Written by Vegetarian Star on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 in Animal Issues, Authors, Flexitarian, Food & Drink.
Author Michael Pollan hasn’t always expressed warm feelings for the vegetarian and vegan community, but in a recent interview with Time magazine, he said he has “enormous respect for vegetarians,” and eats a lot less meat than in the past.
In an exclusive interview with the Huffington Post, Pollan gave his thoughts on animal rights, criticizer of factory farming and author Jonathan Safran Foer and even Oprah.
That’s quite a combination, and here are a few highlights.
On Foer and “Eating Animals”
In terms of the argument that I don’t grapple with meat, I would refer Jonathan and anyone else to Chapter…hold on, I can dig it out… (flips through book)…it’s a very long…Chapter 17 of Omnivore’s Dilemma, “The Ethics of Eating Animals.” And that is where I try to grapple with the best arguments against meat eating, which in my view are Peter Singer’s arguments, and defend a very limited kind of meat eating, which is the kind I do.
On Animal Rights:
I think one of the changes you’ve seen in the animals right’s community in the last five or ten years is a lot more interest in mitigating the worst abuses of animal agriculture …which I think is a more realistic goal than abolition.
On Oprah Winfrey:
She had a very bad run-in with the cattle industry, and she doesn’t want to spend any more time in court, so it was much to her credit and it took a certain courage for her to air the issues and show clips from Food Inc., especially, and to have me on, and the fact that she was willing to re-engage on these issues of factory farming was all to her credit.
Possibly Related Posts:
