And why alternative proteins feel like a much easier sell

Note: a bit of experimental writing, mostly about feelings.

I hate animal suffering, and especially factory farming. I feel it deeply, especially in other people’s plates. I often imagine my own cat, Vega, suffering as other animals do in those farms, and I feel a mixture of deep sadness and powerlessness. Even a bit of anger.

Yet, I often don’t feel attracted by the idea of donating to animal welfare charities. The reason is not that this is my second favourite cause: there certainly are other important causes too, but I usually gravitate towards a portfolio approach: since I am not solving any “problem” on my own anyway, there is some cold comfort in helping solve many.

Still, I struggle to donate to animal welfare charities. It’s also not about lack of evidence or rigour, despite it generally being much more handwavy than for global health interventions: my heart does not crave rigour, even when my head does.

I think the reason I struggle is that advocacy and lobbying – the main activity for most animal welfare organisations – is a particularly hard sell for my heart. Don’t get me wrong: I know how much good corporate campaigns for caged egg-laying hens have achieved. I also think a similar success could be achieved with other animals, and would be delighted to see so.

However, animal advocacy is a tough sell. When you think of what each donation achieves, you can consider dozens or hundreds of innocent animals. But really, what we are funding is more protests, or boycotts, or negotiations with the companies or government agencies involved in factory farming. It is already complicated to feel satisfied with preventing malaria in people we will probably never know. It is even more complicated to extend the circle of empathy to non-human animals, especially when the vast majority of people around you think you are somewhat naive, weird and perhaps even radical^[1]. But we are asked even further: to dedicate scarce resources – resources that could prevent children dying – to pressure and protest campaigns instead.

It also takes a significant dose of imagination to see how advocacy achieves full victory. The path for malaria is clearer: a combination of vaccines, nets, chemotherapy and perhaps gene drives that will obliterate the terrible Plasmodium disease. Our ancestors eliminated smallpox, and now it is our time to follow through with malaria. That is the sort of heroic story that energises my efforts.

Unfortunately, my heart complains that the vision for factory farming is much weaker. Some argue that if humanity could end slavery, it should also be able to end factory farming. Ending factory farming could echo the story of civil rights or the end of slavery: moral courage hammering the decision makers until meat eating is socially unacceptable. Unfortunately, humans have a strong preference for never admitting their behaviour so far has been deeply mistaken. Instead, it’s easier to provide lip service against animal suffering, but pick a socially acceptable excuse to change nothing in the behaviour.

Fortunately, I see some convoluted and torturous path to victory: I think most of the reason for people finding it acceptable to eat meat is that they and everyone they know do it. In other words, it is a rationalisation for behaviour. For example, omnivores who buy cruelty-free cosmetics are among the most receptive groups to behaviour change in light of animal welfare information (post here). This suggests alternative proteins might become significantly powerful in changing behaviour: once people stop eating meat for some time because they are satisfied with the alternative, they won’t look back.

It is for this reason that I believe it will be so important to make alternative proteins the socially acceptable, cool and fun way of eating. Not a sacrifice at all, but quite the contrary: a social plus instead of a sacrifice. I feel we need to give people an excuse to feel they are actually good guys. Fun, meatless food is the perfect one.

But alternative proteins have failed, haven’t they? I suspect that not really. Part of the issue that I currently see is that we are framing alternative proteins as direct substitutes for animal products. That is the wrong approach: disruptive innovation sparks when new products address a different market from the mainstream, see “The Innovator's Dilemma”. That means that initially alternative proteins will not displace – but complement – animal products. This feels disappointing, and there is a chance they will progress no further than that. However, a small initial market, distinct from the mainstream, will give alternative proteins the beachhead necessary to keep innovating and improving, progressively eroding and undermining the animal-product mainstream “advantages”. Thus, I suspect that rather than tracking substitution metrics, for now it will be more informative to track the technical progress in alternative proteins, both in experience and in price, the two key factors.

Finally, in contrast to advocacy campaigns, alternative proteins have a great pitch: it’s not just about the animals, but also about the climate, the increased risk of famines, pandemics, and antimicrobial resistance, which already kills more people than malaria.

For this reason, I have started donating to The Good Food Institute, and I am excited about their work.

1. ^{^}

    Since the book “All the Lives You Can Change: Effective Altruism for Christians” was published recently, I felt compelled to note that a positive notion of radicality – with this precise meaning – has frequently been highlighted in (Catholic) Christian teachings. For example, in Veritatis Splendor, St. John Paul II states: 
   “Jesus brings God's commandments to fulfilment, particularly the commandment of love of neighbour, by interiorizing their demands and by bringing out their fullest meaning. Love of neighbour springs from a loving heart which, precisely because it loves, is ready to live out the loftiest challenges. Jesus shows that the commandments must not be understood as a minimum limit not to be gone beyond, but rather as a path involving a moral and spiritual journey towards perfection, at the heart of which is love (cf. Col 3:14). Thus, the commandment "You shall not murder" becomes a call to an attentive love which protects and promotes the life of one's neighbour.” 

   I think Christian teachings have rarely clearly stated that animals are “one’s neighbour”, even though the standard interpretation of the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan is to argue for an expansive interpretation of the circle of moral consideration. Additionally, standard Christian teachings have emphasised unconditional compassion (“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40), and St Francis of Assisi famously treated animals as brothers and sisters in God’s creation, to which that verse of Matthew should arguably apply:
   “When he considered the prime source of all things, he was filled with more abundant piety, calling creatures, no matter how small, by the name of brother or sister, because he knew they had the same source as himself” (First Life of St. Francis). St. Francis was not a vegetarian nor a vegan, though. 

   Similarly, in Laudato Si’ and citing the Catechism, late Pope Francis writes that “The Catechism firmly states that human power has limits and that 'it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly”. 

   All of this seems to point to a conclusion that the Catholic church is working towards, but, as many of our fellow human beings, are not really willing to accept it yet.