The Power of Veganism: On the Vegan Way of Living

By Prof. Joanne Kong, author and speaker, Virginia

This is a slightly condensed transcript of a powerful presentation made by author and speaker, Joanne Kong, to a gathering of Eugene Veg Education Network (EVEN) on May 24, 2024.

Prof. Joanne Kong with Olive, at River’s Wish Animal Sanctuary in Spokane, Washington

We are dealing with many challenges at present. Some of them affect our very existence—climate change and its effects all around us—increasing numbers of catastrophic weather events, rising temperatures, losses in the natural world, and the looming danger of rising sea levels. And with the COVID-19 pandemic (that we went through for a few years), out of necessity, drastic changes to our daily habits and livelihoods caused us to re-examine the ways in which we interact with others. We still live under social tensions, racial divisions and harmful political divisiveness. No wonder we feel powerless; unable to change these circumstances. We feel as if the problems are too big for us to solve, and that we can’t make a difference.

How do we heal the world? How do we rise above these serious problems, and find strength, as well as inner peace?

I believe that we have arrived at crossroads in our lives, where the choices we make WILL determine our shared destiny. I’m not minimizing or discounting humankind’s extraordinary achievements. But I want to say that the threats to our sustainability are very real, and affect many spheres of our existence—physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and also our Earth, and other beings with whom we share this planet.

I suggest that a VEGAN lifestyle offers a way to heal.

Food We Eat:

Plant-based eating has been identified as a definite, top trend in recent years. That’s evident in just a casual trip to the grocery store! Veganism is one of the fastest-growing movements today. While physical health is certainly a primary reason why many people decide to go plant-based, I want to point out that veganism has unique power to impact so many aspects of our lives. I hope that you will gain deeper insights into your own values and what are some of the influences that have shaped your food choices, whether you consume animals or not. I wish to discuss aspects of our food consumption in relation to the Natural World, Our Perceptions in Regards to other animals, our own Physical Health, and the State of our Mindfulness and Spirituality.

Over the course of humanity’s existence, there has emerged a growing loss, of the sense of just how deeply connected we are to the natural world. COVID-19 was like a spiritual “alarm bell” that we have reached a state of disconnection, with human influence reaching its point of greatest damage upon the planet. The growing risk of zoonotic diseases is directly linked to the widespread environmental damage caused by us human beings, which has brought us into increased contact with wildlife. As David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, writes: “We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants—and within those creatures, SO many unknown viruses…. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci says: “It boggles my mind, how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-to-animal interface, that we don’t just shut it down.” We hear about animal wet markets, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. Industrial factory farms, spreading around the world and accounting for more than 98% of animals killed for food in the USA, are a global health threat.

Dr. Michael Greger, infectious disease specialist, has been sounding the alarm on pandemics for over a decade. He likens each animal to a test tube, capable of brewing up the next new virus. “When we overcrowd animals by the thousands, in cramped football-field-size sheds, to lie beak to beak or snout to snout, and there’s stress crippling their immune systems, and there’s ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, and there’s a lack of fresh air and sunlight—put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease.”

At least 75% of emerging infectious diseases can be traced to animals, and the escalating rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in factory farms is already a global menace. If we remain complacent and fail to see COVID-19 as a wake-up call to rapidly move away from industrialized animal agriculture, it will only be a matter of time before more, potentially deadlier pathogens arise.

Environmental damage is occurring on a vast scale—through fossil fuel extraction, mining, drilling, logging, construction, urbanization, and most destructive of all, the livestock industry. As Peter Singer, philosopher at Princeton University and author of the groundbreaking book, Animal Liberation, has noted, “The kind of secret source of greenhouse gas emissions that no politicians are talking about at the moment are the emissions that come from the livestock industry.” While cutting emissions from energy and transportation, and making a decisive shift away from fossil fuels to renewable and alternative energies are vitally necessary, this will NOT be enough to successfully combat climate change, especially in light of projections that global meat consumption could rise as much as 75% by 2050 due to population growth, urbanization and rising incomes.

