The Hen Report: “Both Nature and Nurture” | Animal Rights, Chicken Suffering, and Cultivated Meat Innovation

Jasmin Singer: We're so excited that you're here today. I, you know what, Mariann? I feel like I have been having a good couple of days. I feel like I am jinxing myself.

No,

Mariann Sullivan: What?

Jasmin Singer: not like politically or like universally.

Mariann Sullivan: No, we have to separate our lives from the life of the world. They're both important, but you can't just big, all bundle them up together.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, we, we had the AR gathering at your house the other day where... we do like a professional people who work in, in animal protection in the

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it was fun.

Jasmin Singer: Rochester area and we had some new faces there.

Mariann Sullivan: Even though I had to clean the house first, but it was fun. Now the house is clean.

Jasmin Singer: I was just, we had this little discussion about whether people are just sunnier than other people, like is it just how you're born?

Because there were some folks there who just genuinely like have seen the worst of the worst. And are, you know, much like photographer, and activist Joanne

Mariann Sullivan: I think I.

Jasmin Singer: MacArthur, they think the world is like a beautiful place and, and I just am not that way.

Mariann Sullivan: I, I think there is something, some, you know, personality. I mean, I think it is part of your ingrown personality, but of course events, you know, like almost everything, it's both nature and nurture. Like it also depends on what has happened to you in life. I mean, whether you're born with a person... I guess this is a complicated question that we can't really answer, but, but I, I, I do think it's really true that some people just have a sunny outlook.

Jasmin Singer: But you, you're a, I think we might have said this once before, but you're a cesarean baby and they are supposed to have a sunnier outlook because they didn't have the trauma...

Mariann Sullivan: I am told I was a very cheerful baby. I dunno what

Jasmin Singer: What happened?

Mariann Sullivan: I really don't know.

I don't remember any great traumas. I really don't.

Jasmin Singer: This is why I noticed that the last couple of days were like, good. Because it was like I did all the things that, that I do.

I worked, I went running, I did chores, I took care of the dogs.

Mariann Sullivan: You're so virtuous.

Jasmin Singer: I'm not actually at all virtuous.

Mariann Sullivan: I, I know I was being sarcastic.

Jasmin Singer: I know, but I feel like I'm a very, like, I've been very self-focused lately just with my play coming up and, and all of that. It makes me feel kind of bad when we're sitting here thinking about what to discuss on the show, and I'm just like, oh, well, I, I, I've just been memorizing lines and...

Mariann Sullivan: I'm always like that when I, when you asked me to think of what, what can we discuss? What did you do this week that was interesting? I'm like, uhhh...

Jasmin Singer: Well, I mean. I quite enjoyed the, the AR gathering and many other things too. That's what I'm saying, that I just feel like

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, but they're not, they're not always something that like other people wanna hear about. They're,

Jasmin Singer: Sure,

Mariann Sullivan: it depends. It depends.

Jasmin Singer: So do you wanna mention what we're gonna chat about today on Our Hen House?

Mariann Sullivan: We don't have a wingman and I just wanna make clear though, though, we've only had two wingman so far. Wing men are perfectly capable of being female. I, I just, I don't wanna gender anything. Um, all right, so today we're gonna talk about a little bit about the news. We're gonna celebrate some, a very special birthday, not either of ours.

Um, we're going to talk about Kenny Torella's really important article, I think in, like, I feel like this is the Kenny Torella Review podcast.

Jasmin Singer: I know.

Mariann Sullivan: It's a little embarrassing.

Jasmin Singer: Like, you know, instead of Our Hen House, it should be called like Kenny's House or something...

Mariann Sullivan: Seriously.

Jasmin Singer: Our Ken House. There you go.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, perfect.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: But you know, he's talking about quote unquote broiler chickens. And, and, uh, there was some controversy in my social media about the article, which we can talk about. We're going to talk about, uh, something that happened to somebody we met a long time ago in Switzerland. Does that, does that intrigue everybody?

We're gonna talk about, this is the really big thing to talk about in my world. Like what is the issue that you feel is the issue that like is so easily solvable, is so enormously important to so many people and is impossible to fix.

Jasmin Singer: What is it?

Mariann Sullivan: Horses and carriages in Central Park in New York City.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: It's insane that it still goes on.

There's a huge movement against it. We're gonna talk about it. It's not over. I don't, I don't wanna over promise here.

Jasmin Singer: Do you remember that one time like probably 15 or no, it had to be more than 15 years ago, no, it was definitely more than 15 years ago when Twitter was, I feel like Twitter was young at the time. Um, I, the, the horse-drawn carriage industry somehow latched onto me and like smeared me for like 24 hours?

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: And it was, um, it was because I had been volunteering for an animal rights organization that was doing some work against the horse-drawn carriage industry. Uh, that organization closed and, and someone decided that it would be a nice thing to forward the URL for their organization to Our Hen House's page.

Mariann Sullivan: That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: Because, and they were just a fan of Our Hen House and their, and they were like the web manager.

Mariann Sullivan: Horse and carriage industry in New York City, people do not understand what.

Jasmin Singer: It's run by the mob.

Mariann Sullivan: It's insane. Well, I don't know whether it's run by the mob. I don't think we should say that as fact. I don't understand the unbelievable amount of power it has. But, you know, maybe it's wavering though.

We've said that 200 times before.

Jasmin Singer: It, it's crazy. How

I

Mariann Sullivan: mean, I don't think we should say that about the horse and carriage industry because you know that they'll come after us if we say anything that's not true.

Jasmin Singer: No, you're right, you're right.

Mariann Sullivan: Or, and maybe even some stuff that is true.

Jasmin Singer: That was a very upsetting thing for me 'cause.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, yeah,

Jasmin Singer: was kind of like people didn't, now everyone's smeared all the time online. This was sort of the early days of

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Well, we still had some like minor sense of privacy.

Jasmin Singer: Minor for sure. I also don't...

Mariann Sullivan: For people who are listening and not watching, I'm sorry to digress on this, but we have recently looked at, at videos that we've done and we're alarmingly different sizes and, and...

Jasmin Singer: No, like not in life. We're,

Mariann Sullivan: You told me we, we would fix this and it's not fixed.

Jasmin Singer: don't mean We're not alarmingly

Mariann Sullivan: You have to get closer to your camera. That's the real issue.

Jasmin Singer: I can't! I

Mariann Sullivan: Well, I can't get further away.

Jasmin Singer: Then people are gonna have to deal with me being miniscule

Mariann Sullivan: I look it, it looks like Gulliver's Travels and I'm the, I'm on the giant side and you're on the liliputian side.

Jasmin Singer: I can't help it. It's the way my knees hit my desk.

All

Mariann Sullivan: right, we have one more article, which I'm super excited about. It's something to do with Cultivated Meat and in the Netherlands, and, and I think it's just brilliant. Um, all right, so let's, let's, let's, uh, let's get into it since we have nothing personal to talk about.

Jasmin Singer: Just a reminder for our listeners that the Our Hen House podcast is a wonderful universe that you're part of, and Rising Anxieties comes out on Tuesdays, The Hen Report, which is this, on Thursdays, and the long form interview on Fridays. Bonus for Flock members comes out on Monday. We have a podcast. We're on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit like wherever you can. It's really of painful that like we have been well established in the podcast sphere, but on YouTube we haven't. So people who just kind of come across us are like, oh, that's cute. They get like a hundred views or something, and it's like not representative of our audience.

So if you could help us to right size that, that would be fabulous. Just fabulous. Should we do the birthday wish now?

Mariann Sullivan: Yes.

Jasmin Singer: Okay. The wonderful and talented Jim Mason, who is just such a fantastic activist and author, is turning 85 on the 30th. So happy birthday, Jim. We love you!

Mariann Sullivan: September 30th, if you're listening to this another time. Yeah. I mean, Jim, he, like, I, I went back, you know, I know he... I'm very familiar with his work because one of his books, An Unnatural Order, The Roots of our Destruction of Nature, was very seminal in my, in the development of my thought about about humans and animals and their relationship and what their relationship should be.

Fantastic book. So I went back to, to do the list and I knew he had written Animal Factories with Peter Singer, um, before that, but it was in 1980. I mean, like, you were barely born and, uh, and I was still chomping on hamburgers, I'm ashamed to say.

So, uh, yeah, he's been doing this for a long time. And his contribution, I mean, nobody knew about factory farming until then. It was invisible, and, and, you know, they revealed it. Uh, not too many people are willing to, were willing to look then or now, but, but they opened that door. Alright.

He also wrote another book with Peter Sanger, the Ethics of What We Eat, Why Our Food Choices Matter. And most recently, and uh, he was on the podcast talking about it, Madness: The Deep Driver of our Climate Crisis, Lessons From My Family Farm. Actually, I'm not sure he was on the, he was on the podcast talking about An Unnatural Order.

Well then, you know, in his work in general, but maybe not specifically Madness, I get it all confused. But that is a really important book. Because it really puts the lie. I mean, I brought this up, I think when I was interviewing Will Potter about his book, um, Little Red Barns. And, uh, because he's making the point that, that it in likening factory farming to fascism, that it always hearkens back to a time, you know, an olden time, an old and beloved time that actually never existed.

And so they love that image of Little Red Barns of across the countryside and, and. You know, if you're not 85, like you don't remember before factory farming. 'cause factory farming came in in the fifties and, and Jim Mason grew up on a family farm in Missouri. And, uh, he remembers it. And he remembers it.

It, it wasn't cute at all. It was brutal. And, um, he really goes into that and, and how it shaped him and other stories as well. So I think it's a really important book. Like it's a serious memoir about what it was actually like to raise animals on a farm before they invented factory farming. And it is not something we wanna go back to.

So thank you Jim Mason, for all of the work that you do.

Jasmin Singer: Thank you Jim Mason. We appreciate you. We see you. You are so important to the Animal Protection Movement. Okay, so let's talk about this article. But I have to tell you, this came up behind a paywall for me, this Vox article. I need, I need to join because I'm constantly reading Vox.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. I pay for Vox. It's like one of the few things that I pay for very few things except when I forget and then I pay for them without wanting them.

Jasmin Singer: I pay for a lot of crap.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, everybody does. It's all a trick. Like you have to go through your, um, accounts and stuff and figure out what you're paying for and cancel it.

But I do pay for Vox totally on purpose. And part of it is because of the work of Kenny Torella. Uh, actually it's solely, completely because of the work of Kenny Torella and Marina Bolotnikova. Um, all right, The Cheapest Way to Stop Animal Cruelty. How to prevent one hour of animal suffering for just one penny. And the point he is making here, and of course this article is meant primarily for people who are not in the animal protection movement, is that, um, chickens, you know, quote unquote broiler chickens, uh, which I hate that term. Um, chickens raised to be eaten, not to lay eggs. Um, ha you know, I think probably most of you know, they suffer horrifically from, from the way they grow. They have been bred to grow incredibly fast and incredibly large. And, and if you go to a sanctuary and you see they have rescued any of these chickens, you will see that they are, they are ridiculously large and obviously uncomfortable. Um, and of course, you know, all anybody eats anymore is chickens. Well, that's not true, but they eat a hell of a lot of them, what's over 9 billion are raised and slaughtered annually in the US alone.

That's 9 billion. Um, and. You know, he, he goes through how much they suffer and about this organization, which I was not familiar with, the Welfare Footprint Institute, which is a group of animal welfare researchers. Um. By putting, put who are researching the amount of suffering. You know, this is a very effective altruism kind of approach.

They, they really quantify the amount of suffering involved for these animals. And this is, this is, uh, this is according to their research. The average factory farm chicken experiences 50 hours of disabling pain that is pain that's so severe that it, it in, in his or her lifetime, 50 hours of disabling pain, pain so severe that it significantly limits or prevents normal activities and functioning.

