No More Meat: Vegan's big book focuses less on diet and more on the mistreatment of animals

[Guest guest]

Karen Dawn wrote Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals.

 

 

 

 

By Dan Zak

THE WASHINGTON POST

Published: September 6, 2008

I should've eaten my ham sandwich before picking up Karen Dawn's Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals. After reading her description of how the deli meat got to my Tupperware container, I put off lunch until late in the afternoon. But I was so hungry I had to eat the sandwich at some point. With each bite into the ham, I heard the shrieking of pigs in my head.

When will the pigs stop screaming, Karen Dawn? When?

When the world converts to vegetarianism, she writes in the book. This will happen eventually. She's not militant about this point. She's logical. She's levelheaded. She's funny. That's why her message is so ... darn ... persuasive.

Thanking the Monkey is a glossy, nearly 400-page, eminently readable book that's not just about forgoing meat; it's about fur and animal testing and the merits of hunting and fishing and the badness of pet stores, circuses and the Navy sonar systems that make the ears of gray whales bleed. It celebrates the progress of the animal-rights movement. It provides sensible rationales for treating animals with near-absolute equality. It criticizes the National Wildlife Federation (for protecting hunting interests), the organic food fad ("organic" doesn't necessarily mean animals have been treated well) and Jack Hanna (for supporting dove hunting and glossing over problems in horse racing).

A native of Australia, Dawn is the founder of DawnWatch, an e-newsletter that calls attention to animal rights coverage in the media. She works from home in Los Angeles and started work on Thanking the Monkey ($19.95, Harper Paperbacks) two years ago.

We got her on the phone last week to talk about the book.

Q. This book is heavy. What is it -- like, 3 pounds?

A. (It's) 2.2. The reason it's so big is because it's got so many pictures. Being so heavy makes it scary, but when you open it up and have one fun photo -- celebrity or cartoon -- on every page, it doesn't look so heavy.

Q. You pursued a science degree in Australia that involved experimenting on rats -- something that you're obviously against now.

A. I didn't feel good about doing it but didn't let myself think about it. I sort of closed my heart. It never occurred to me how much more badly those rats needed their lives than I needed a degree. It's not a matter of rats vs. people. It was a matter of a degree I didn't really need. I really think that it's helped me as an activist. You're not a bad person if you're not thinking about the animals. I don't believe in bad or good people. I think people make choices, and you can choose again.

Q. You think that humanity is evolving toward vegetarianism?

A. We're going to have a choice. As there are more and more and more of us, it takes an awful lot more land and resources to feed people with meat than it does (with) grain. The Earth could feed about 2.5 billion people if everyone ate the standard American diet, or it could feed 10 billion vegetarians.

Q. The book makes the subtle point that the mistreatment of animals leads to all kinds of mainstream problems, such as pollution and cancer.

A. It almost makes you believe in karma. We're raping the Earth and the animals, and we're paying the price. I'm not a purist. The only answer is to leave all animals alone? No. Even though I am a capitalist, eventually we'll get to a place just as we did with human beings -- that you don't deal monetarily in owning and selling them.

Q. So, let's say that I'm an omnivore who simply cannot go without eating meat or eggs now and then. Is there anything I can do to still be as animal-conscious as possible, even though I'm eating them?

A. Every single time you sit down at a restaurant, you make a choice. If there's a veggie burger on the menu, don't order the turkey burger. My vegetarianism didn't happen overnight.... I'm still a cheating vegan. If I'm dying for Doritos -- and I know they have a bit of whey in them -- I still eat them. But I think if I wasn't a cheating vegan, I might not even be engaging in this lifestyle at all.

Q. But what if I want to order or buy meat?

A. Some things are better than others.... At least if you're buying meat that has met some sort of welfare standards, you're not contributing to heinous torture. And it's better to eat an occasional piece of steak than an omelet every day, both healthwise and also because of the amount of cruelty involved. Six eggs -- what those six hens went through!

 

Peter vv