Today on the podcast we are talking about an issue that affects so many, but is rarely talked about—discrimination because of the size of our bodies.  Britty Mann joins us to break it down. Britty is the Founder and Executive Director of Planted Society, a U.S. nonprofit that makes plant-based eating more accessible to ensure a better future for the planet and all living beings. With over 15 years of experience in supply chain and community advocacy, Britty believes that we all have the capacity to help change the global food system, starting by fostering relationships with our own bodies and enacting change in our local communities. 

Bitty shares with Hope her thoughts on fat bias in the animal and vegan advocacy movement and how certain campaigns and protocol can be exclusionary and hurtful. She talks about the concept of “healthism” and how it affects the experience and contribution of larger bodied people in the vegan movement. 

Resources:

Planted Society

Ending Anti-Fat Bias Resources and References

Episode 24: Fat Justice and Veganism with Andy Tabar

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Today on the podcast we have Brialle Ringer joining us. Brialle is a breathwork, yoga, and meditation guide, vegan fairy goddess, and embodied leadership coach on a mission to support changemakers lead with greater ease, joy, and passion. Drawing from her degree in Social Work, certifications in Yoga, Integrative Energy Healing, and Plant Based Nutrition, Brialle takes a trauma-informed, healing centered, and holistic approach to her work.

Brialle share with Hope how her wholistic healing journey expanded into a service for the vegan community. She talks about the importance of feeling the grief and anger around the state of the world and channeling those feelings in a supportive system and healing environment. Brialle offers suggestions on ways to ground yourself emotionally and physically so we can break free of “grind culture” and embody a more sustainable work/life balance. She also talks about the work she does with the Global Majority Caucus focused on supporting black, brown, and indigenous people of color who are working in animal and vegan advocacy.  

Resources: 

Brialle’s Website

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Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is known as the joyful vegan. She is a recognized expert and thought leader on the culinary, social, ethical, and practical aspects of living compassionately and healthfully. A long-time animal advocate and vegan, Colleen is a bestselling author of seven books, an acclaimed speaker, producer of one of the longest running vegan podcasts, a regular contributor to National Public Radio, and the host of luxury vegan trips around the world. Colleen shares her thoughts on living joyfully as a vegan, how to cultivate joy and say “yes” as a vegan, how traveling to other countries with her vegan travel tours brings her joy, and the challenges and triumphs of her zero waste journey.

Recourses:

JoyfulVegan.com

Food for Thought Podcast

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Lisa Barca is a lecturer in the Honors College at Arizona State University, where she teaches humanities, writing courses, and seminars on the ethics of humans’ relationships with other animals. Her current research centers on critical animal studies, media ethics, rhetoric and ideology, and the intersections of feminism and animal rights. She holds a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures and is a contributing author to the volume Meatsplaining: The Meat Industry and the Rhetoric of Denial and also to The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs.

Lisa and Hope talk about how animal farmers are treated favorably in media and how stories of farmers using alternative and “better” farming methods are featured and praised without question or an opposing view. Lisa explores the “absent referent,” or the erasing or hiding of animal’s identities and how it relates to the humane hoax. She also talks about how the new “humane” do-it-yourself slaughter normalizes violence toward animals and she offers advice to journalists, and to us all, on language that helps the animals to be seen and heard in media stories about them. We also hear about Lisa’s band Scarlet Rescue and her musical outlet for the vegan message. BONUS: We end the episode with one of Scarlet Rescue’s songs, BBQ Protest. 

Resources:

Order the Book! The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs

Lisa’s Music Videos: 

BBQ Protest

Keycard to Hell (Monkey experimentation at Arizona State University) 

Sign the petition: Change.org petition for the monkeys

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On this episode we have our second session of the Humane Hoax Book Club with two of Compassionate Living’s Humane Hoax Team volunteers Marian Erikson and Fireweed. We talked about a few of the chapters from the new anthology, The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs. A fascinating chapter we examine is called “Murder She Wrote” about the memoirs of Femivores, women who own farms and dominate and kill animals in an attempt to gain equality in the male dominated spaces of farming, hunting, and butchery. We explore other chapters that focus on speciesist language, the cognitive dissonance of consuming animals, and we expose foodie culture for its celebration of violence. 

Resources:

Order the Book! The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs

Marian Erikson’s Plant Based Briefing podcast

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On this episode we are featuring one of the contributing authors to the new book, The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs, Nicholas Carter. Nicholas is an ecologist and co-founder of PlantBasedData.org, a library of peer-reviewed studies calling for plant-based diets. He has his Master’s in Environmental Practice and his thesis focused on the global estimates of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to animal agriculture. He also works with Plant Based Treaty as a Science & Policy Analyst and Plant Based News as a Data Scientist & Lead Researcher. 