Three, three hundred and thirty four hours of hurtful pain or moderate pain that causes distress. 325 hours of annoying pain, a mild but distracting discomfort, and 30 seconds of excruciating pain, overwhelming pain that dominates their consciousness. Now we're talking about 700 hours of pain, and they live for around 1100 hours, uh, because they, they're killed when they're still babies, even though they're, by then, they're enormous.

They still. This isn't in this article, but the, what I've been told is that they still peep because they haven't developed enough to chirp yet. Um, uh, and, and so they, they live for about 45 days or 1100 hours, so, and they sleep for some of that. So basically what it means is they're in pain for most of their waking hours, if not all of their waking hours.

I mean, it's unbelievable that we do this. All right, so you're probably also all familiar with the fact that this has been a major goal of the animal protection movement, especially, you know, the more effective altruism tuned groups moving on from battery cage campaigns to these better chicken commitment campaigns, which is a little more confusing or complicated, I should say, than battery cage.

Because you know, you're in a battery cage or you're not, like, that's pretty easy to evaluate. But this is a, this whole list of reforms and includes using slower growing chicken breeds. Uh, and one of the problems here is that they grow so fast that, that their bones and, and, uh, and they get lame and they have heart and lung disease.

So they're just, they're bred to be in pain. Uh, they're not just, it's not just the conditions that they're kept in. They're actually bred to be in pain. And, uh, so, so according to this Welfare Footprint Institute, uh, the cost is actually minuscule to, uh, to put this into effect. And, and there have been pushback from environmental organizations because they would live longer.

'Cause they're, they're, they're slower growing. And if you live longer, then you're using up more resources to grow that flesh that people wanna put their teeth into and put into their stomachs. So, uh, so that uses up more environmental resources. So that's disappointing. And, and there's also, as I saw on my, um, on my social media feed, pushback from, from animal rights advocates with the, uh, you know, the kind of story that has always been the back and forth within the animal rights movement. When you, when you fix things a little bit, does that mean that everybody feels better about it? And what we really have to do is vegan advocacy. And I, I mean, I just don't see that as, as, as a quandary. I really don't because I don't, but that's personal.

And if you do, I think you know, I, I understand that. I just don't see any evidence that, that doing anything like this makes people feel better about eating chicken because they don't feel bad about eating chicken. They're eating them by the billions. Um, so, but the, also the other quandary it raises for animal advocates is it.

Like, this is just so sick that we have to think about this. Is it better to have fewer chickens because they're fewer because they, they grow faster so you don't have to breed, you know, like, like you can breed a smaller number of them at a time because they grow faster and they're all suffering a lot, or is it better to have more chickens who grow slower, who are suffering a little less? Like, I'm not gonna answer that question because I think it's sick that we have to even think about it.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it's, I mean,

Mariann Sullivan: The great article though, I did not cover even close to everything that's in here, so I highly recommend it even if you have to pay for it.

Jasmin Singer: I think it's also, it sounds like the kind of thing that could start some much needed conversations. Just

Mariann Sullivan: Exactly.

Jasmin Singer: Thanksgiving is coming up. What better time to get into a conversation like that?

Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely. At the dinner table, preferably.

Jasmin Singer: No, actually you're not supposed to do that.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Well, who cares?

Jasmin Singer: Who cares?

Mariann Sullivan: Um. Yeah, no, I do think it's like asking people the question, well, do you think it's like asking them, how would you come down on this? Is it better for them to suffer for, to suffer more for a short amount of time, or to suffer a little less for a longer amount of time?

Like, ask people that question, why shouldn't they figure it out? Why do we have to?

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, they're not, people would probably sidestep the answer though.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh really? Sidestep one of the, something we bring up? That seems unbelievable.

Jasmin Singer: I know. I

Mariann Sullivan: Not not confront our questions honestly and and sincerely?

Jasmin Singer: know.

Mariann Sullivan: That would be crazy. That would be crazy.

Jasmin Singer: It's kind of been driving me nuts this week, to be honest. Like I've been just seeing coverage of, you know, dairies opening and, and like how good it is for the community and.

Mariann Sullivan: Oh God, you're, you're reading the wrong, uh, publications.