Livestock production currently accounts for at least 51% of anthropogenic greenhouse gases; that’s 4 times the amount of emissions from all modes of transportation combined, worldwide. The one major global initiative that will have more rapid and greater impact is to bring about planetary healing through a profound transformation of our food production systems, in particular, by ending the mass killing of animals for food. This must be nothing less than a broad-scale intervention for the health of our planet. Ilmi Granoff, Director of Sustainable Finance at ClimateWorks Foundation, said: “Forget cars. Forget coal. The fastest way to address climate change would be to dramatically reduce the amount of meat people eat.”

We can cut our carbon footprint in half, just by going vegan.

In one of the most comprehensive studies showing the connections between food consumption and the environment, a research team (headed by Dr. Marco Springmann at the University of Oxford, in 2018) concluded that reductions in meat consumption of 75 to 90% in Western countries would be necessary to avoid the ravaging impacts of climate change. Furthermore, it’s startling to realize just how massively inefficient our current food production systems ARE—meat and dairy industries are enormously water-intensive, accounting for at least a third of global water usage. Almost 80% of the Earth’s usable agricultural land is dedicated to livestock, yet the resulting yield is less than 20% of all calories produced, worldwide.

Why this disparity? Farmed animals eat huge amounts of food over their short lifespans. At least 70% of that energy is lost, through the animal’s metabolism and waste. We become SECONDARY consumers of those plants. It is far more efficient to gain nutrition from the source, and eat plants directly! If we made a decisive global move towards plant-based foods instead of growing massive amounts of feed for animals, we actually wouldn’t have to grow as many crops, and could free up over 70% of the earth’s arable land that is dedicated to raising livestock in the US.

Large-scale deforestation, for grazing land and growing livestock feed, not only increases the risk of infectious disease spread; the staggering loss of biodiversity Impacts the survivability of all living beings. Animal agriculture is the Number One cause of Species and Habitat loss. We have ushered in the Sixth Mass Extinction, with up to one million animal and plant species facing extinction; more than at any other time in our history. It’s no wonder that our era has been labelled as the Anthropocene, for it is HUMAN activity that has become the dominant force upon climate and the environment.

Scientist Ron Milo and others note that 60% of all mammals on Earth now consist of Livestock, and only 4% are wild animals. And 70% of all birds are Poultry. Humanity accounts for just a tiny 0.01% of all the Biomass on Earth—that includes all animal and plant life and bacteria, yet we’ve destroyed 83% of wild mammals, and half of plant life.

Did you know that the animal agriculture industry is directly tied to world hunger? Nearly half of global feed crops go to animals raised for food, instead of to the people who need them the most. Did you know, only 6% of soybeans grown in the world actually get used to feed human population!

A decisive shift towards plant-based foods could make it possible to sustainably feed a global population expected to reach close to 10 billion by 2050.

Professor and Scientist Peter Smith at the University of Aberdeen says: “We know food choices are very personal, and that behavior change can be difficult to encourage, but the evidence is now unequivocal—we need to change our diets if we are to have a sustainable future. The fact that it will also make us healthier makes it a no-brainer.”

In considering our relationships to other beings, it is helpful to look at historical and cultural contexts, to see what shaped our perceptions throughout the centuries. Our path of human culture has followed a long trajectory, from our early existence as nomadic hunter-gatherers to the growth of tribal and agrarian societies.

We know that the origins of animal agriculture in human culture can be traced back to roughly 10 to 12,000 years ago. Prior to that, we existed as foragers—nomadic, opportunistic eaters—gathering, hunting, and scavenging for food. We co-existed with animals in a complex web of life, highly observant of their unique abilities and behaviors, and fascinated by the powers they seemed to hold. As our culture developed, a shift in this relationship began to take place. Along with a rise in population, people began to abandon nomadic lifestyles, seeking and settling in places where food, shelter, and land for growing crops were available. Agriculture slowly took hold, as did the concept of ownership, not only of land, but also of animals, beginning with cattle, sheep and goats.

This marked a critical change in our perceptions of animals; we began seeing them not as kindred spirits, but as commodities, objects, even tools for our use. The ultimate rise of urbanization and consumerism which shaped the foundations of our modern culture, served only to reinforce this view of animals—that they are units of production within industries whose sole goals are efficiency and profit.

This perception has become internalized in society’s daily customs. Cultural inertia is a powerful force; it’s a part of human nature to resist change, and it’s often much easier to just stay with what has been established and accepted as the status quo. It’s a kind of subconscious acceptance—everyone else is doing it, so it must be right! We derive this sense of security, stability and even validation from continuing the habits we grew up with. This is especially the case with our food habits, for what we eat is a matter of daily personal choices that can be grounded deeply in family and cultural traditions. I want to make it clear that my views are in no way intended to be judgmental, or to lay guilt.

