions of dollars. You know, it proves that if we could somehow think of climate change as an emergency of the same scale as coronavirus, when in fact it's it dwarfs, you know, coronavirus as an emergency and we know more about it than than we do about coronavirus. If we could be persuaded that it was an emergency on the same scale, we would be entirely capable of solving the problem. That having been said, like it it is worth wondering why it is that we're doing what we're doing. Is it the case that we are all sort of taking a hit in order to protect the vulnerable among us? I don't think so. I think people are personally scared. However unlikely it is that we will that someone like you or someone like me would die of coronavirus, it is possible. And that has awakened a kind of alarm in us that's motivating. You know, if if Boris Johnson said, we're going to shut down London in order to make sure that people in Bangladesh don't get coronavirus, I don't think London would be shut down. If he were to say, we just need everybody to wash their hands, you know, pretty vigilantly, otherwise people in Bangladesh are going to get coronavirus. I don't know about London, but I can tell you that in America, people would not wash their hands. Wouldn't so much as wash their hands to save the lives of people halfway around the world because an empathic leap is required rather than just worrying about oneself. And by the way, I'm not saying that I'm better than that. Like, I think there's something in human nature that makes it hard to change behaviour for in response to crises that aren't immediate and aren't local. So, you know, and you're seeing this already in America, as it's becoming more and more clear that the great, great, great majority of people who are dying had pre-existing conditions or were old. Something between like 40 and 60% of the deaths have taken place in nursing homes. So as those statistics are becoming more clear and as the relative safety of younger, healthy people is becoming more evident, the country's racing to open up, which may be a kind of proof of what I was just saying, which is our response was driven by personal concern and it's very hard to when an empathic leap is required.
Dr Rupy: And so if you, going back to climate change, how do you reduce that sort of need for that empathic leap if we don't see it or if we don't intuitively do things like that? How do we make it just, I think you you described it in the book as just something that you do. Like in response to an ambulance coming down the street, you move out the way, you pull over to the side, it's just something that you do. How do we just make it part of like normal society as as, you know, this is these are the activities that we know will benefit maybe not us immediately right here, but they're benefiting other people and this is just part of a normal functioning society.
Jonathan Safran Foer: Well, I think I think that's that is the solution is for it to become a norm. I think COVID might help with that because there are meat shortages and people are just, it is going to become a norm to eat a lot less meat, especially when coupled with like concerns about slaughterhouse workers, which is not a progressive issue. It's actually affecting people in rural communities and traditionally Republican communities. There have been a lot of essays in America published by people who said, I have no problem in the world with meat and I never in my life would have wanted to become a vegetarian, but I'm just not going to eat meat right now because I know the people that this is hurting and and I can't I can't be a part of that. One analogy I often think about is shoplifting. Like, if you go to a store and there's something that you want, my guess is you don't even contemplate shoplifting it, right? So if I were to ask you, why do you not shoplift? Why do you not even contemplate shoplifting? You might say because it's illegal, but I doubt I doubt that that's the reason. You might say because I'm remembering the social contract and how in order for my society to function, we can't steal from each other. But my guess is that's not the answer either. You might say, well, because I care about the shopkeeper and I have a kind of well of emotion when I face this item that I want, when I think about what it would mean if he lost or she lost income. It's probably not that either. You don't shoplift because you just don't shoplift. It's just not something you do. It's not something you have to contemplate doing. It doesn't require an argument every time you're in a store, an argument with yourself. It is just the way that we are. And we have to become people who don't steal from the planet and who don't steal from the future. And it's tricky to establish those norms, but once we do, they tend to solidify, to really congeal. And it's already started to happen among younger people. You know, when I went to college, the question was, why don't you eat meat? Nobody would ever ask that question anymore because there's so many reasons and we know them. If anything, it's, hey, why do you eat meat? You know, when I went to college, there were more vegetarians than would admit to it because the norm was that to eat meat and vegetarianism was considered kind of hippie-like or a little bit goofy. Now, more people admit to it than actually are vegetarian because it's become an aspirational identity. So, you know, on American college campuses now, there are more vegetarians than Catholics. That's that is a huge shift in terms of norms. So I think that their behaviours when they are older and they become, you know, journalists and doctors and writers and politicians, public figures, the norm is going to seem very different than it does right now. The problem is we don't have enough time. This is like one of those really tragic ironies of climate change is we don't have time for the students who are leading the movement to save the planet. We don't have time for them to become policymakers. We have maybe five or 10 years for a fairly dramatic change of course. And they have about 10 years before they become elected officials.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I mean, that you're painting quite a doom picture there, Jonathan. With I mean, it sounds like, you know, there's so many people doing the right thing and like we have this incredible generation of of kids right now and particularly, you know, I'm I'm in I'm I'm excited for the Corona generation or whatever they're going to be called, the C generation because, you know, they're going to have been grown up with this and stories of this and how we shut down the entire world to do the right thing, etc, etc, even whether it was for selfish reasons or not. They're going to be the ones that are going to take the torch essentially. They're they're going to be, you know, the new activists, the new, the new educated who who are going to promote this, the stuff that we need to do. So what are the things that we need to do right now as a society beyond eating meat and how can we actually, how can we entertain that right now?