Jasmin Singer: It's really driving me completely insane because if you think about any other institution that opened, that kind of story would be covered from multiple angles. mean, I know that we've talked about this over and over again about how Carol Adams once upon a time referred to the animals who people eat and use as the absent reverent. I, I, it's just, it, it's crazy how absent they are.

Mariann Sullivan: They're completely absent.

Jasmin Singer: I feel like it's becoming more and more absent.

Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely. Well, I don't know about that. I think that's our job is to make them present.

Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: Oy, I don't know.

Jasmin Singer: Like Kenny's doing. In Our Ken House. Alright, let's move on. So a thousand years ago, we went to Switzerland and did an Our Hen House episode.

Mariann Sullivan: Basel specifically.

Jasmin Singer: Basel. It was a very cool place. I really enjoyed that trip. And

Mariann Sullivan: Did I have to speak at that? No, I don't think I did.

Jasmin Singer: Oh, you didn't?

Mariann Sullivan: I think I just, I think some, some kind friends, uh, and donors just, just, just financed us a trip so that we could go there and, um, and see, see the speakers and, and, uh, and, and talk to people and get to know people.

Jasmin Singer: One

Mariann Sullivan: There, I don't know, like I don't remember what happened, where, or anything else.

So I either spoke there or I didn't.

Jasmin Singer: Accurate. Uh, but we did interview Saskia Stucki

Mariann Sullivan: She was one of the people that we met there. She came to my birthday party.

Jasmin Singer: Your birth, we had a, a birthday party foryou there?

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it was in a little restaurant and you got a cake, you know?

Jasmin Singer: Right. Oh yes. That was so cute. I completely forgot about that.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it was fun and I'm pretty sure Saskia was there.

Jasmin Singer: That's right. I

Mariann Sullivan: She was, she was a young lawyer and, uh, you know, like, uh, engaged in, in, uh, animal rights jurisprudence. Just starting out. And here she just won the Latsis prize. Uh. And this is, this is an article from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and I guess the Latsis prize is a pretty big deal because it's a pretty big article.

Saskia Stucki Aims to Establish Animal Rights. Go Saskia. She is a researcher and senior lecturer at ZHAW, which stands for the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in, in whatever language they, I guess they speak German in. In Zurich and, uh, and so she, she is, she's a researcher and senior lecturer, I think I just said that.

And, and she's laying the theoretical foundations for recognizing animal rights. I think I just said that too. Alright, I'm sorry. I'm engaged in quest... this is the quote from her. "I'm engaged in questions like what are rights, what qualify someone or something as a right holder, and do or should animals have rights."

And, and, she was so astounded that she won this science prize that when they phoned her, she thought it was a prank. But no, they actually, you know, like, like we never think anybody's taking us seriously, but I guess they're taking Saskia pretty seriously.

And she, she has, I thought this was interesting. It went, this article goes through some of her work and she introduced this idea of categories of simple and fundamental rights. I mean, I know other people have used that language, but I really just like the way this is put. A simple animal right would be what, basically what we think of as current animal welfare. And I really like the idea of characterizing these as rights.

Though not full rights, not fundamental rights, but a kind of right. And they protect secondary interests such as the interest to be killed in a painless manner. That may be a welfare, but it's still a right. It's a bad, it's not a huge right. But it's a pretty important one. And, uh, I love, I love that characterization.

And, and, but then she also, it's not like she thinks that that's all that animal needs. She also talks about fundamental rights, which are strong rights along the lines of human rights, such as the right to life or freedom. Uh, and, and she points out that based on this, animal rights and animal welfare can be reframed as complimentary and not mutually exclusive legal approaches.

I think this really resonates with the article we just were talking about, about broiler chickens and, you know, does, does giving, giving these chickens the right to be relieved of, of some of the pain they're suffering count as a right? And is it, is it counter to the idea that nobody should eat them or are these complimentary and, and, and should they be seen as complimentary?

I think this has always been and continues to be a fascinating discussion. And Saskia is obviously, she's breaking new ground. So yay!