I often ask, “Were any of you here BORN vegan?” And as you might expect, usually no one raises their hand. Through no fault of our own, most of us, including me, were born into a meat-eating culture, one that dominates and exploits animals. That is the simple reality. Only when I learned about factory farming (as a graduate student in college), did it hit home that our society as a whole has grown further and further away from seeing other living beings as our equals. We grew to hold onto, even if subconsciously, a false belief that consuming animals is necessary for good health, and that there is some kind of hierarchical food chain that requires us to eat them, despite our clearly-herbivorous physiology. We have created a set of beliefs, an egocentric view that humans are superior to other animals, that it is acceptable to abuse and kill them for our own needs, pleasure and profit.

Some believe this all ties into an anxiety about our own mortality.

Anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote, “Mortality is connected to the natural, animal side of [human] existence; and so man reaches beyond and away from that side. So much so that he tries to deny it completely. As soon as man reached new historical forms of power, he turned against the animals with whom he had previously identified—with a vengeance, as we now see, because the animals embodied what man feared most, a nameless and faceless death.”

Writer Michael Mountain says, “The terrible irony in our behavior is that it is our very efforts to raise ourselves above our fellow animals that are, in fact, bringing about our demise. The more we seek “progress”—building an industrial civilization through which we strive to take dominion over nature and its cycles of life and death—the more we are playing into our very worst nightmare: not just death, but now mass extinction. We are part of nature, and life becomes a lot more comfortable when we stop trying to defend ourselves against it. While we may never be able to dissolve our existential terror altogether, we can gain comfort by embracing the world of nature rather than constantly trying to transcend it. That means acknowledging that we are animals, just like all the other animals. And it means ceasing to exploit them as commodities, in our quest for immortality.”

On HEALTH:

Part of the irony of our exploitation and dominance over animals is how using them as a food source has impacted our health, all over the globe. Yes, it is true that early man adopted meat eating when it was necessary for survival, as nomadic, opportunistic eaters. But today, for most of the world’s population, it is not a necessity to eat animals in order to survive. Our typical Western diet is responsible for over 70% of health issues. These include our so-called “diseases of affluence,” heart disease (leading cause of death in the world), hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. And obesity rates are rising globally.

In the US, it’s called the Standard American Diet, or SAD. A 2015 landmark report by the World Health Organization (WHO) classifies processed meat as carcinogenic, and red meat (that’s consumption of cows, pigs, goats and sheep) as a probable carcinogen. And it’s not only the pandemic risk associated with using animals as a food source; meat carries the highest contamination risk for foodborne illness—salmonella, E. Coli and campylobacter. The chronic diseases and conditions associated with an animal-centric diet are among the leading causes of deaths worldwide, both in developing countries and industrialized nations. Globally, consumption of meat has more than doubled in the past 20 years.

However, there is a growing awareness that plant foods are the key to maintaining optimum health, and preventing, even reversing, diseases. One of the most proactive, powerful things we can do to maintain our health is to increase our intake of plant-based foods. We know that countries with the greatest intake of plant foods HAVE the lowest incidences of disease. What are the benefits? Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds—offer a wide range of nutrients that include the all-important fiber, antioxidants that protect against cell damage, and thousands of phytochemicals that support good health and boost our immune systems. We’re starting to see a real shift towards a new model of healthcare, with the emphasis on PREVENTING disease through nutrition.

There are many physicians taking active roles in promoting the vegan lifestyle. A few of these include Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Neal Barnard, and Dr. Michael Klaper. Unbelievably, the study of nutrition is not standard curriculum in a large percentage of medical schools. The Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics found that most medical students have only an average of 11 hours of nutrition training.

Dr. Kim Williams, past president of the American College of Cardiology, went vegan for HIS own health reasons, and now recommends a plant-based diet for his patients. He says: “There are two kinds of cardiologists—vegans, and those who haven’t read the data.” He also says: “I don’t mind dying. I just don’t want it to be MY fault!”

You are what you eat! It is really no wonder that eating animals and their products are tied to so many physical problems, as we are ingesting THEIR negative states of pain and suffering.

