How I Learned to Love Shrimp

James Özden
  • 5.0 (20)
  • Philosophy
  • Updated Biweekly

How I Learned To Love Shrimp is a podcast showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement. We talk to experts about a variety of topics: animal rights, animal welfare, alternative proteins, the future of food, and much more. Whether it's political change, protest, technological innovation or grassroots campaigns, we aim to cover it all with deep dives we release every 2-4 weeks.Subscribe and please do share with any interested folks! You can also leave feedback and suggestions by contacting us directly through our website.

  1. Anne Hilhorst on hitting companies where it hurts

    Jun 4

    Anne Hilhorst on hitting companies where it hurts

    My guest for today is Anne Hilhorst, CEO of Wakker Dier, a Dutch animal welfare organisation. She joined Wakker Dier when she left university 15 years ago and plans to be there for another 15 years! Besides the impressive longevity of their staff, Wakker Dier is a really impressive and interesting organisation that I knew very little about. Thanks to them, no supermarket in the Netherlands has sold eggs from caged hens since 2006, no fast-growing breeds of chicken since 2021 and over 90% of the retail sector has a meat reduction goal.  This is already an amazing list of accomplishments, and far from all of what they’ve achieved too. There seem to be a few things about them that helped, which I’ll unpack with Anne in this episode. Some key themes include that they spend over 90% of their effort & resources in getting companies in particular to stop supplying the cruelest products, spending around one third, yes that’s 33%, of their budget on advertising for campaigns and they even read books about the companies they are targeting, to learn what makes them tick. Chapters: (00:00:00) - Cold intro: going big on advertising(00:05:24) - Recent rollbacks by retailers(00:10:51) - What Wakker Dier does(00:14:43)- How long it took Wakker Dier to end fast-growing chickens(00:21:52)- Pressure through spending millions on advertising(00:31:52) - The importance of praise(00:36:33) - Plofkip: the origin(00:47:23) -When to ask for full commitments vs immediate implementation(00:52:12) - Asking supermarkets for meat reduction - how is it going?(01:06:22) - Closing 3 questionsResources: Wakker Dier's websiteBook: The lonely Quest of Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman Enjoy the episode!  With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 11m
  2. Toby Schiønning on "fair cop" and a new model for corporate campaigning

    Mar 24

    Toby Schiønning on "fair cop" and a new model for corporate campaigning

    My guest today is Thorbjørn Schiønning, also known as Toby, who is the Director of Communications and Campaigns, and co-founder of Anima International. He’s been involved in animal rights for 15+ years, specialising in corporate outreach, campaigning and media work.  In this epsiode, we speak about the recent huge success for chickens in Norway – where the Norwegian chicken industry agreed to phase out fast-growing broiler breeds, affecting over 70 million animals, by the end of 2027 – the first time a country has taken such major action to help chickens raised for meat. More importantly, we spend a bunch of time discussing Anima International’s strategy when it comes to corporate campaigning, and why they’ve come up with a new term, “fair cop” which they feel is a better approach to the well-known concepts of good cop and bad cop. Toby has lots of useful advice for anyone interested in campaigning and advocacy: why threatening big campaigns can be counterproductive, why more campaign groups should build a war chest of campaigning funds, why most campaigners should wait longer before escalating and much more.  I learned a lot about corporate campaigning strategy from this one and this is coming at a really critical time in the movement, both for cage-free and our work on broilers, so hope you all enjoy! Chapters: (00:00:00) - Intro(00:03:04) - Should we block new farms?(00:08:19) - Norway’s breakthrough for chickens(00:16:06) - Why animal groups should focus on fewer issues(00:23:12) - Focusing on commitments vs implementation?(00:28:06) - What fair cop means(00:36:13) - How to campaign when you're in it for the long haul(00:47:25) - The value of patience & dialogue(01:07:43) - Anima's £1 million war chest for campaigning(01:13:39) - Poker, backgammon and developing good judgement(01:21:43) - Good news, recommendations, and where to find Anima Resources: Jan's talk at the CARE conference on "fair cop"Toby's article on fair copAnima Norway's announcement on broiler win Welfare Footprint on how important the BCC is for chickensNever Split the Difference - book on negotiation Anima  international blog + careers page With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 26m
  3. Seth Green on why reducing meat consumption is hard and what actually works

