Vegetarianism: Listening List

Happy belated anniversary, PBClubbers!!! I just looked back and realized that last month we hit the 1 year anniversary mark for PBC!

Now…onto business. This month we’ll listen to 3 episodes on the topic Vegetarianism. Full disclosure: I have only listened to snippets of the three episodes listed below, so they’re not 100% vetted. But, what I did hear was encouraging.

• Rationally Speaking: “RS31 – Vegetarianism.” Vegetarianism is a complex set of beliefs and practices, spanning from the extreme “fruitarianism,” where people only eat fruits and other plant parts that can be gathered without “harming” the plant, to various forms of “flexitaranism,” like pollotarianism (poultry is okay to eat) and pescetarianism (fish okay). So, what does science have to say about this? What is the ethical case for vegetarianism? And, is it true that vegetarians are more intelligent than omnivores? Not unexpectedly, the answers are complex, so the debate will rage on. The Rationally Speaking podcast is the bi-weekly podcast of New York City Skeptics. Host Julia Galef explores the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely and unlikely, and science and pseudoscience. Any topic is fair game as long as reason can be brought to bear upon it, with both a skeptical eye and a good dose of humor!
• Philosophize This! “Is Killing Animals for Food Morally Justifiable?” This episode does a deep dive into how we justify killing animals for food, yet find killing a human morally repugnant. Philosophize This! is an educational podcast about philosophy where you don’t need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained.
• Stuff Your Mom Never Told You: “The Vegetarian Gender.” Why are women likelier to be vegetarian and vegan? This episode explores the history of vegetarianism and what gender has to do with foregoing meat. Stuff Your Mom Never Told You is the audio podcast from HowStuffWorks that gets down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle. Fueled by boundless curiosity and rigorous research, Cristen and Caroline are girls-next-door gender experts who skillfully decode the biology, psychology and sociology of ladies and gents, from their evolutionary past to millennial present, to better understand all the Stuff Mom Never Told You.

As usual, thanks for being interested in PBC. Every month we try to open our minds and ears to new podcasts and topics. Then, we get together and discuss! If you are interested in starting your own chapter, let me know. I can help! Email me at [email protected].

Happy listening!