Who knew a single burger could change everything?
Tammi Jonas, a longtime vegetarian, had an unexpected craving while pregnant with her third child. After years of avoiding meat, she suddenly wanted a burger.
Fast forward, and today, she is a butcher and owns a pig farm in Victoria, Australia.
At 19, Tammi stopped eating meat after reading Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation.” She followed a vegetarian diet through two pregnancies, but during her third, she became dangerously anemic.
Iron supplements didn’t help. One day at work, she thought, “A burger would fix this.” She gave in to her craving, and that one burger led her back to eating meat.
At first, she ate red meat like beef and lamb only once a week. It took years before she ate pork or poultry again. But her issue with meat was never about eating animals—it was about how they were treated.
Tammi grew up on a cattle ranch in Oregon, USA, so farming was always familiar to her. When she moved to Australia in the 1990s, returning to agriculture felt natural.
She and her husband, Stuart, started Jonai Farms, a small farm in Victoria’s Central Highlands. Their goal was simple: raise pigs ethically and treat them with respect.
Tammi was especially concerned about how pigs are treated in industrial farms. She and Stuart wanted to do things differently.
One challenge she still faces is sending her pigs to off-site slaughterhouses. She believes this process is stressful for the animals, and she hopes to find a way to make it less difficult.
Even though she now eats meat, Tammi still agrees with some vegetarian ideas. She believes in finding the best way to eat while protecting the planet.
She also wants vegetarians to understand her view. She criticizes plant-based meat products, saying that ethical livestock farming can restore the land better than some vegan alternatives.