    Feb 26

    Seth Green on why reducing meat consumption is hard and what actually works

    This episode, I spoke with Seth Ariel Green, a research scientist at the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab at Stanford university. He recently published a meta-analysis called “Meaningfully reducing consumption of meat and animal products is an unsolved problem” (EA Forum summary here) where he reviewed over 30 papers and hundreds of interventions on the topic. Seth also writes about the science of meat reduction on his Substack, called Regression to the Meat, which I highly recommend checking out for some accessible and fun to read writing about meat reduction. We talk about why Seth is more sceptical than most about plant-based defaults, what actually works when it comes to changing people’s food choices, why some research in this space is misleading and new interventions to shape diets and food choices that he is excited about.  Chapters: (00:00:00) Cold intro (00:00:53) Introduction to Seth and his work (00:05:38) What are defaults and why is Seth sceptical (00:19:55) The best paper on defaults - what does it mean for advocates? (00:28:50) What does the research on meat reduction say? (00:34:25) Is 5 percentage points a small or big change in meat consumption? (00:43:20) What actually works in reducing meat consumption? (00:50:18) Potential interventions that Seth is excited about Resources: Seth's blog Wayne Hsiung’s New Yorker interviewGinn, J., & Sparkman, G. (2024). Can you default to vegan? Plant-based defaults to change dining practices on college campuses.Finkelstein et al (2012). The Oregon health insurance experiment: evidence from the first year. Jalil, A. J., Tasoff, J., & Bustamante, A. V. (2023). Low-cost climate-change informational intervention reduces meat consumption among students for 3 yearsHope, J. E., Green, S. A., Peacock, J. R., & Mathur, M. (2025). Taking a bite out of meat, or just giving fresh veggies the boot? Plant-based meats did not reduce meat purchasing in a randomized controlled menu interventionEdwards, D. M., Ondish, P., & Neff, R. (2025). Increasing meatless options to decrease meat consumptionKramer, L. A., & Landry, P. (2025). How the Sausage Is Made: Testing the Effectiveness of an Informative Video in Promoting Sustainable Food Consumption. Kenny Torella’s Is it even possible to convince people to stop eating meat?Warren belasco: food, the key concepts Join our lab’s seminar email list! With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 12m
  4. 2025 Highlights: All the best bits from How I Learned To Love Shrimp

    Jan 27

    2025 Highlights: All the best bits from How I Learned To Love Shrimp

    Today, we’re bringing you a special highlights episode! It’s a roundup of some of the most interesting conversations we had in 2025. They include: Vicky Bond (Madre Brava) on what it's really like to lead in animal advocacy Lewis Bollard (Coefficient Giving) on the strategies that win and traps to avoid Dawn Neo (Global Food Partners) on the 4+ billion hens in cages in Asia and how we can help themDavid Cole (author of Engines of Liberty) on what we can learn from the marriage equality and gun rights movements Carley Betts (Open Wing Alliance), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunitiesDavid Coman-Hidy (The Navigation Fund), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunitiesKarolina Sarek (EA Animal Welfare Fund), 50th episode special: 5 leaders on key challenges and opportunitiesHaven King-Nobles (Fish Welfare Initiative) on why high agency is critical for entrepreneurship Penny Tehlilah (Animal Activism Collective) on uniting "welfarists" and "abolitionists" through pressure campaignsDavid Kay (now at Kraft Heinz) on the emerging cultivated meat industry Chapters: (00:00:00) Cold Open(00:01:55) Lewis Bollard on what advocates commonly get wrong.(00:05:34) Vicky Bond on overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome (00:09:07) Haven King Nobles on how to help new projects succeed and supporting new founders(00:15:48) Penimah Tehilah on how pressure campaigns can unite the movement. (00:29:37) David Kay on the importance of centering animals in our advocacy. (00:33:34) Dawn Neo on changing informal markets and production in low income countries(00:36:00) David Cole on the importance of incrementalism in past social movements(00:52:25) Carley Betts on moving past good cop and bad cop binaries in campaigning (00:57:17) David Coman-Hidy on the importance of political advocacy(01:01:19) Karolina Sarek on progress for shrimps For those who miss Amy as a co-host, you’ll be very happy to know that a bunch of these snippets include her too. Hope you enjoy the episode!  With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 7m
  5. Dawn Neo on the 4+ billion hens in cages in Asia and how we can help them