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, well done.

Mariann Sullivan: We were there first. We were there first on,

Jasmin Singer: interviewing

Mariann Sullivan: on episode 223. That was when we started, quote, started our, um, episodes with quotes.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

Mariann Sullivan: And I don't know who this quote was from. Oh, it's from Shakespeare. I've heard of him. Um, "hell is empty and all the devils are here." Ain't that the truth?

Jasmin Singer: Oh, yes. Oh, yes it is. All right. Let's pivot. Let's talk about the horse-drawn carriage industry, because there have been some, there's been some movement, I mean like not enough movement. Not yet. But this is one of those industries that there's kind of never any real movement, and now there is.

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. As you, as you know, the New York City Mayor's race has gotten national attention, so a lot of people are aware of it and the leading candidate at the mo at the moment is Zohran Mamdani and the current mayor, who has gotten in a lot of trouble, um, and, uh, a lot of legal trouble and, uh, is Eric Adams and he, you know, he's been on the podcast, he's like a vegan, more or less.

Not totally, but you know, more or less. And um, and he looks great, I have to say. Uh, and I'm saying that in the context of he, he also, he considered veganism both from animal rights perspective, at least when he was talking with us and, and, and from a health, it saved his life basically. And anyway, he was the first, he came out, he's running for mayor.

He did not get the Democratic nomination, Zohran Mamdani did. And uh, and he came out and said he was opposed to the horse-drawn carriage industry, and he thought that, that it should be shut down. And I was like, what? Like what's going on here? Um, because like we were saying there, there, there is just no more complex political issue than the horse-drawn carriage issue in New York City.

And since he said that, I'm, I'm not sure whether they had taken a position on it before, but, uh, both of the other mayoral hopefuls, which is Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo have come out and said, yeah, we agree. Um, they should get rid of them. So now everybody who's running for mayor is against it. Whether this will end it is unclear because, because nothing seems to ever end it.

And there is a lot of pushback from the union that represents horse to on carriage drivers. Like, can't they just get them another job? I don't know. Um. We always have to take care of all of these people who exploit animals in order to stop exploiting animals. But I, I'm excited. I mean, this could, this could be it.

Um. According to John Samuelson, who's the president of the Transport Workers Union, which is the union that represents him. Um, Eric Adams is a straight up Judas Iscariot who sold his soul to developers who wanna build where carriage horse stables sit in prime real estate on Manhattan's West side.

Um, maybe that's true. I don't know. They certainly should build nice buildings in that area, which is right in the middle of Manhattan and is now occupied by these hideous, stupid old tenements that are used by, by the carriage horse drivers. They used to keep them like under, under the high, under the FDR drive, under the highway.

It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. And now they're, they, they're, they have to climb up all of these ramps because these are like apartment building. They were built to be apartment buildings. It's insane. Yeah, I would love to see them gone and put a nice building there. It's New York.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I mean, you sound like you're a little more hopeful than I am that this will come to pass. I just, you know, this is one of those,

Mariann Sullivan: No, I, I, I would say I'm fairly cynical on the issue, but you know, I like to be a little positive.

Jasmin Singer: Do you? I

Mariann Sullivan: I like to try.

Jasmin Singer: I just, I'm constantly baffled by how long ago the past was. And so when I, so when I

Mariann Sullivan: Kind of depends on what part of the past you're talking about.

Jasmin Singer: I get that, but when I think about some of the old campaigns that I used to be involved with when I was a little baby activist, this was one of the big ones. And

Mariann Sullivan: Wait til you're my age. It

Jasmin Singer: No, I know,

Mariann Sullivan: Very confusing and, and you have to stop yourself all the time from talking about things that happened in the sixties, uh, because otherwise you sound like you know.

Jasmin Singer: But now here we are and we're talking about the same old thing again, and it's, you

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, it is the, it is the most ridiculous issue in, in the, um. Yeah, I should mention, I, I alluded to this, but now I'm seeing the quote that Zohran Mamdani had to actually backed the ban earlier this year, and he called the carriages inhumane and unnecessary. The most, the recent piler on is former governor Andrew Cuomo.

