Welcome to Small Bites, Sound Bites, a midweek segment of food for thought podcast where I share short, succinct, thoughtful responses to typical questions, myths, and misconceptions related to plant-based eating, veganism, and animal protection.

You can get written transcripts of this podcast by going to joyfulvegan.com slash donate.

A lot of people argue that we should eat animals and can eat animals because animals were put on this planet for humans to eat.

That's how that argument typically goes. My question is how is that even possible?

Other animals were here long before human beings. As a species, homo sapiens has been around for only about 300,000 years and for thousands of years, we were happy meals for the predators who were here first.

We were not then and are not now some special species that isn't part of the natural order of things. We just figured out a way to gain the system.

But more than that, nobody was put here for anyone else. All forms of life owe their existence to the slow gradual process of adaptation by natural selection and random mutation, and we are not where this ends.

Finally, the various breeds of animals we eat today also weren't put here. We created them through genetic selection, domestication, artificial breeding.

We're the ones who play God, but then we deny responsibility by saying, no, some other creator made them just for us. We need to own what we do and did so we can change what we do.

It's in our hands, nobody else's. For the animals, this is Colleen Patrick Adro. Thanks for listening.

Thank you.

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