Jonathan Safran Foer: Well, I mean, we know, and again, this is not anybody's opinion, but well-established science. We know that there are four activities that matter more than all others when it comes to an individual's relationship to the environment. And those are controlling overpopulation, eating fewer animal products, flying less and living car-free, ideally. COVID is making it very easy not to fly. It's making it very easy not to drive for most people. It's also making it easier to eat fewer animal products because there are shortages. And in terms of having kids, I have no idea what it's inspiring. I don't know if it's inspiring tons of kids or inspiring tons of divorces or what, but
Dr Rupy: We'll find out in a few months.
Jonathan Safran Foer: So it might be interesting to see how we respond to having less of things that we had thought were essential. Like, speaking for myself, you know, I haven't been to a restaurant in, I don't know what, two months, something like that. I was saying to someone the other day, you know, I don't, I'm okay without restaurants. Like, and believe me, I do not want the restaurant industry to suffer. That is not my point. I will be the first person to support them financially when they reopen. My point is we are having a kind of experiment with a different kind of lifestyle. I love to travel. I think that it is good to travel. It's good to see other parts of the world, to have your understanding of what it is to be a person expanded, to realise how narrow our lives and our choices are. That having been said, it is not essential. And if saving the planet requires us to do a lot less travelling, I for one have two and a half months of proof that I will be okay. You know? We will be okay if we eat fewer animal products, even if it's not exactly what we want at first, even if we miss them sometimes. I miss them sometimes. We will be okay. So I I, you know, one thing I suppose we could say we can be grateful for in this period is having some experience with what it will be like to have less of certain things that we need to have less of.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, on a personal note, you know, not flying, not going to restaurants, it's actually allowed me to be a lot more introspective about things and actually appreciate the the simple act. I mean, I've always been into cooking. I obviously I cook every single day and, but it's nice to see other people also enjoy it as well and actually get used to, you know, appreciating what actually is valued in life, like family, connection, friends, and even if you're physically distant, you can still be emotionally connected via things like Zoom and stuff like that. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens going forward. And I think, you know, it's never been a better time for people to engage in some of the concepts in your book as well. And I think it's never been a more important, more more important time to actually do the things that we said that we were going to do, like fly less and perhaps use public transport. But I I think like the sceptic side of me thinks that, you know, people aren't going to do the right thing unless it's made easier for them. The reason why people use public transport in London, for example, isn't because it's saving the planet, it's because it's quicker, it's more efficient and it's cheaper. And so if we can make all those things align whilst saving the planet, whilst reducing emissions and everything, that's how we're going to have massive change. It can't be that 10% of people that are going to be doing the right thing by, you know, giving up animal products or only having two children, for example, you know, it has to be within the constraints of of what's made easier for people and and instead of tugging at the empathic strings.
Jonathan Safran Foer: I completely agree. You know, three out of four people who buy plant-based burgers in supermarkets, like Beyond Burgers and Impossible Burgers, are actually meat eaters. They're not vegetarians. The people who have no real interest in like shifting an identity or, they are they are people who are, you know, aware enough of the effects on their bodies, on the climate and on animals, to want to do a little bit less, who've now been presented with something that makes it really easy. Like, tastes good and it's about the same price. Like moving forward, there will come a time, probably in the next five years, when plant-based meats taste better than meat. There's just every reason in the world to believe that they will taste better. And that they will be cheaper. So when that happens, you know, that may relieve the burden altogether of having to make a good choice. But I I agree with you that our systems and whether they're guided by the government or guided by the corporate sector can make it far, far easier to make good choices, you know? Every fast food restaurant in the country now carries a Beyond Burger or an Impossible Burger. It makes it so much easier to make good ecological choices. When it becomes easier, people start taking advantage of them, which makes it easier for corporations to offer more of these good choices and it becomes a virtuous cycle, like a self-reinforcing cycle. And that's where the distinction between like the individual and the system starts to break down. The system can make it easier for the individual who can make it easier for the system. You know, all of this could be resolved if we had a government that made it easier. And I don't even mean, you know, people will often say, well, you think meat should be like artificially inflated, the price, like we should have a tax on meat. And what I think is we just need to stop artificially deflating the cost. If if the animal agriculture had to exist in a free market, it would fail. It's propped up in America by about $38 billion a year in subsidies and the industry isn't held accountable for its environmental destruction, which is completely unparalleled. You know, the United Nations has said that animal agriculture is one of the top two or three causes of every significant environmental problem on the planet, locally and globally. Deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions. So if meat simply cost what it actually cost, if that were the only change, you know, then we would consume far, far less of it. You know, if hamburgers started to cost $20 instead of $2, then that's a nudge that, you know, I think a lot of people could get behind. I can understand if people say, I'm not comfortable with artificially manipulating the market in place of people making good choices. It's not how I feel, but I can break bread with somebody who thinks that. And to them I would say, well then let's stop artificially deflating these costs. And the same would go for the airline industry. Like flights cost more than they seem. It's just that airlines are not held responsible for climate change, you know? But if we know approximately what percent of greenhouse gas emissions each industry is responsible for, we can quantify the costs of climate change, they should be reflected in the prices that we pay. That's just.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be interesting to see actually what happens to airline industries post post-pandemic as well because I I think it'll be near impossible for the government to prop everyone up. And the cost of flying alone, even if it if it doesn't encourage include the environmental cost and the carbon cost, will just be hugely inflated compared to current prices right now. So, yeah, that'll be that'll be super interesting to see. What are you most exciting about going forward?
