Whole Foods' John Mackey on Why He Became a Vegan & Supporting Gary Johnson
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ส.ค. 2016
- Whole Foods CEO talks 2016 election and his new 365 grocery chain.
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"I actually think that a hundred years from now we'll look back on the factory-farm era with the same kind of ethical revulsion that we look back on slavery," says John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market and one of the producers of the new documentary At the Fork. "If I had my way when people finish watching that film, they'd be faced with an ethical dilemma which is: I'm not going to eat meat anymore or I'm only going to eat higher-animal-welfare meat."
Mackey's turn toward veganism began over a decade ago when activists protested an annual corporate meeting of Whole Foods. After studying the issue, Mackey gave up eating meat and has worked with Whole Foods' meat suppliers to develop practices that treat livestock animals humanely.
Nick Gillespie sat down with Mackey at this year's FreedomFest, the annual gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas, to discuss Mackey's veganism and his new 365 grocery chain, which aims to bring customers high-quality products at lower prices. He also discussed the 2016 election and why he thinks Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are crony capitalists, why he supports Gary Johnson for president, and how the growing regulatory burden on American business is stunting innovation and growth.
About 24 minutes.
Produced by Alexis Garcia. Camera by Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and Justin Monticello. Music by Podington Bear.
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Going vegan changed my life in so many positive ways and is actually what led me to libertarianism. It's essentially just extending the NAP to animals as well as humans. Watch the documentary Earthlings, it's free on earthlings.com and also on Netflix I think.
Cool. That's a deep argument I'm interested in.
Progressive globalist nonsense, playing on your guilt.
espada9 Nah dude, killing animals sucks. I eat meat and like it, but I'd rather see meat culturing technology get better so we don't have to cage and kill animals.
Quite respectable, although I'm really curious about one thing. What makes it okay to consume plants but not animals? Is it that animals are more similar to us than plants? Is it that plants can't feel pain? I want to be clear that these are sincere questions. Why I'm asking is because there's a few reasons why these above considerations don't seem quite sufficient to me, and I want to hear a good argument for why to take up the position anyway. This is why:
If similarity is our basis, isn't that continuing to propagate the mindset that "well we whites are more similar to one another than we are to the blacks" but just extending it to the broader "well we animals are more similar to one another than we are to the plants." This seems... Strange, no? You're just pushing out the issue a step further if this is your foundation. Bear in mind that even if we bring the NAP into play, that doesn't apparently make a huge difference. We kill and mutilate plants to consume them too, even setting aside the use of pesticide against insects (which are also animals), which would seem to also be an act of aggression-- supposing that the concepts involved in the NAP can apply to things which aren't rational agents of course.
Maybe it's about the sensation of pain for you. This is somewhat confusing to me though, considering that a cow with leprosy wouldn't be able to feel pain when killed. Or for that matter, maybe even a human. But even setting that problem aside, this is a bit off track, no? What does the sensation of pain have to do with the NAP? It seems to me that the sensation of pain is irrelevant. The initiation of force is what the nonaggression principle stands against, regardless of whether or not it causes pain.
Let me emphasize here that I don't approve of the way animals are treated in mass food production. I think the way that animals are treated during that process is utterly atrocious. I'm not disagreeing with that point at all. I'm just really curious why it is in particular that you see a connection to the NAP when it comes to animals but not to plants. It seems that the logical conclusion of including everything we aggress against that are living would be to never bathe or sanitize (kills bacteria) and never eat plants (kills plants). If this is extended to all materially existing things, then breaking down and reformatting rocks into a home could be construed as an act of aggression. I really want to know what leads you to draw the line to include animals, but not plants.
Also for clarity's sake (I've said this multiple times but I really do want this to be clear) I think that animal abuse is terrible. The NAP seems to my mind to be irrelevant to this, whereas maintaining meaningful human relationships seems fairly relevant. After all, if your friends hate you for kicking your puppy, it seems like it might be a bad thing to do. Of course, peer pressure is not a good basis for making a decision, so this can only be a consideration. More significantly is your moral obligation to yourself: the psychological detriments that come from being the kind of person who tortures bugs and kicks puppies are very serious and should be avoided for your own sake. As such, I extend this same criticism to the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses. The brutal treatment is bad for the people who work there psychologically too. It's bad for the animals and invokes my empathy even though the NAP has not been breached, but furthermore there's good reason for the people who are doing this to stop for their own sake. Ironically enough, it's also terrible for the meat quality. Animals that die under severe stress produce lower quality, stringier meat because of the muscle tension in the last moments of their lives. Even if I do not become a vegan I have every reason to object to the treatment of animals in these factories. So, I suppose what I'm wondering is, why in particular is it that you think animals dying to become food regardless of treatment is as such bad, but plants dying to become food is okay? I'm not so sure the NAP actually applies here. If it does I'd really, really like to see your argument for why this is the case.
