Dog meat for sale? Bewildered, I tried to avoid eye contact with the smiling guy who called out to me saying, “Would you like to try some dog meat?” His hand was outstretched, holding a small toothpick with God-knows-what on the end of it. I said “No, thanks” and hurried into the Sharpe Refectory. As I waited in a long line, caught in the busy Thursday lunch rush, I couldn’t stop thinking about this animal rights student group. I started catching glimpses of the glistening pieces of steak being served. I was next, tummy rumbling and mouth watering, as I inhaled my steak, grateful it wasn’t dog meat.
As an athlete who’s on a neverending bulk, I needed to get my protein somehow — but, I was wrong in thinking my dietary needs had to rely on having an animal brutally raised and slaughtered. In fact, your dietary needs and those of the Brown community don’t either. This is my call for us to all go vegan.
Animals are capable of experiencing complex emotions including fear, love and grief, among others. I can attest to this first-hand after spending time on a farm in highschool and befriending one of the cows. Caramel knew me as well as I knew her, and her personality was as warm as my dog Julio’s back home. I remember how Caramel would nuzzle her nose in my hand when I greeted her. She would stomp her two hind legs excitedly as I showed her my hand full of hay. I wouldn’t kill Caramel for food, just like I wouldn’t kill my own dog either.
Focusing exclusively on how animal agriculture destroys the environment, causes climate change and generates pandemics won’t convince the average omnivore to go vegan. I attended a guest speaker presentation with Dr. Faraz Harsini who spoke about how animal farming threatens public health, by being a huge source of antibiotic resistant pathogens, and the environment, by constituting 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and using the majority of arable land.
These facts alone did not make me go vegan. I could potentially talk myself into eating less meat for the sake of the environment and maybe in hopes of preventing a future pandemic, but why should I have to give it up entirely?
It was the second half of Dr. Harsini’s talk — his commitment to compassion — that managed to convince me otherwise. The way he described the immense suffering that animals endured at the hands of humans was moving. Then he screened a documentary on standard and legal practices in animal farms. The film made two things clear: The reality of murder and the fact that there is no such thing as humane slaughter.
The documentary exposed how animals struggled to live under abhorrent conditions, never consenting to die. On screen, a cow pressed between two metal plates in the slaughterhouse knew her fate as tears streamed from her eyes. She was shot in the head with a gun only to start wailing and crying out as minutes passed. Her whimpers continued while the worker shot her again to end her suffering. I cried silently.
A year and a half has gone by since that day, and I can report that being vegan has only improved my athletic performance and overall wellbeing. I’ve encountered no protein deficiency, no malnutrition or nutrient deficiencies — according to my recent blood test — and plenty of delicious food that doesn’t cost animals their lives. For plant week last April, the Sharpe Refectory made one station completely vegan each day, serving delicious plant-based barbeque, burgers, sausages, meatballs, cheese and chicken. Brown is trying to reduce red meat at dining halls across campus, but replacing red meat with alternatives like chicken only increases the number of animals killed and the risk of zoonotic diseases. The rapid spread of bird flu right now should be a wakeup call for us.
If anything, being vegan has given me noticeably more energy in the weight room. This comes as no surprise considering that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics cites the health advantages of a plant-based diet, suitable for all stages of life and helpful in the prevention of specific diseases.
If you are reading this and eager for a tangible way to practice compassion, consider going vegan and urge your peers at Brown to do the same.
Cole Nesselson ’26 can be reached at cole_nesselson@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
