Just about everyone has to decide what and who to eat. For some people it's pretty easy but for others who delve deeply into what this choice entails it becomes more complicated because our meal plans reach into many areas of life. That's among the many reasons we might read Dr. Matthew C. Halteman's book, Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan. It reminded me of similar books, the main message of which is that going vegan goes way beyond our meal plans and demands this or that when we decide we're hungry.1 It isn't a radical decision that centers only on animal well-being but also is a very important set of choices that has many different ramifications for how we decide to live our lives and these decisions influence the collective well-being of other members of countless species and their homes.

Hungry Beautiful Animals is a humane and humourous take. It asks: "Why does rule-obsessed veganism fail?" "How can a focus on flourishing can bring about an abundant future for all." Here's what he had to say about his deeply thoughtful and wide-ranging Hungry Beautiful Animals.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Hungry Beautiful Animals?

Matthew Halteman: I wrote Hungry Beautiful Animals to share the story of how vegan living has been a joy aggregator for me and my community, and to inspire others to seek its potential for creating personal and communal abundance in their lives too. Going vegan has healed and harmonized aspects of my inner life even as it has supercharged my solidarity with others. That’s a beautiful feeling. I hope reading my story can help others feel it.

My inner life has always been complicated, with plenty of tension and even conflict across my physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and moral aspects. These inner relationships are especially fraught with our foodways, as physical cravings, social expectations, and emotional attachments battle against evolving intellectual and moral commitments increasingly critical of culinary comforts.

As the evidence mounts that we can’t survive a food system so punishing of humans, animals, and the planet, the inner turmoil we feel in our complicity intensifies. It’s unsettling when your gut wants a burger, your heart wants to nuzzle a cow, and your head bobbles about between defending old habits and........

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