Blog of The Week: The Discerning Brute

Every Tuesday TNG's Allison will feature a blog that has made surfing the internet more substantive and worthwhile. This week, TNG gives a big shout out to The Discerning Brute.

Remember when you were looking through old photos of your parents and you came across a picture of your dad wearing unflattering plaid pants, fashioning dorky hair and leaning awkwardly against some brick building with a cigarette in his mouth? You said “Dad you smoked? I didn’t know that,” overlooking the other funny elements in the picture. Then your dad replied “Oh yeah, well we didn’t know smoking was bad for you back then.” “How?” You’d reply. “Well, we knew it was bad for us…but we didn’t know it was THAT bad for us.” While it is difficult for us to see how our parents generation couldn’t “know” that inhaling smoke could possibly be detrimental to their health, we can understand how many of us have applied similar reasoning when eating meat, consuming dairy products, or buying any product made from an animal: If no one TELLS us that something is troubling or unhealthy we will most likely continue our destructive habits. We assume that “it can’t be THAT bad for us.”

What is different from our parents generation is that we have the ability to see things via technology that have helped us become more aware of our surroundings and more demanding of transparency. Not just in our government but in areas that affect our daily lives. Each generation may have different battle, but usually has one motive: to know. The blog “The Discerning Brute” combines important information of how we can improve our daily lives with a harsh awareness of how our meat gets to the table, how our leather shoes are constructed and how fur goes from the animal’s skin to warming our bodies. What makes this blog different from other vegan/vegetarian activist blogs is that this “discerning brute” gives tangible fashion, home and decorating advice for men who want to have a chic, eco-friendly style. Although most of the fashion advice is for men, I love reading up on the blog’s newly featured vegan recipes, articles and clothing stores.

The discerning brute and founder of the blog, Joshua Katcher, manages to do this while examining the spiritual awareness that comes with being vegan; how vegan-ism does not equal deprivation, but rather provides healthier, conscious choices for all of us. Check out the video above to witness Katcher’s in-your-face playfulness and style.