The Fall of the Excuse-itarians (or The Emperor is Naked!)
Food for Thought: The Joys and Benefits of Living Vegan
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2007
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I'm thrilled to report that another voice has just pierced the "sustainable/humane meat" illusion - and what a voice! B.R. Myers, a book critic for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, has written a fiercely honest criticism of Michael Pollan’s book in the September 2007 issue of the magazine, and I read it here. It’s called "Hard to Swallow: The gourmet’s ongoing failure to think in moral terms." Myers adeptly scrutinizes Pollan’s bogus arguments, chews them up, and spits them out. Though the doublespeak of such "excuse-itarians" as Michael Pollan has always been very clear to me, it was incredibly satisfying to have a respected writer agree that Pollan’s justifications leave as bitter a taste in his mouth as they do in mine. And to have it published in a magazine such as The Atlantic gives me great reason for hope. (See previous podcast episode called "The Rise of the Excuse-itarians.")
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | And I'm and Welcome to Food for Thought. My name is Colleen Patrick Gudro from Compassionate Cooks. |
| 0:21.8 | I founded Compassionate compassionate cooks to empower people, |
| 0:24.6 | to make informed food choices, |
| 0:26.8 | and to debunk myths about vegetarianism and animal rights. |
| 0:30.6 | You can learn more about who we are and what we do by visiting our website |
| 0:34.4 | W.w.com |
| 0:38.7 | Hi everybody how you doing I hope you're doing great out there. I'm going to try to get through this |
| 0:44.2 | podcast episode. One of my cats Simon keeps jumping up on my lap when he gets a |
| 0:48.8 | bellyache he gets these kind of sensitive belly aches. He's very clingy and he likes to just be as close to you as possible. So he wants to be part of this podcast apparently. So you may hear him, so hopefully you don't mind. So I'm really excited to tell you about today's sponsor. Today's sponsor is Jennifer and Jonathan Tyson. |
| 1:09.4 | Jonathan sponsored the podcast as a birthday gift to his wife and Jennifer wrote back in response to my acknowledgement email and |
| 1:17.2 | her moving and powerful words continue to resonate with me. This is an excerpt from her email. She |
| 1:25.4 | wrote, along with my husband I am writing to thank you. I've waited a lifetime to |
| 1:30.3 | hear what you have to say and I couldn't have stumbled on your website and |
| 1:33.9 | podcast at a better time in my life. Since I can remember I have always been labeled |
| 1:38.8 | as too sensitive when it comes to animal welfare. And now I feel extremely validated. |
| 1:46.0 | I've never understood this label. |
| 1:48.0 | I've only seen a real problem with not being sensitive enough. |
| 1:52.0 | Hearing what you have to say reminds me that my system of ethics and morals is something to be proud of. |
| 2:00.0 | We are a vegan family of four, raising our two young boys in this very happy and empowering lifestyle |
| 2:06.2 | and enjoying all of the scorn and ridicule that goes along with it. |
| 2:10.4 | From depleting my boys of their valuable testosterone levels because they drink almond or soy milk, |
| 2:16.0 | so misguided, my kids are tanks, to angry parents yelling at me because my four-year-old told their four-year-old what a hot dog was made of, to which I said, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.