Josh Balk

Can an Animal Protection Lens Create an Equitable and Sustainable Food System?

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About This Episode

Josh Balk is the vice president of farm animal protection for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). In addition, he is a co-founder of Eat Just, the food technology company that produces the Just Egg and sold the world’s first ever no-kill meat in Singapore. Balk is also known for leading successful legislative campaigns for farm animals, including the historic California Prop 12 campaign, the strongest law for farm animals in the world. He’s also waged successful campaigns getting many of the world’s largest food companies to enact animal welfare policies, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Nestle, IHOP, and hundreds more. In addition, Balk worked with food service companies like Compass Group, Aramark, and Sodexo to commit to making plant-based front and center on their menus.

Topics covered on this podcast

  • The state of the farm animal protection movement and its intersection with larger food system issues. 

  • Whether the movement to improve the lives of farmed animals strategically compliments or is in conflict with efforts to transform the food system and make it more equitable and sustainable.

  • How the plant-based foods movement has been influenced and impacted by the the work of the farm animal protection movement and how to strategically build both movements to help achieve the goal of ending factory farming.

  • The failings of the environmental movement as it relates to addressing the devastating impact of industrial animal agriculture and its contribution to the climate crisis.

  • Individual responsibility vs. corporate responsibility, the future of factory farming, the impact of big meat companies shifting to plant-proteins, problem solving in the midst of a crisis, taking risks, success and failure, evolving our beliefs and perspectives, and the most pragmatic and effective ways to change the food system. 

Josh’s previous appearance on the podcast:

#68 - Josh Balk: Why the Fight for Farm Animal Welfare Is Far From Ove‪r‬