Matt is an award-winning independent journalist. His reporting has been featured in USA Today, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Vox, PBS, and NPR, among others.
Perspective
Animal welfare policy should prioritize animals. It should keep mothers with their children. Instead, dairy farmers deprive cows of a natural life so they can, essentially, steal their milk and…
Food•10 min read
Analysis
Peak meat is a frighteningly high point for the meat industry and a frighteningly low one for vegans. This too will pass. Change starts today. Choose not to eat meat…
Health•5 min read
Perspective
Ready for a real adventure? Animal-cruelty fighting raccoon Persimmon takes us on a journey to end animal suffering in all its forms in Persimmon Takes on the World (Fathoming Press…
Policy•5 min read
Reported
Animal advocates, time to celebrate. The passage of the 2018 Farm Bill signals the resilience of animal protection laws on a national level, something advocates have not seen the likes…
Law & Justice•6 min read
Perspective
Do you have the tools you need to fight? Protest Kitchen: Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time (Conari Press 2018) by Carol…
Health•3 min read
Analysis
Hundreds of USDA-inspected chicken and turkey slaughterhouses failed federal Salmonella performance standards, according to a new report. Of the 821 facilities inspected between October 2017 and October 2018, a total…
Food•17 min read
Analysis
Faunalytics asked, and U.S. consumers answered. Research shows that even if you trade indirect terms for meat like beef and pork for more explicit ones—like cow and pig to more…
Food•4 min read
Perspective
Protests erupted in Brazil after a dog was killed inside a Carrefour supermarket. A security guard savagely beat the animal to death.
Law & Justice•6 min read
Perspective
Attendees have twice as many meat-based entrees as plant-based ones to choose from the menu at this year’s United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, according…
Climate•6 min read
Perspective
The shortest line to draw between humankind and nature is what we eat. Read this book and you'll surely be convinced of that.
Health•5 min read
Reported
The plant- and cell-based meat market will be worth $10 billion when it gets to 13% of the market, a market share equivalent to that of the plant-based milk market…
Science•5 min read
Perspective
According to the comprehensive, 52-source study published in Climate Policy, we have reached peak livestock. Politicians can recognize this by writing it into their climate mitigation plans for 2020.
Law & Justice•5 min read
Incremental change is the key to success for new vegans, especially those susceptible to their old ways. With enough practice, incremental change leads to incremental success.
Diet•5 min read
Reported
Labeling meat “humane” that is not humane reflects America’s lack of a comprehensive animal welfare policy. And so, the fight continues.
Food•9 min read
Reported
Consumers rarely, if ever, get to see the cow that produced the milk they drink. For big dairy companies, the problem starts with the financial incentive to hide the suffering…
Food•5 min read
Reported
Current investors in Beyond Meat include Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack and Suzy Welch, Kleiner Perkins, and Tyson Foods.
Science•5 min read
Perspective
Only then can we change human and animal lives for the better. The morality of our civilization depends on it.
Policy•5 min read
Reported
Farmers joining hands with so-called animal rights extremists could signal a change to the direct action model, one that hopefully takes place without the law having to get involved. Let’s…
Policy•5 min read
Perspective
Thanksgiving presents an opportunity for vegans to share their passion for food with friends and family. Vegans are turkey lovers in their own way, but they might have reservations about…
Health•5 min read
Investigation
There is so much suffering hiding behind the walls of a factory farm. The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 reminds us that there are animals in there, too.
Investigations•5 min read
Reported
The neighbors of factory farms are choking on toxic gases produced by farm animals, and the farmers know it. In September, a $400 million dollars lawsuit shut down the largest…
Climate•6 min read
Perspective
Californians turned out. They voted, and they made Prop 12 happen. As they say, how goes California, so goes the nation.
Law & Justice•5 min read
Reported
Vegan chefs are in high demand at the moment, so high that restaurants in London don't know where to look. That's largely because a third of UK consumers are reducing…
Health•5 min read
Reported
We chatted with Jacy Reese about his new book, The End of Animal Farming. Here’s what he had to say about redrawing the lines between humans, animals, and food in…
Food•3 min read
Perspective
There's a certain excitement that comes from measuring the moral progress of a generation: new directions, hard work, little victories. This book is a battle cry.
