The Favors We Do Animals
Food for Thought: The Joys and Benefits of Living Vegan
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2008
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With his keen understanding of human behavior, Benjamin Franklin once remarked: "So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do." We tend to be quite adept at finding ways to justify our behavior, especially when it is either unnecessary or ethically questionable. When it comes to eating animals, we don't only justify it on the grounds that it benefits US; we actually have the nerve to justify it on the grounds that it actually benefits the animals. Focusing on a few of these common assertions ("cows need to be milked or they'll fall ill," "we give animals life," and "dying by our hands is better than dying by the hands of violent predators."), I offer my own perspective in response.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | And I'm Welcome to Food for Thought. My name is Colleen Patrick Udo from Compassionate Cooks. |
| 0:21.0 | I founded Compassionate Cook cooks to empower people to make |
| 0:24.6 | informed food choices and to debunk myths about vegetarianism and animal rights. You can learn more |
| 0:30.8 | about who we are and what we do by visiting our website |
| 0:33.8 | Compassionate cooks.com where I encourage you to check out our resources and |
| 0:38.2 | recipes and join our message board to find community and support and I also encourage you to subscribe to this |
| 0:44.9 | podcast through iTunes or through whatever podcatcher you use. Before we get |
| 0:50.0 | on to the topic of the day I'd like to first thank our listener sponsor Kim |
| 0:53.7 | Pemberton who's a compassionate cooks member in Ontario Canada I'll let Kim |
| 0:58.7 | speak for herself she wrote me a lovely email that says the following. |
| 1:04.7 | Dear Colleen, I am so thankful to have |
| 1:07.1 | discovered your podcast and your compassionate Cook's |
| 1:09.5 | website. |
| 1:10.4 | Consider me as one of the enlightened thanks to your tireless voice that speaks for the voiceless, |
| 1:15.0 | our fellow earthly inhabitants, the animals. |
| 1:18.0 | I too was raised to eat animals to not question the status quo and I didn't. It was the way of the world or so I was taught. |
| 1:26.2 | And I too was what I considered an animal lover. My parents were never quote unquote pet people, but |
| 1:31.6 | they did allow me to adopt strays, although my pets could never live in the house. |
| 1:35.8 | I have so many memories of my animal rescues from my childhood. |
| 1:40.1 | I remember I had a pet mouse that I had found and knowing that my parents would never allow it, I made a little house for it with water and food and bedding and I kept it hidden in my bedroom. |
| 1:50.0 | But I didn't realize that a mouse would gnaw its way through a cardboard shoebox. |
| 1:53.8 | I had a guinea pig who was the one pet that my parents allowed me to bring into the house. |
... |
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.