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.

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Over the decades I've been an animal advocate, I've heard a lot of people say, how can you care about animals when there are so many people suffering in the world?

Look, there are a lot of problems in this world for both humans and non-humans, and there are a lot of people sitting on their duffs doing absolutely nothing to solve them.

There are fewer people who actually get up and speak out and do something to make this a better world, to make this a more compassionate world for everyone, to criticize animal advocates for the work they are doing seems misguided to me.

If you need to criticize someone and I would suggest maybe not criticizing anyone, I think a better question might be, why are you doing nothing to people who aren't doing anything at all?

And not only do we not have to choose between caring about humans and non-humans, working to make this world a better place for some of its residents, results in a better world for all of its residents.

For the animals, this is Colleen Patrick Gidrow, you can find me at joyfulvegan.com.