Jonathan Safran Foer: With respect to climate change?
Dr Rupy: With respect to life.
Jonathan Safran Foer: When we end this call, I'll probably go pet my dog and play ping pong with my son and as far as I'm concerned, that's pretty much the tops.
Dr Rupy: That's great.
Jonathan Safran Foer: Yeah, with respect to the world outside of the ping pong table, I'm excited about what's going on on the local level and ways that neighbourhoods, it's just to return to the beginning of our conversation, people are taking care of each other on a local level. Oftentimes because there's no other support structure. It can take the form of, like in my neighbourhood, everybody supports a different local restaurant each week to keep them in business. So each restaurant can can count on $10,000 of orders for a week. So they can coordinate their workers and their supplies and everything. So sometimes it's logistical like that. Sometimes it's a little bit more intimate, like we know where the old people in the neighbourhood live and we know what their needs are. If they're unable to get groceries, we know people who have other special needs. I put a poem out on my front stoop every day. I've been doing it every day since the virus started. And it's been really, we get a letter pretty much every day, postcard, a little note, someone who just shares something about their own experience and when they go for walks and why and what it's like to encounter a poem. I said to a friend the other day, you know, poetry is one of those things that nobody needs until everybody needs. But that could be said of so many things in this moment. And things that we take for granted. It's just like the counterpoint to that conversation about what is essential. As it turns out, feeling of community is essential, taking care of each other is essential. And maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, those could, especially if this lasts long enough, those could redirect some of our habits and perspectives to a more, make us a more compassionate world.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, just that sense of community, I think, is being reflected worldwide. And it's something I haven't seen ever, really. And I grew up in a really nice sort of comforting environment and stuff, but that connection with your neighbours and knowing where everyone is and stuff like that, just the simple things, it's it's pretty inspiring to to look at. And hopefully, you know, I heard somewhere someone say that humanity is hardwired to amnesia. And in a couple of months, we just forget about all this stuff. But I I don't think so. I think it's been going on long enough to to remember everything and hopefully it will, you know, be a stark reminder. And who knows, this could very easily happen again. And I think microbial resistance is something that everyone needs to be aware of because that's that's 100% coming, particularly if we use antimicrobials in the animal system as much as we do currently.
Jonathan Safran Foer: When you say microbial resistance, you're not referring to, you are you are referring to not specifically to Corona or you are referring to
Dr Rupy: No, no, not specifically to Corona, but more to antibiotic resistance. So the premise of microbes that will be resistant to the current antibiotic regimes that we have at the moment. I mean, just in my short medical career, so I've been a doctor now for about 11 years, there was a an agent that we used to use back in 2009 and I remember vividly to use this particular antibiotic, I had to call the microbiologist, get them to sign a piece of paper and then get them to speak to my senior consultant to to agree that yes, he's spoken to me about it and we can we have to use it on this particular patient. And now we're using it first line post some surgical operations. And that's that's really scary. Just in in that short period of time, we're having to use this first line when it had such restrictions just over 10 years ago. That's that's kind of scary. And we need to be really, I I I it's quite horrific some of the things that you talked about in your book about how we're using 70% of the antibiotics in existence in in animal farming.
Jonathan Safran Foer: For healthy animals, no less.
Dr Rupy: For healthy animals, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, maybe that's something you can write about a bit more in your next book. I don't know.
Jonathan Safran Foer: I think I will.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, of course. Yeah. I'll stick to the healthy eating. I'll just make things look colourful and and easy to eat. All right, it's been great chatting to you, Jonathan. I want to be respectful of your time and stuff, but stay well and, yeah, I can't wait to to hear about more projects that you're going to be doing in the future too.
Jonathan Safran Foer: You too. I appreciate it.
Dr Rupy: Cool, man. All right, take care.
Jonathan Safran Foer: Take care, be well.
Dr Rupy: You too. Bye now. I really hope you enjoyed that discussion. Remember, go to the doctorskitchen.com/podcast, give us a five-star rating. You can also find show notes on the website and links to more articles and books on the subject if you are interested in it. I sincerely hope you enjoyed that podcast as well. We're going to be doing a lot more on this subject in the coming weeks and days. And, also, do check out my books as well. I actually referenced Jonathan's book in my first book, The Doctor's Kitchen, because it was just so influential to to me and my own personal eating habits. And I think now has never been a more important time to think about our globe as a whole. So, take care and I will see you next week.