    12/16/2025

    Dawn Neo on the 4+ billion hens in cages in Asia and how we can help them

    Dawn was one of the first people in Asia working on cage-free reforms  – she started working on Asian farm animal welfare 10 years ago, often as one of the few individuals talking to major food companies about improving the welfare of animals in their supply chain. Dawn Neo is the director of corporate engagement at Global Food Partners. She works with food and hospitality businesses as well as various stakeholders in the industry to improve farm animal welfare. Prior to joining Global Food Partners, she was the lead for Humane Society International’s farm animal welfare program in Asia.  Today, we cover lots of important things: Major trends in Asian farming, the 2025 cage-free deadline, how to deal with countries with large informal markets, cultural differences in campaigning and negotiation and much more.  Chapters: (00:00:00) - Cold Intro  (00:00:50) - James' intro and Dawn's background (00:08:12) - Why Asia is critical for farm animals (00:12:15) - How countries differ in production systems and why this matters  (00:17:55) - Who is on track for their 2025 cage-free commitments? (00:23:17) - What if companies can't meet their commitments? & how do cage-free credits work? (00:31:13) - Which Asian countries are doing well? (00:36:48) - Rising egg consumption in Asia  (00:41:09) - How to tackle informal markets? Should we get new commitments or hold companies accountable? (00:43:30) - Cultural differences in campaigning (00:57:09) - The need for patience & self-care in advocacy  Resources:  Global Food Partners LinkedInGlobal Food Partners podcastGlobal Food Partners contact pageJason Hickel – Less is more  For sending recommendations of future guests:  hello@howilearnedtoloveshrimp.com James’ LinkedIn: James ÖzdenWith thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 3m
  6. Vicky Bond on what it’s really like to lead in animal advocacy

    11/11/2025

    Vicky Bond on what it’s really like to lead in animal advocacy

    Vicky Bond has done lots of impressive stuff in her career – she started working as a vet and later ended up running a 100+ person organisation, The Humane League (THL), which many of you might be familiar with as one of the key organisations campaigning to get chickens out of cages. She is now the CEO of Madre Brava, an international climate campaigning group focused on food.  Given Vicky’s extensive leadership and management experience, managing teams ranging from 5 to over 110, I wanted to pick her brains about leadership and management in the animal advocacy movement. I would highly recommend it for people who are leading teams of any size or want to learn more about how to do it well! Podcast news: We now have a Substack where we’ll soon be sharing summaries and key takeaways from all episodes! We’ll also be doing polls where you can vote on the next guests. Sign up here.After our last episode with Sjir from Giving What We Can, we’ve had some people take a pledge to donate between 5-10% of their income to effective charities – this is incredible! But I said I would give up to £1000, and most of this is still up for grabs. So if you’re considering pledging, now is a great time as I’ll be donating £50 to Giving What We Can’s effective animal advocacy fund for each person who takes the trial pledge of 1% or full 10% pledge, up to a total of £1000. So, if you sign up via the links below, there is a special tracker that will let me know how many people take it, and I’ll donate accordingly. The 🔹Trial PledgeThe 🔸10% PledgeChapters: 00:00:00 - Cold Intro 00:09:38 - Challenges and lessons in being a first-time CEO  00:20:40 - Vicky's experience running 100+ person THL 00:26:45 - Challenges in running large organisations  00:39:02 - Misconceptions around running large teams  00:42:55 - Advice for running 20+ person orgs  00:46:41 - The downsides of scale  00:56:04 - What makes a good leader  01:02:05 - Overcoming self-limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome 01:05:55 - Madre Brava's strategy on protein split ratios Resources: Entangled life: How fungi make our world Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown podcastRich Roll podcastMadrebrava.org and LinkedInThe secret thoughts of successful women With thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 18m
  7. Sjir Hoeijmakers on a small commitment that will help millions of animals