***** That's rather silly. All sentience means is that a creature has a functioning hub of sensory data. Even if I take up your assumption that this only exists among animals it doesn't really change anything. This is just a repeat of "but they can feel pain!" which I've addressed above. Sure I can pity them more since they feel pain, but all you're really doing is saying that since I share a trait with them I shouldn't eat them. What makes having sensory data the golden ticket? Why isn't the measure sapience (which would include ravens and dolphins as well as intelligent life on other planets, not just humans, by the way), or for that matter being merely alive? You've embedded a whole lot of premises you've yet to convince me of that are necessary for establishing the argument that you're attempting to make by asserting that plants are not sentient.
Furthermore, why the assumption that things are sentient, able to sense the world around them, only if their sentience resembles ours in some way? Certainly there isn't a central processing brain in a plant, but it still has sensory reactions to the world around it through its receptors. It'll grow in a different direction relative to input data about sunlight being absorbed. It isn't just sitting in a total passive state despite what you may think. The same could easily be said of almost all insects, who are creatures in motion without a central brain hub of any kind. They just get sense data through their receptors and react without a thought too. So even if I take up the assumption that eating anything sentient is bad, the logical conclusion is that eating even plants is bad too.
Veganism isn't necessarily wrong. I don't think it's an impossible idea that the ideas it's built upon could be rationally founded. The sentience argument is a no start, though.
the way animals are held today and sold this cheap is not "solely because of the capitalist system". dairy and meat industry is a major subsidized industry and im claiming, if you wanted to eat meat with the unskewed cost of production, you'd have to pay much much more for a burger these days. i dont understand how he didnt mention that.
in fact market forces would perfectly reduce meat consumption, if production costs would've been measured rightly. taking waste disposal, licensing, etc. into private account and cut their subsidies. factory farming would lose out on that one and small ranchers with high standards and a far better ecological footprint and an measurably better product in the end would be much more competible.
im also astonished, how almost anybody here is still on this 60's propaganda trip, about "meat being the only protein source" bs. which is not only untrue but totally apart from relevance. and which twisted mind still believes it was eating meat, that made humans evolve? come on, really? can't you guys get one thing right?!
Corn is entirely subsidized. Lots of agriculture is. Also, I'm a long time vegetarian but I've seen some damn compelling evidence about the size of ancient guts etc that we really did get the big brains etc because of meat. I also think that now that we have those big brains which can get us sources of protein that don't require meat that it's time we moved past it.
I love the Irony of how most the shoppers and employees at Whole foods are far leftees.
Excellent and informative interview. I'm looking forward to the 365 stores opening up in my area.
Veganism & Libertarianism
Overt libertarian businessmen are rare enough that this happy carnivore will support Whole Foods when he can.
I'm really happy that you guys have started doing higher quality, more mature videos again. The crass, collage humor shorts were getting rather tiresome.
I get the vegan moral argument, but what about animals raised well with an instant death? What about eggs and milk, raised in good conditions? What about simple animals like oysters and shrimp?
The vegan moral argument makes too many assumptions.
+Spoo Rin Yeah I get your point, but my comment was more directed at the view of animal suffering as the immoral component of meat-eating. I was trying to imply that animal suffering and animal cognisance isn't well understood and there are nuances. That is to say, veganism is not the only or best way to end animal suffering or abuse.
+Spoo Rin Great job pulling up a Wiki page but that doesn't answer moral questions and you're just ignoring the nuances I was getting at. You said consuming animals is wrong, full stop. What about animals with no nervous system? Animals with a much lower cognitive ability than most livestock? Animals raised and killed ethically and without abuse?
+Spoo Rin Ya got me! Brainwashed. You can tell by all the "big words." I totally am "fallacious as fuck, bro!" If only I had used Google!
My point was that, yes, slaughtering livestock can be ethical. Painless, instant death of a creature with no higher cognitive ability is only unethical if you think that there is a livestock hell. Just think about it. Instant nothingness. Reason's video with Jon Haidt explains this philosophical libertarianism.
Hey, bro. Stop making so much sense. Remember this is a libertarian channel after all.
Yeah, I'm kinda curious about that movie now, too. I'm not clear on what the objection to eating animals is.
I love John Mackey but seriously you don't think corporate lobbyists are calling in favors from politicians to regulate the economy? Why else would they be lobbying?
This is the problem I have with the libertarian movement - When talking about regulation "forcing" him to handle carcinogens as a toxic waste, it doesn't matter what the amount is on an individual basis. It's the accumulation in our water table that causes the damage.
You're passing the expense on to some else, fuck that
This would probably be solved with a lawsuit or a threat of a lawsuit.
How come naturally occurring selenium isn't ruining the water table ??? eh? eh?
Yeah, after people die or get seriously ill from it.
I wonder what his opinion on synthetically created meat. If we could create meat-based protein without any animal suffering, that might be a more viable alternative for meat eaters that are morally opposed to industrial meat production.
I think that synthetic meat would totally take out a vegans argument against meat.
The concern to me is the foreign invasion of Big beef and pork industry, which push out the small high quality local ranchers. Quality of the care, “eat your values”
His analysis of capitalism and the creation of the factory farm system underscores the most potent argument against a totally free market: Cheap commodities are not cheap, they simply exchange short term savings for long term costs.
John Mackey is awesome.
I think a lot of people don't know the difference between a regulation made from a government agency, and the law which comes from legislation. I think libertarians need to labor this point especially when it comes to dealing with crony capitalism. The trimming down of these regulatory agencies is not the same as throwing the law book out the window, an argument that I hear often. Corporations are not going to "take over" the country, in fact simple back and white laws cut out the grey area that they use to get an advantage due to the high cost of regulatory compliance.
Gilespie didn't wear his leather jacket for this.
I wouldn't take moral advice from someone who sells fake medicine. And the questions that comes up with all vegans comes up, "What are you atoning for?" I guess we know the answer in this case?
wow Nick isn't wearing that god awful leather jacket anymore
and now half the country is like "Who is gary johnson, and what is HEB?"
If a buffalo slipped on some rocks or shit, cut it's leg open bad and bled to death, it would be wrong to eat it? Your body would be happy and you are contributing to the clean up. Even if you had a bunch of apples or beans, you would choose the meat. Those pelts are gooood in winter too. Or should we all move to the tropics?
Philosophies are biased too! We selectively choose those philosophy which falls into the framework of our mode of thinking. The problem with America is that it has given supreme important to thought and reason, and that is where lie the conflict, because thought is a material process happening every moment in our brain cells, but it lacks proprioception -- you can see or perceive our thoughts in action, in movement, or know or could ever possibly learn the 'how' of it and control it -- and we continue labor under the illusion of having a philosophy or morals or blah blah, and in this respect we are exactly similar to animals -- vastly efficient and not any less superior in intelligence in their respective bodies -- but we attribute to them a lowly, inconsequential existence and exploit them for our own egocentric purposes.
6:00. No. Nope. Absolutley not. Negatron. I wish we weren't moving in this direction, but we are.
Rand has a consistency problem
I don't think he does. But I would say that is a better problem to have than not being remotely libertarian like Gary Johnson.
M M I think he does, full stop.
they water down their libertarianism to appeal to the political mainstream.
I fucking LOVE Whole Foods.
Why? Everything in the store is overpriced and pushes organic and anti-GMO bullshit
+Temperance Raziel The service, the cleanliness, the freshness...
I like their specialty cheeses and other unusual items you can't find in other stores, like seaweed noodles and Flackers (low-carb grain-free crackers).
But Trader Joe's sells a lot of good cheese at a better price and in larger quantity, so I just go there mostly. Whole Foods is a "sometimes" store for me. :D
Cheese is rape and murder. Please educate yourself.
InfamousComments
That's true. Delicious rape, satiating murder.
Regulation = taxation, the tax from the intellectuals (envy).
Why is enforcement of current immigration law called "nativism?"
