Professor Aaron Gross (vegan) - Dismantling Animal-People Factories in the US, Part 2 of 2

In part 2 of our program, we continue to hear from Dr. Aaron Gross on how he advocates for veganism on a personal level and also on a broader scale with his organizations, Better Food Foundation and Farm Forward, to expose and put an end to animal-people raising factories in the United States.

“You really can't do right by human beings while you're supporting the current factory farming industry.” “Being a professor is a very special kind of role. So, the way I end up talking about food in the classroom is really to get people to realize it's a great moral issue, to begin with. What I really focus on is making sure they understand the world they're in, that they understand that these narratives that the meat industry is offering just simply isn't true.”

“And I think a lot of the question today is not will factory farming end, but how fast will it end? And that will just have enormous benefits if we can see this transition more quickly.”

“DefaultVeg is simply the idea of saying the defaults have to change, and they have to change in a vegan direction.” And in the United States, many leading institutions and businesses are becoming involved with the DefaultVeg initiative, including the Harvard Office for Sustainability, the American Lung Association, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and more.

In 2017, Farm Forward supported the production of Eating Animals documentary, based on the bestselling book by Jonathan Safran Foer and narrated by co-producer Natalie Portman. The film critically examined the changes in America's farming system over last four decades and presented the argument that animal-people raising factories have created conditions making every person – animal-people, farmers, communities, taxpayers and consumers – suffering.

One major task for Farm Forward is to combat the meat industry’s attempts to deceive the public with “humane washing.” With the 2023 Farm Bill reform approaching, in 2020, Farm Forward partnered with 57 other organizations to petition the US Congress to end bailouts to factory farms.