The path to going plant-based has obvious upsides, but it can also be isolating and difficult. A new documentary titled MEAT ME HALFWAY from Executive Producer Madelaine Petsch and leader of the Reducetarian Movement Brian Kateman explores the middle ground for people looking to make a change without totally upending their lives. MEAT ME HALFWAY debuts on Tuesday, July 20, 2021 on Amazon and iTunes.
MEAT ME HALFWAY investigates topics that often lead to a stalemate at the dinner table. The documentary does not specifically preach avoiding meat all together, but rather encourages eating less meat for a variety of health, environmental, and animal welfare reasons. Kateman dissects this issue through the lens of his own personal decision to reduce eating meat.
Kateman is the cofounder and president of the Reducetarian Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy to create a healthy, sustainable, and compassionate world. In MEAT ME HALFWAY, he invites the audience to join him on a nuanced, honest, and often humorous journey into achieving reducetarian status. The film is essentially Kateman’s thesis.
From speaking with passionate animal rights activists and attending his first pig vigil to touring a high animal welfare, regenerative farm, Kateman thoughtfully explores the realities of animal agriculture from every perspective. At its core, MEAT ME HALFWAY is an investigative film that seeks to create an open dialogue around the controversial topic of meat consumption.
Kateman sets the stage for the complicated issues in his debut documentary, “I co-directed MEAT ME HALFWAY alongside Journey Wade-Hak with a single question in mind: why is it so difficult to get people to eat less meat? Despite all the known issues factory farming has on the environment, human health, and animal welfare, we as a society are eating more meat than ever before in recorded history. In 2020, according to the USDA, Americans on average ate 225 pounds per person. I set out to learn what caused this carnivore craze: Was it culture? Our biology? Marketing? Or something else?”
He continues by pinpointing his motivation for creating MEAT ME HALFWAY, “At its core, I was inspired to make this film because I wanted to offer an alternative vision for conversations around meat consumption, to show that the vegan-omnivore divide is a false one because meat consumption isn’t an all-or-nothing premise. I hope that the film will inspire a generation of individuals to cut back on animal products in order to create a more compassionate, healthy, and sustainable world.”
In MEAT ME HALFWAY, Kateman interviews representatives from Beyond Meat, Clara Foods, Finless Foods, Eat Just, Miyoko’s Creamery and New Age Meats. He introduces avocados to his meat-loving parents, visits picturesque farms, explores futuristic Silicon Valley labs and sits down with visionaries and industry experts, including Journalist & Author Mark Bittman, Founder of SÜPRMARKT Olympia Auset, and Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College Bill McKibben.
MEAT ME HALFWAY is now available for preorder on Amazon and iTunes. For additional information, please visit www.meatmehalfway.org.
About MEAT ME HALFWAY:
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