Nativism is the political position of making policies which give a favoured status to native inhabitants over any incoming individuals. At a basic level, this means restricting anyone who isn't already in the country from coming in and looking for work or a place to live. The fact that free immigration be damned, the right to move wherever you please and rent any place that the owner is willing to rent out be damned, etc. That's why. It isn't that nativism actually benefits anybody. It's not benefiting the locals at the expense of foreigners, but rather inputting a treatment imbalance that produces worse results all around.
YamiShadow Kitty
So "nativism" is the traditional feature of all countries to have borders and immigration policies. Nothing new or controversial. The globalist notion of not having borders is what is untried and controversial. It should be the circumstance that is given a label. What is it called?
George Applegate True that it's been the historical practice of countries by and large, but not true that this means there's nothing controversial. Doing this is actually deeply harmful for a country's economy as compared to the benefits of a free flow of workers. I think there's room for doing criminal and health background checks at borders, don't get me wrong. Anything more is by and large just a farce. This type of policy is called "economically sound." If you want the particular name for it, there actually isn't one. It isn't a bending over backwards to foreign whims and giving foreigners special favours, which I suppose would fit under the heading of what you mean by "globalist" (although the term by technical definition really refers to nothing more than the multinational division of labour that naturally appears as a consequence of free trade), nor is it nativist. It's simply the position of not showing bias for either the foreign or the local as a default.
All countries in the world do unjust things. That's a feature of every government that has ever existed and will ever exist. So, I am not sure what the point is. Countries do it, many people accept it, so it's okay?
"Open borders" doesn't mean "no borders." Open borders means state borders exist, but that states permit the free migration of peaceful people across it for work or living.
While anarcho-whatever is largely untried and controversial, open borders is really not. Much of the western hemisphere had open borders at one time and, despite this, sovereignty and jurisdiction weren't especially disputed. One can be "open borders" and still believe that countries should have borders.
YamiShadow Kitty
Open borders between US states is not a model for open international borders. If I move to Montana, my financial status, education, language, etc. will be similar to my new neighbors - I would not be a drain. If I instead moved to Chad I would be bringing benefit to Chad with my education and income. If on the other hand someone from Chad moved to Montana, they would be a drain on the community.
This dude is awesome.... talk about respectful!
And i personally will never give up my meat, nor will i ever step a foot into an overpriced wholefoods.
But i gladly would be friends him, and not serve meat at my house when he came over!
the Violent career Shoplifting at whole foods is out of control no enforcement ...
..
Why do those who criticize him for being a vegan give a shit? Seriously, there are some pretty angry people out there in the ether.
scratch that, he's a monster who must be stopped, he shouldn't be allowed to go around claiming ot be a vegan.
I eat chicken and fish. They'd eat me back if I were small enough, but it doesn't mean that their lives should be awful from the time they are hatched to the time they are slaughtered. I think the benchmark for livestock's quality of of life is that it should be commensurate, or better than, with what they'd experience if left in the wild. For most wild animals, there is little quality of life. They tread the line between being starved, covered with parasites, and being eaten themselves.
Intelligence has a lot to do with things too. Fish aren't very smart and wont observe a difference between being farmed and left in the wild. Chickens might though. Give chickens a lot of room to roam and feed. Let them get fat naturally, and I'll eat them. I am in the foodchain after all. I do without Beef. Cattle are too man-made and I think (as dumb as they are) too smart to eat.
_Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?_
***** Dude. Animals are tasty. Ask any other predator and they'd tell you the same thing. Why do Vegas care what I eat?
It's true that humans are omnivores. And I don't take a position of compassion for animals, etc. Nature has this food chain process built into it. However, vegetarianism is a practical solution to the problem of over population. Currently, humans and their livestock and pets account for 98% of land vertebrates. That's massive and with population growth this number will increase and will likely create an imbalance in consumption of resources. Deforestation, pollution, overfishing, and other environmental side effects of livestock and meat consumption by a growing earth population are the only logical reason why people should be turned into less meat consumption and ideally vegetarianism. It's merely practical. Currently, if all the earth's population had the same consumption rate as we do in the U.S. we would requires 1.5 times the available resources on earth! Yes, we can increase production or become more efficient but ultimately, we have the premise of scarcity that rules all economics. We will hit a wall before we empty out all the earth's resources. Resources are generally not endless and we don't live in indefinite perpetual abundance. If we either don't curb our consumption or control the population we're on a train heading towards a cliff. It's not a matter of if but a matter of when. This is why cow is sacred in India. Those folks figured long ago that vegetarianism is the only way they can address the food needs of their population without the side effect of raising cattle.
