Experts agree that going vegan is a powerful ingredient of the cure for what ails us: climate change, environmental destruction, diseases of affluence, future pandemics, and a morally indefensible food system. But nobody wants to take the medicine. Why? It’s partly because going vegan is perceived as a life-negating obligation obsessed with policing things one can’t do. My recent book Hungry Beautiful Animals offers a transformed vision of vegan living by pivoting from obligation to opportunity, focusing on what we gain: an abundant and healthful diet, exciting commercial innovations, expanded consciousness of the lives of others, genuine interspecies kinship, and life-giving hope for shalom in our communities and the healing of creation. We’ll begin with a lecture on the joys of going vegan and transition to discussion of part I of the book (pp. 1-88) on October 21. Then we’ll enjoy two good-humored and inspiring group discussions of the remainder of the book on October 28 (part II: pp. 89-165) and November 4 (part III: 169-226).

Required text: Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan (Basic Books), ISBN 978-1541602052 is available online and the Calvin University campus store.

Subject: philosophy, health

Matthew Halteman is a professor of philosophy at Calvin University and a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. His work is driven by deep commitments to human flourishing, animal freedom, food systems transformation, and communal cooperation to realize as much truth, beauty, and goodness as we collectively can! As an author, teacher, and advocate, he explores how the choices we make around food can shape a more compassionate, sustainable, and joyful world.