Um. And, and he said horse-drawn characters are part of the romantic image of this city, but in 2025, we must face the facts about how doubted, unsafe and potent potentially inhumane practice has become. Not exactly, um, the strongest statement in the world, but, but still they're all on board. But you know, we've, like De Blassio was mayor years ago, um, and he promised, you know, he was gonna shut down the horse and carriage industry and that didn't happen.

Jasmin Singer: I've been seeing, you know, these things online that talk about relationships and trauma, and one of the words that they use is bread crumbing. People who have been through trauma as a child might wind up in relationships as adults, where their significant other is bread crumbing them.

Mariann Sullivan: Know what I, I don't know what that means.

Jasmin Singer: That they're just giving them little breadcrumbs, like enough so that

Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well that, I mean, that's pretty classic stuff in relationships.

Jasmin Singer: That's what your twenties are for people. You know, figuring that shit out.

Mariann Sullivan: At, at worst, don't. Yeah.

Jasmin Singer: But I guess I, I brought it up be because like, I'm not going totally off subject here.

That's what I feel like is happening with these animal rights campaigns. Like I, I'm just struggling a little bit to, to get excited, but, you know, it is a

Mariann Sullivan: You don't have to get excited. I mean, you could be a little less depressing on the podcast, but you know, you don't have to be.

Jasmin Singer: Okay.

Mariann Sullivan: to be, you can, you can bring everybody down.

Jasmin Singer: Oh my God. That's your job. All right, there's, there's another good story here. There's another

Mariann Sullivan: I had counted the last one in good news stories.

Jasmin Singer: I think it is too. I do. I'm just being real. I'm just

Mariann Sullivan: All right. This is, this is my favorite. This I think is very cool. This is from Plant-based News. The world's first unquote cultivated meat farm is coming to the Netherlands. All right, so, uh, the thing that's so cool about this, I mean, the Netherlands has been in the forefront, um, of, of cultivated meat development and, but they've put, there's this consortium that's come together called Craft, the Craft Consortium, and they include, um, some universities, um, some companies that are developing, uh, uh, cultivated meat and they're funded by the European Institute for Innovation and Technology and the EU, so they've got some money behind them, and their model is to encourage farmers who are currently raising animals for food to integrate cultivated meat production into their businesses because you don't have to be a huge, uh, corporation to do this.

It can be small scale, not that, you know, some of these farms are huge and, and this would mean the farmers could help diversify their output. Um, and, and hopefully begin to rely more and more on this much better method, much cheaper method, much healthier method of raising meat and making money. And, and at, so at the very same moment that cultivated meat was being developed, we would be re, they would be reducing the reliance of farmers and not have to worry about this question of, well, what do we do with all of the people who, who are, uh, in this business?

They would just naturally be getting out of that business and into the better business and they would be the logical people to do it. They're familiar with meat, sort of, I dunno. I think it's brilliant because, you know, we've talked, we've heard a lot about, about, um, I think Mercy for Animals has been active in, and probably other organizations as well, like helping farmers, particularly chicken farmers, who wanna get out of the business, translate their business into mushroom growing, which is, you know, mushroom growing I think is particularly good because they can use the huge chicken sheds to grow the mushrooms and, and that's great. It's great, but it is like, it's very expensive and you have to talk people into it and, and there's no guarantee that it, it's not gradual.

It's not like they're gradually getting out of the chicken farming, and so it would be hard to talk people into it. I mean, there's a lot of, there's. It, it's great, but there are a lot of blocks in it, and this seems to take care of that whole problem of, uh, what do we do with the farmers without having to, you know, they have to be subsidized to, to transfer their business from one thing to another.

This just lets them find another business which actually replaces their old business. I, I'm, I'm, I'm babbling now because I love this so much.

Jasmin Singer: But what do you, what do you foresee as the future of, uh, I guess, cultivated meat farming? Like what, where do you think this goes?