Nicholas’ chapter is called Grazing Vs. The Planet and in this episode, he unpacks sustainable animal agriculture and labels like carbon negative and carbon neutral beef. Nicolas tells us about how he recently debated representatives of While Oak Farms and exposed them for their greenwashing. He also shares some solutions like rewilding and veganic agriculture and how we have the tools we need to heal this planet, we just need the will to implement them. Nicholas says, “Veganic farming is the real regenerative agriculture.” 

Resources: 

Buy the Book! The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs

Nicholas Debates White Oak Farms

Film: Rewilding a Mountain

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We are excited to announce that our host of the Hope for the Animals Podcast, Hope Bohanec, has released an anthology called The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs published by Lantern Publishing and Media. As humanewashing and greenwashing become more prevalent and pervasive, this volume, with 18 contributing authors, activists and academics, exposes the humane hoax from every angle. 

We have two guests on the podcast today for our first session of the Humane Hoax Book Club to discuss the book. Alastor Van Kleeck has a Ph.D. in English and co-founded the Triangle Chicken Advocates Sanctuary as well as The Microsanctuary Movement. Alastor also co-founded The Humane Hoax Project with Hope and wrote a chapter for the new book. Much of Alastor’s writing is available at strivingwithsystems.com. Also joining us is Sena Crutchley. Sena is an associate professor and long-time animal rights and environmental activist. She is a founder and board member of Piedmont Area Vegan Educators and also founded and runs Ruby’s Refuge, a microsanctuary for chickens and fishes. Sena is a volunteer on the Humane Hoax Team.

Resources:

ORDER THE BOOK! The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs. 

The Humane Hoax Project

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Happy Easter! In honor of spring, today we are featuring rabbits and welcome Mark Hawthorne to the podcast. Mark is the author of numerous books on animal rights and social justice, including: A Vegan Ethic: Embracing A Life Of Compassion Toward All and the bestselling Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism. His most recent book is called The Way of the Rabbit which is a joyful celebration of rabbits, both wild and domestic. Mark is a longtime rabbit lover who has fostered and rescued many bunnies over the years, eight of whom he adopted. He also volunteers with the vegan food justice group Food Empowerment Project, that was founded by his partner Lauren Ornelas. 

Mark tells us some stories of the rabbit in history and myth, shares interesting insights about rabbits, talks about the rise in popularity of using rabbits for meat in the US, and also talks about his other book Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering. 

Resources:

Book Launch Party for The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs edited by Hope Bohanec. Register Today!

Some of Mark’s Books: 

The Way of the Rabbit

Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering

Striking at the Roots

IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s new report: “Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”

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Today on the podcast we dig into the philosophy and practice of Effective Altruism (EA) and how it permeates and influences the animal rights movement. Krista Hiddema, Executive Director of For The Greater Good, has written a chapter in the new anthology, The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism edited by Carol Adams, Alice Crary, and Lori Gruen. Krista offers a broad introduction to EA and how in the last decade, it has informed and now enveloped the animal advocacy movements strategy and tactics and why this may be a detrimental path for the animals. She shares stories of how campaigns that are unquantifiable can have profound impact and should not be pushed aside by the EA trend. 

Krista holds a doctorate in social sciences where her research focused on the need to utilize ecofeminist principles in matters of board governance within the animal rights movement. She holds five other degrees in areas of leadership, human resources, and organizational development, she teaches strategic planning and board governance, she is a fellow with the Animals & Society Research Initiative, and a reviewer for the Journal of Critical Animal Studies, and much more. She resides in outside Toronto, Canada. 

 Resources:

Book: 

The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does: Critical Essays on Effective Altruism edited by Carol Adams, Alice Crary, and Lori Gruen

Krista: 

·      www.DrKristaHiddema.com

·      https://drkristahiddema.com/blog

·      https://drkristahiddema.com/blog/2022/12/14/effective-altruism-the-impact-is-fear-corruption-and-it-is-also-not-good-for-animals

·      https://www.facebook.com/Krista.Hiddema

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Naijha Wright-Brown is the Executive Director of the Black Veg Society, a 501c3 non-profit organization that educates predominantly Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities on the benefits of holistic living, the plant-based diet, and veganism.  She is also the co-creator of Vegan Soulfest and Maryland Vegan Restaurant Month. Naijha shares her journey creating a soul food restaurant called The Land of Kush as well as an incredibly successful Black-focused vegan festival all while running the Black Veg Society. Naijha is on a mission to help people find their vegan soul!

Resources:

Naijha Speaks- YouTube

Black Veg Society

Vegan SoulFest- August 19 & 20, 2023 

About the Egyptian Kingdom of Kush

Soul of Ahimsa: Vegan Spiritualty Retreat in NY

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