On Spirituality and Consciousness:

I believe that ALL life is energy, and all matter IS a manifestation of vibrating energy. Negative vibrations are heavy and low, resulting from stress or fear, and we know that in such instances the hormone Cortisol is released. So the negative energy carried by the animal upon its death thus transfers into OUR bodies upon consuming them. In fact, comparative studies have shown that mothers who ate a greater percentage of meat vs plant foods during pregnancy gave birth to children who grew up with significantly higher blood pressure, compared to moms who ate primarily plant-based. The energies of everything we consume enter ALL levels of our being—the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Abbott George Burker, of the Light of the Spirit Monastery in New Mexico, puts it this way: “When the energies within us are positive, they produce harmonious states of mind and behavior. But when the energies are negative, they move in a random and chaotic manner and produce negative states of mind and, consequently, negative behavior. Moreover, these toxic energies can also manifest as physical illnesses or defects. Substances that are toxic to the body–such as meat, alcohol, nicotine, and drugs–are toxic on the inner levels as well, and their ingestion poisons all our bodies…”

For many, turning away from consuming animals and animal products, whether a gradual process or an overnight decision, is something that at its deepest level becomes a reflection of spiritual values. This is even true of those who initially go vegan for health or environmental reasons; once they are no longer are taking part in another being’s suffering through their food habits, their openness and capacity for kindness naturally expands. For some, going vegan leads to a spiritual awakening, for others, it’s the reverse.

If we define Spirituality as: “The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things,” we can see that veganism opens up that part of us that touches on our emotional, mindful, and spiritual lives.

There is a greater sense of connection to Nature and all life; seeing we are all One, seeing ourselves in others, that we are all expressions of the same Divine Source. I call this aspect COMPASSIONATE ONENESS. To me, ANIMALS, human or non-human, are deeply interconnected because we EQUALLY share in this oneness—we are all conscious, and we are all aware. Think of all the ways all animals are alike, in what it means to be a sentient being! The desire to live free from pain, seeking adequate nourishment and shelter, freely engaging in unique ways of social interaction and communication. We protect and raise our young, care for one another, we breathe, we all can experience pain, fear and joy. Other Animals, they are unique as WE are unique, and I feel we should not abuse them, exploit them, treat them like property or commodities, and then subject them to the ultimate suffering which is the loss of their lives. You can’t quantify scientifically what consciousness is, but you see the life force in every animal, whether dog, cat, pig or cow.

Veganism thus widens our circle of empathy, sensitivity and our INNATE compassion. Modern industrialized animal agriculture IS the greatest amount of suffering and violence taking place on our planet today, happening every second of every day, yearly exceeding the sum of human deaths by at least 2,000 times over. It is also the greatest area of society’s cognitive dissonance, a situation in which our decisions or behaviors are in conflict with our core values or beliefs. Case in point: most people continue to eat meat, even though on some level they know that meat production entails unnecessary suffering, violence and death. In order to avoid the mental and emotional conflict of this inconsistency, they avoid bringing the issue to the forefront of their conscious awareness. This avoidance is perfectly exemplified in what is probably the most common response when you try to tell people about factory farms—what do they say? “Don’t tell me; I don’t want to think about it!” By distancing themselves from the conflict, this allows them to eat meat without a sense of guilt or complicity. People want to protect their sense of self; they don’t want to see themselves as enablers of such horrific violence, and they’re able to do so by distancing and disconnecting themselves from that reality. Certainly, the ingrained acceptance of food habits is a strong factor, reinforced by marketing messages. The industry employs misleading feel-good labels, like “cage-free,” “free-range” “natural,” “humane certified,” and “grass-fed,” falsely implying that consideration is given to the welfare of the animals. But any industry whose main goal is to profit from the slaughter of innocent animals can never be humane.

There is also the invisibility of meat production. How many of us know where factory farms are located? As a result, the immense suffering that happens behinds their walls remains largely hidden, and most of us have become desensitized to the ongoing violence that IS a part of our everyday lives as consumers. On the path of becoming plant-based, it is a transformative shift in our identity, when we no longer consume food that was borne of violence. It’ a raising of our vibration level and expanding our sense of unconditional love.

Veganism can be a part of our spiritual journeys—moving beyond material desires or temporary taste pleasures.