#DouglasVogt #IloveOil
#BjornLomborg #RabbiAlonAnava
#Sun #Nova event coming up and there is a contest to get people to the moon...
I would like to see animals treated as well as possible up until the point of slaughter. Large farms and factory farming are the only pheasable way to feed a growing population. That being the case this type of farming will never go away. I would encourage everyone to actually go out to where these animals are raised, see the animals and talk to the farmers before jumping to any conclusions regarding modern farming and agriculture.
You don't understand that humans don't need to eat meat, eggs, or dairy. It is done so because of tradition and for no other reason.
Might seem cruel, but libertarianism is about humans not animals. Animals don''t have rights they are property. Starving children in Africa and yet people care more about how animals are treated here then starving children over there.
"libertarianism is about humans not animals" I must have missed that in the Libertarian Platform
Why do you have rights? Why should you have the right to live? Why should you have the right to not be someone else's property? Why should you be able to have property?
This guy is a total Asshole close minded fuck
The problem I have with libertarianism is that it ends up being a vehicle for corporate rule. Much more than how it is creeping in with the current neoliberal governance.
neoliberal / liberrtarianism? you got some things wrong here.
You don't understand libertarianism. In a libertarian system, corporate rule is impossible, because the initiation of force is verboten.
L. Ron Gardner Silly. Only physical force. In libertarianism, monetary force is their God.
says the economic illiterate
Käptn Kook Yes, that's the problem with libertarianism -- economic illiteracy.
I do think many animals are mistreated in 'factory farming'. But that's not going to stop me from eating meat. If no one sold meat anymore, I'd go hunting.
Hahah, that's pretty funny.
I'm not paying for animal abuse, I'm surviving as a human being. And I didn't say I believed they're ABUSED, I believe that they could be treated better. That's a significant difference, and I think you're far off putting words in my mouth.
And I'm sure many of the companies I buy meat from do treat their animals relatively well. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them could treat the animals better.
Welcome to the real world. If it were feasible for me to hunt for my meat, I'd do it. Instead, I try to shop responsibly.
Killing a free roaming animal for food is different from eating an enslaved and abused one.
I'm a meat-eater and I freely admit (as you should, btw) that I don't have the slightest clue how animals are treated in factory farms...but the phrase itself doesn't speak too highly of the process. We know what sweatshops look like for humans in developing countries: I would picture that (hot, sweaty, dirty) PLUS when they're done being smashed together in tight quarters, trampled on, sleeping in their own feces then they get to be slaughtered in cold blood.
Yeah...I'm not a vegetarian, but I fully understand and respect the moral argument. I simply choose my own health and well-being over those of the animals I eat: I'm a self-centered prick in that regard, along with millions of Americans. We like our animals products: they taste good and they are PACKED with nutrition.
they get tossed on another from a ramp into the transporters. some of them die and starve on the way. some of them break their bones. i saw a cow getting electric shocks with a stick into her anus, repeatedly, because she wouldnt move. she couldnt, because both her hindlegs were broken. after minutes of getting shocks in her anus, the pushed her the last meters into the next station. the cow was crying, seeing into the eye of the cow, teared up, looking at me absolutely in pain, made me stop eating meat soon after. and this story is just the tip of the iceberg.
its just years later i found out how intelligent they are. and how cruel for both mother and calve it is, to be seperated. i also witnessed that. it breaks your heart, because you clearly see the bond and the reaction of the animals, being torn apart. they are not lesser intelligent than dogs. just as pigs are. just think of the pain all of you guys would feel, if you'd see someone treating a dog like this. wouldnt all of you go crazy?
Rape, torture, murder are the three top words relating to the meet you eat not free range, organic
There are few things better than a nice juicy medium rare steak.
I'm 62 and have not suffered any ailments from eating meat.
And what about the animals that are abused and killed?
you said it yourself, they're animals.
Is it a surprise that whole food CEO is voting for the second democrat nominee?
Give him time he’ll realize veganism is a horrible diet
Another supposed libertarian telling us to eat like a serf. Although he recommended some freedom for his business, he advocated no improvement for individual liberty.
Are you high? He said the customers get to choose with their wallets. He wishes they'd choose differently but they don't and he lives with that. That's as libertarian as it gets.
Gary Johnson...:D Vegan....:(
MEAT is MAGA!