Mariann Sullivan: Well, I mean we're, I mean, the hope is is that the cultivated meat would, with government subsidies, but also with growing climate change, will become more and more popular until, uh. And, and, and, you know, as it becomes more popular and more people stop eating animals, it's going to become less acceptable to eat animals.

It doesn't, you don't have to pass laws for that. It's just that once you wake up and you see it and you stop eating them, like you think what other people are doing is creepy. So it'll, that'll, it'll reduce it more. I mean, and, and I, I guess that's the vision that.

Jasmin Singer: I'm very excited about this.

Mariann Sullivan: The side of their business that... it's gotta be so much better job to be raising cultivated meat than to be raising animals, which is just brutal, brutal work.

So it's just, you know, I think it'll take a week or two. Uh, but you know, then it'll all be fixed.

Jasmin Singer: Oh gosh.

Mariann Sullivan: A year, I don't know.

Jasmin Singer: Why not?

Mariann Sullivan: Why not?

Jasmin Singer: I love that story. I, this is one of the things I'm the most excited about and

Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that's a good one. I was glad I found it.

Jasmin Singer: It would be a whole lot easier to, you know, stop with the horse-drawn carriages. This one's harder, this one I'm more optimistic about.

Mariann Sullivan: That is weird, isn't it?

Jasmin Singer: Yeah,

Mariann Sullivan: Because we've, we've been through the ringer on, uh.

Jasmin Singer: This is at least new. Uh, and me meat eaters can pretend it was their idea.

Mariann Sullivan: Totally, and it doesn't have to be a hundred percent, even though we would all like it to be a hundred percent,

Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

Mariann Sullivan: Like nobody's being forced to do anything. They're just being given a new business opportunity.

Jasmin Singer: Well, I think we should end on that note, because that is a good one. That's a positive note. Do you wanna talk a little bit about what's coming up?

Mariann Sullivan: Uh, sure. Um, last Friday's interview, if you missed it, you, you would probably want to go back and listen to it because I thought these people were great. They were folks from Food and Water Watch. Also, we had a New York state legislator on, but this was not a particular state issue. It's it they were all talking about what state legislators can do and, and what some are already trying to do to put some limitations on how big factory farms can get.

I mean, factory farming is just so impossible to tackle legislatively. I know this doesn't seem like much, but it's actually, it actually is. But then tomo then, um. Let's see tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow's interview is the, you know, once a month. The, the interview is the Animal Law Podcast interview.

You have got to listen to this interview. It's so good. Um, I had on two attorneys, Sara Berinhout and John Greil talking about Dubash Versus City of Houston and the plaintiffs in this case, uh, it's a, it's a lawsuit against the city of Houston and are Faraz Harsini, who you may be familiar with as the founder of Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, and he was on the podcast not too long ago and Daraius Dubash. And they are suing the city and others for, they were doing a Cube of Truth. Are you familiar with that? Um. You know, the Anonymous for the Voiceless type of thing, where they, they silently hold up a video of what's happening to animals and, and encourage people to talk to them about it.

And in a city park in Houston, and Daraius got, Faraz got basically thrown out and Daraius actually got arrested. And, and this is in the Fifth Circuit now. This is a big case. There have been, um, amicus briefs from, from loads and loads of different organizations on their side saying, you can't do this in a city park, like, like the First Amendment people.

Such a great case. Great lawyers. Don't miss it.

Jasmin Singer: So much good stuff

Mariann Sullivan: And it, you know what it reminded me of, and if you listen to the interview, I did mention this. I was so glad I remembered it. A few years ago, I interviewed Dash Meisler, who was an activist in Uganda and he, his first action as an activist was to participate in a Cube of Truth in a shopping area in Kampala, Uganda and they got arrested.

And at the time we were like, oh, that's terrible that they would arrest people for that. Ha, go to Houston.

Jasmin Singer: That's so cool. so cool. For

Mariann Sullivan: Oh, really cool. Great case.

Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Amazing. Alright, well on that note, uh, thank you so much for joining us today for The Hen Report and thank you to Vicki Bechler for producing this episode. And, uh, thank you for being on the other end of this right now. We'll talk to you next time.

Bye.