Seth Godin is world-renowned expert in marketing, leadership and the spread of ideas. His bestselling books and daily blog have motivated and inspired creatives and business owners around the world.
The American Heart Association asked him for help in attracting more donors and, speaking as a guest on the Intentional Fundraising podcast, he described what happened.
Information versus influence.
Godin told the AHA that he could offer them a strategy; something that they could do immediately that would decrease heart disease by 20% and were they interested?
Of course they were!
No-meat Tuesday, said Godin. Tell the public to eliminate meat from their diet, one day out of seven, and the number of people who would die from heart disease would go down by 20%.
The AHA declined his advice.
Godin says, “They turned white as a sheet and said, well, we can’t do that. I said, why can’t you do that? And they said because the farmers will be mad at us.”
We can’t blame the AHA but this is a prime example of the tug of war that exists when it comes to disseminating information that is clearly in the public interest but that clashes with industry interests.
Here’s another: In August 2023, the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted a tweet that advised people to cut down on their red meat intake. After protests from the Irish Farmer’s Association (IFA), they took it down.
The IFA said that the tweet caused anger among farmers “who feel that it goes beyond the remit of the EPA.” The remit of EPA is to protect the environment. Scientists around the world are adamant that averting climate collapse – saving our environment in other words – will involve a significant reduction in meat consumption.
The IFA also said that the tweet should be removed because it was “not consistent with Government dietary guidelines.” Well, the problem with government guidelines is that they often come from a government that is heavily influenced by, you guessed it, the food industry.
Marion Nestle, the author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health says that governments’ attempts to impart helpful dietary advice are repeatedly thwarted by food industry lobbyists.
The plant-based message is still getting through.
If the IFA hadn’t objected to the EPA’s tweet it may have faded from memory relatively quickly, but the news was picked up by Plant Based News and Vegan Food and Living, as well as all the Irish news outlets, which actually amplified the message: eating meat is hurting us all.
Think of this, if everyone in the US ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would have the same environmental impact as taking 7.6 million cars off the road. What if everyone in the world did it?
A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth. In comparison to cutting out flying or buying an electric car, which only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, a vegan diet reduces emissions, global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. Oh, and helps to prevent zoonotic pandemics.
In 2018, a major study revealed that it has actually come to the point where we have little choice in the matter.
The researchers found that, in order to keep climate change under 2C (let alone 1.5C) the average world citizen needs to eat 75% less beef, 90% less pork and half the number of eggs while tripling consumption of beans and pulses, and quadrupling nuts and seeds. In rich nations, beef consumption needs to be cut by 90% and milk by 60% while increasing beans and pulses five times over.
So we’re lucky that there’s a new food industry in town. Watch out people, the vegans are coming! The global vegan food market was worth 23bn (US$) in 2020 and is projected to grow to 61bn by 2028.
Eating delicious food, being good to animals and saving the human race; there’s a recipe for a happy heart.
SOURCES
https://the-intentional-fundraiser.captivate.fm/episode/the-song-of-significance-with-seth-godin
(cited section runs from 22.30-25.30 minutes)
https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/news/environment-agency-forced-to-delete-tweet-eat-less-red-meat/
https://plantbasednews.org/news/environment/irish-epa-deletes-tweet-cut-down-meat/
