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.

I've been told that since I'm vegan and an animal advocate that clearly I don't care about people because vegetarians and vegans are affecting the lives of people who work in the meat dairy and egg industries, negatively affecting the lives of the people who work in the meat dairy and egg industries in terms of their jobs.

First of all, when we're talking about industries characterized by violence or harm, let's be careful not to romanticize them. Neither the animals nor the people who breed, confine, and kill animals are unaffected by what they do.

War creates jobs. The tobacco industry creates jobs. The prison industry creates jobs. Does that mean we should drop bombs on people, encourage people to smoke, and imprison people arbitrarily? Of course not.

Our ethics are not dependent upon economics. It's not my job to keep a business in business.

The bottom line is as people reduce their consumption of animal products and increase their consumption of plant foods different and better jobs will be created and are being created. It's called innovation.

It's something we're already seeing, which is why there are so many meat dairy and egg companies creating their own plant based products because they want in on this healthy compassionate future that we all make happen when we make better choices, more compassionate choices than we did before.

Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something, anything, and stop making excuses. For the animals, this is Colleen Patrickadrow. You can find me at joyfulvegan.com. Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.