Food•5 min read
Reported
According to the PEW Research Center, half of Americans support genetically engineered animal testing, while the other half oppose it. Despite this split, many companies are getting ahead of the…
Animal Testing•5 min read
Analysis
It's World Vegan Day! This year, the number of people who call themselves vegans tripled, and more than half of Americans say they're trying to eat less meat. 51% of…
Policy•2 min read
Reported
Washington state livestock industry leaders discussed disaster preparedness today in a year that has seen wildfire and floods hit agricultural centers on a scale most religious experts call “biblical.” The…
Climate•5 min read
Perspective
Cargill's latest investments in robotics is a three-wheeled corralling robot that cost $40,000, which the company says reduces the stress of cattle. The company, very strangely, calls the robot an…
Science•5 min read
Perspective
Yet another gem of food science from Marion Nestle—author of Food Politics and What to Eat—Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat (Basic 2018) explores…
Research•1 min read
Reported
There is an Amazon for vegans, and it's helping to define what we're calling the new vegan marketplace. Built on the belief that reliable product descriptions and affordable prices are…
Health•5 min read
Reported
Earlier this summer, the largest meat lobby in America, the North American Meat Institute, and clean meat manufacturer Memphis Meats asked for more regulatory input from the FDA and USDA—specifically,…
Food•5 min read
Explainer
Animals are suffering. The climate is on the brink. People are dying from preventable diseases, and it all starts with what we eat.
Diet•6 min read
Perspective
All history books should start like The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life (Simon & Schuster 2019). David Quammen’s groundbreaking work sweeps across reams of real, scientific data…
Research•1 min read
Animal lives are at stake in the midterm elections. New legislation in California and Florida takes into account nearly 20 million animals. While these two states are quickly becoming battlegrounds…
Uncategorized•6 min read
Perspective
The story of "La·hwi·ne·ski: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist" from John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead: Essays (FSG 2011) gives voice to the more romantic side of humankind's quest for knowledge and…
Policy•2 min read
Reported
It's getting so hot out that Africa could lose up to 50% of its bird and mammal populations by the end of the century. Species loss in the Americas could…
Climate•5 min read
Perspective
Wildlife Alliance/Flickr Journalist Rachel Love Nuwer reports from the front lines of the cruel trade of the world’s most exotic creatures in Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking…
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
Tell me about the last raven you saw. How close did you get? How much did you really see? In The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens in the Tower…
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
Do you ever think about how to be a good citizen of the world? It’s a big question, and not always a fun one to answer. Sometimes it’s easier to…
Research•1 min read
Reported
Big Ag is the largest groundwater user in Sulphur Springs Valley, AZ—and it’s not slowing down. Companies continue to add cattle to their herds, depleting the valley’s water supply so…
Climate•4 min read
Perspective
Push Doctor/Flickr This one’s for the health nuts. In Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life (Harper Wave 2018), Max Lugavere approaches each…
Health•1 min read
Perspective
Plants are good for us. Of the species we’ve discovered so far, 31,000 can be used for something other than photosynthesis and 18,000 of those have practical, medical applications. Stefano…
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
Let’s talk about sloths. Lucy Cooke founded the Sloth Appreciation Society with one thought in mind: Being fast is overrated. Her book The Truth About Animals: Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos,…
Climate•1 min read
Reported
Maen Mahfoud grew up in Syria, wanting to be a doctor. He began medical school in 2008 at the University of Jordan, a few years after al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for…
Food•5 min read
Perspective
Did you know that cows can express social preferences? For some people, that’s as easy as saying cows have spots. But most of us have to think twice. Rosamund Young…
Research•1 min read
Perspective
During Wyoming's first legal wolf hunting season in 50 years, it cost just $12 to tag a wolf. Today, the wolf roams wild and (not-so) free in Nate Blakeslee’s American…
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
The average seafloor is about 12,000 feet below the surface. That’s 90 to 99% of Earth’s livable space, underwater. Diving even deep into the biosphere, Helen Scales’ Eye of the Shoal:…
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
Many of us are afraid of bees, but they help to shape our natural world.
Climate•1 min read
Perspective
Skeptical Vegan is a salt-of-the-earth story about on how it felt to grow up and one night go vegan.
Health•1 min read
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Investigation
Climate•6 min read
Solutions
Food•9 min read