I invite you to consider a new perspective, one that you may have not thought of. We give serious thought to many of our choices every day, but what distinguishes meal choices from many others, is that it can involve another living being. Writer Mark Hawthorne puts it best when he says, “A person’s “right” to eat whatever they want ends where another’s life begins.” In the relatively SHORT amount of time it takes to eat a meal, your choice is an opportunity to give your capacities for compassion deepest consideration. You may ask yourself, “Does the taste I enjoy from eating this animal, justifies what it went through, to become my food?”

For many of us, one of the aspects of Spirituality is: Seeking inner peace, that center of calm within us. It’s about knowing that our individual actions, and how we express Love in the world, build a powerful energy that shapes the world around us. This can be immensely powerful, and sometimes we get messages that arise from our inner self or subconscious mind. The following is a quote from vegan activist Gwenna Hunter. She lives in Los Angeles, and actually created the city’s first vegan food bank!

“I dreamed once that I was flying in the sky overlooking a beautiful bright green pasture. I noticed a beautiful cow looking up at me. Our eyes connected and when they did it was like I flew inside of her and became one with this cow. I was the cow. We merged and I felt her joy. Her sorrow. Her grief. Her love. Her excitement. Her joy. Giving birth to children. Loving her children. Enjoying companionship and her love for humans. I emerged from the dream in shock, knowing what I experienced had to be real but of course I questioned it. I was crying uncontrollably because what I felt more than anything was their immense capacity to love. It was a love that was pure and kind and gentle and sweet. It was unconditional. But how could a cow be capable of this? After all weren’t they put here for us? As I cried and sat up in my bed I suddenly felt a physical warmth on my chest right where my heart resides. I took my right hand and put it on the warm spot and I was paralyzed with the most beautiful feeling of tranquility and complete peace. I also want to share another dream I had—another experience that was beyond the normal limits of reality. I found myself in a different space and time, and I was standing outside of a slaughterhouse where there were cows and pigs standing in line waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. I instantly had a telepathic connection with them and I knew that they had full awareness of what was going to happen. I began crying and yelling at them, telling them to stop reincarnating back to this planet and to not come back to earth because we keep killing them and hurting them. All of a sudden one of the pigs turned to me and spoke to me in the most powerful male voice and said, ‘We will keep coming back again and again until you all get it right. We love you all that much. Our suffering gives some of your lives purpose.’ He then sent an impulse of his love to my heart and it was so incredibly pure and beautiful. This impulse let me know that it’s not just us trying to save them but they are also saving us.”

One of the aspects of becoming more spiritually aware through our food choices can manifest in the desire to be of service, to make the world a better place. For myself, my journey as a vegan is about filling every waking moment of my life with the highest good and intentions that I can put out into the world, towards ALL beings. It is about AHIMSA—non-violence—to do no harm. I can best describe it as feeling more in the flow of just how sacred all life and Nature are. Our times, more than ever, call for our innate gifts of kindness, empathy, and seeing ourselves in every other living being, to create a more peaceful world.

I would like to end with a quote by Albert Einstein:

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

About the Author:

Dr. Joanne Kong, D.M.A., has been praised as one of the most compelling advocates for plant-based nutrition today, centered ethically in raising awareness that greater compassion for animals and our planet is vitally necessary for transformative growth and positive world change. Her TEDx talk, The Power of Plant-Based Eating, has over one million views on YouTube. Her vegan advocacy has been recognized around the world with international talks in Italy, Spain, Germany, Norway, Canada, and a three-week, 10-city tour of India. Dr. Kong is the editor of Vegan Voices: Essays by Inspiring Changemakers (Lantern Publishing & Media, 2021) featuring 50 vegan advocates from around the world, is the author of If You’ve Ever Loved an Animal, Go Vegan, and was profiled in the book, Legends of Change, about vegan women impacting the world. She appears in the major documentary Eating Our Way to Extinction and the upcoming documentary, Taking Note. 

Dr. Kong is a critically acclaimed, award-winning classical pianist on the music faculty at the University of Richmond, and draws upon a diversity of skills as a musician, writer, speaker, and creative artist in her advocacy activities. She performs and speaks in a duo known as Vegan Virtuosi with fellow animal advocate Christoph Wagner. Find further information about her on the websites www.vegansmakeadifference.com and www.joannekongmusic.com.