And I'm Colleen Patrick Gudro from Compassionate Cooks, which I founded to empower people to make

informed food choices and to debunk myths about vegetarianism and animal rights.

You can learn more about who we are and what we do by

visiting compassionate cooks.com.

Because I teach cooking classes and workshops and am a visible and vocal advocate for animals. I am asked every question under the sun about

vegetarianism, about cooking, nutrition, animal rights, animal welfare, and most of the time the person asking the question

really is interested in the answer and engaging in this discussion, engaging in this dialogue

that's virtually absent from public discourse is one of my in this topic

public discourse is one of my favorite things to do.

And I have immense respect for people who really do want to become

informed about this topic, this topic being vegetarianism and animal rights.

There are occasions, however, when I've heard people throw out really tenuous arguments for

eating animals, for eating animals.

And the difference is that these people tend not to be interested in a response or engaging

in any kind of intelligent discussion or really any kind of dialogue at all.

Their arguments are usually in the form of a defiant statement rather than a critical question

and are usually said in passing or in such a way that reveals their

defensiveness rather than their openness.

Nonetheless, I think it's important to speak to these arguments as tenuous as they are in my mind because

as long as they go unchallenged people will continue to think they hold weight and keep

agreeing that they're somehow valid. That's what I find oftentimes when people make these statements,

nobody argues with them.

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