    10/14/2025

    Sjir Hoeijmakers on a small commitment that will help millions of animals

    Today we're talking about a topic that's really important to me personally: donating and effective giving. Specifically, why donating 10% of your income to the most effective animal charities might be one of the most important things you can do to improve the world. To dive deep into this topic, I’m so excited to have Sjir Hoeijmakers on the show today. Sjir is the CEO of Giving What We Can (GWWC), the global organisation promoting effective giving and the 10% pledge. Even more impressive than this, he donates around 50% of his income to effective charities, so he really puts his money where his mouth is!  In our conversation, we talk about the impact your donation can have, why it also makes sense for people who work full-time in the movement and why the act of pledging really matters. We also talk about another important part of Giving What We Can’s work: Their evaluation of regrantors and evaluators, including the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund and Animal Charity Evaluators.  If anything we talk about today sparks your interest, I really encourage you to consider taking the trial pledge, where you can pledge to give just 1% of your income to effective charities. It's a great way to test it out and see if it works for you. Personally, taking the pledge is one of the things I’m proudest of. Because of this, I’ll be donating £50 to Giving What We Can’s effective animal advocacy fund for each person who takes the trial pledge or full 10% pledge, up to a total of £1000. So, if you sign up via the links below, there is a special tracker that will let me know how many people take it, and I’ll donate accordingly.  Take the 🔹Trial Pledge Take the 🔸10% Pledge Chapters: What is the 10% Pledge? (00:08:00)Why pledge vs just donate? (00:10:56)Should full-time advocates also give? (00:15:15)When shouldn't you pledge? & the Trial peldge (00:24:18)Should you give to funds or charities directly? (00:30:10)Why is GWWC evaluating Animal Charity Evaluators and the EA Animal Welfare Fund? (00:45:04)How did ACE change with GWWC's feedback? (00:55:09)GWWC moved $6M to animals in 2024! (01:06:30)Resources:  The How Rich Am I? calculatorGWWC’s charity recommendationsGWWC’s evaluations of evaluatorsCareer opportunities at GWWCSjir's Recommendations: Moral Ambition - Book by Rutger Bregman Kurzgesagt - Youtube ChannelOne Helpful Idea Newsletter by Spencer GreenbergWith thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    1h 11m
  8. David Cole on what we can learn from the marriage equality and gun rights movements

    09/24/2025

    David Cole on what we can learn from the marriage equality and gun rights movements

    David Cole is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, a former national legal director of the ACLU and author of the popular book on social change in the US, Engines of Liberty. This book, a must-read for anyone interested in social movements, is the focus of our discussion today. We spoke about the importance of local organising for political momentum, why incremental progress has seemed to work for other issues, the role of in-person community in social movements, and other lessons from the US marriage equality and gun rights movements. Chapters: The book in a nutshell (00:03:45)Why incrementalism was crucial for marriage equality (00:09:36)What can we learn from the NRA and gun rights? (00:17:19)Why socialising & identity formation are key for movements (00:23:32)Symbolic vs high-impact campaigns (00:32:11)Messaging strategies in the NRA vs marriage equality (00:36:58)Dave & James debrief and key takeaways (00:40:30)Resources:  Engines of Liberty – David Cole The Engagement – Sasha IssenbergWith thanks to Tom Felbar (Ambedo Media) for amazing video and audio editing! If you enjoy the show, please leave a rating and review us - it means a lot to us!

    51 min
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5
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About

How I Learned To Love Shrimp is a podcast showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals and build the animal advocacy movement. We talk to experts about a variety of topics: animal rights, animal welfare, alternative proteins, the future of food, and much more. Whether it's political change, protest, technological innovation or grassroots campaigns, we aim to cover it all with deep dives we release every 2-4 weeks.Subscribe and please do share with any interested folks! You can also leave feedback and suggestions by contacting us directly through our website.

Information

  • Creator
    James Özden
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    66
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 How I Learned to Love Shrimp
  • Show Website
    How I Learned to Love Shrimp

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