Ezra Klein, founder and editor in chief of the news website Vox, was on the podcast of Tim Ferris, and ane of the things they talked about was veganism and eating animals. Ferris asked Klein what he would give a TED talk most if he had to choose a topic outside of his actual specialty, and Klein said it would be something on the ethics of meat eating, which he feels "really strongly near."

Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein

Klein says that what we eat is a very profound moral option. He believes – and Ferris concurs – that in the hereafter people will await back on the way we treated animals in this era and judge usa "very, very harshly", because "we're torturing a lot of sentient beings constantly." Klein has clearly given a lot of thought to the topic – he mentions some advocates like Bruce Friedrich and Matt Ball. He talks near how we cause much more than suffering if nosotros switch from beef to craven, and the same when nosotros eat a lot of factory farmed eggs instead of beef. He thinks in terms of real impact: "if we can become everyone to cut meat consumption past one-half, that is so much better than quadrupling the number of vegetarians." So, we need to recollect about reduction, according to Klein.

The near interesting part of the podcast for me was when Klein talked about his own eating habits. At some point in their dialogue, Ferris suggests that if you endeavor to take people "from zero to sixty" [he's talking near the demand for overnight conversion to veganism],  the dropoff is probably going to be above 90% afterwards a few weeks. Klein tells Ferris of his ain struggle with sticking to it:

"In that location is a fair amount of behavioral science prove that information technology is important for people to human activity in ways reasonably consonant with the identity that they have for themselves. (…) And this is something I found because I floated back and forth between veg'ism and non for a long fourth dimension (…). What happened was I would say "I'chiliad going vegetarian", so at some point,I would neglect. And having failed, it'south not like what would happen is that I would get to 95% vegetarian: I would completely collapse back into full-on omnivorism. And the reason in part was that if I'd gear up the success construction such that I was vegetarian or I was not, so "was not" was almost the same kind of failure, no matter how much meat I was eating, what kind of meat I was eating…"

So, hither's how Klein solved information technology:

"The style this actually stuck for me this time was that the fashion I went vegetarian a couple of years ago now, was with a tremendous number of caveats: "I'thousand vegetarian except when I travel, cause I know when I travel I often take a lot of trouble sticking to vegetarianism; then, if I'thousand vegetarian except when I travel and then when I travel I consume meat, well so, information technology doesn't offend my identity at all. And now, I'thou mostly vegan. I eat vegan at habitation, except when I travel I'm vegetarian. And, in that location are a couple of points in the year, like I've been having sushi with my best friend's female parent since I was a  kid, and it is important to me that I am able to go on that tradition. And then, every bit opposed to having sushi in that location twice a yr and so collapsing out of all my other eating habits considering of it, this is at present built into it. Then, I actually detect that personally very helpful to non be so strict on myself (…).

I recall this fragment pretty much speaks for itself. It reminded me of something that Jonathan Safran Foer told me in an interview: you have this person who was vegan and suddenly, he'southward not anymore. So, you lot enquire him: what happened, and he says: well, I was in the airport and at that place was nothing to consume, and I ate meat and then I just slid back into my normal omnivorous nutrition. Foer's suggestion was not to make being a strict vegan as well of import a part of your identity.

The solution here for some people might exist to try to brand really sure that they never make an exception at all. Just for other people, like for Ezra Klein, information technology could exist to just build in the exceptions or the mildness as role of their vegan identity. It'due south probably more sustainable to practice it like this.

You can heed to the podcast episode here. The relevant part is from minutes 34 to 44.