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SPEAKER_09
 Bring a little optimism into your life with The Bright Side, a new kind of daily podcast from Hello Sunshine, hosted by me, Danielle Robay.
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And me, Simone Boyce.
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Every weekday, we're bringing you conversations about culture, the latest trends, inspiration, and so much more.
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SPEAKER_00
I am so excited about this podcast, The Bright Side.
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SPEAKER_00
You guys are giving people a chance to shine a light on their lives, shine a light on a little advice that they want to share.
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SPEAKER_02
 Listen to The Bright Side on America's number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search The Bright Side.
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SPEAKER_13
 Guess what, Will?
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SPEAKER_13
What's up, Mango?
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SPEAKER_13
I've been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we've done over 250 episodes, we don't really talk about murders or cults.
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SPEAKER_12
I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
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SPEAKER_12
And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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SPEAKER_12
So what you're saying is everyone should be listening.
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SPEAKER_12
Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_01
 A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I'm your host, Gabby Collins.
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
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SPEAKER_01
Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
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SPEAKER_01
Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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SPEAKER_07
 Our intelligence can sometimes cloud our imperfections.
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SPEAKER_07
You know, we are so intelligent and we're capable of doing so much.
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SPEAKER_07
And what the world could look like if we just came together and sat and empathized and thought deeply about these issues and got through some of these kind of more kind of primal aspects that we haven't quite evolved out of yet.
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We could achieve such a wonderful thing and we could create such a great world.
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But unfortunately, we're nowhere near there yet.
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SPEAKER_06
 Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
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I am so grateful that you come back every week to listen, learn and grow, whether you're cooking, whether you're walking, whether you're walking your dog.
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I am so happy that you've chosen to give me your ears or your views for this time.
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And I couldn't be more excited because today's guest is someone that I've been wanting to sit down with for a long, long time.
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We've been connected online, DMing for probably about three to four years now.
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And he's finally in LA.
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 I hear he's moving here, which makes me very, very excited, not just for me, but for everyone else who's going to benefit.
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I'm talking about the one and only Ed Winters.
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Now, for those of you that don't know, Ed is a vegan educator, public speaker, and content creator, widely known for his viral debates, speeches, and video essays.
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He has given speeches across the world, including the University of Cambridge, EPFL, Google NYC, and Google Zurich.
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 In early 2019, he gave two TEDx talks, surpassing a total of 2 million views online.
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You can go and check them out.
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And his speech, You'll Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again, has 35 million accumulative views online and has been given to thousands of students across the UK.
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 Ed also has debated numerous times on live television and radio and has been featured on the BBC, ITV and Ladbible.
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He co-founded the No Catch Co, which I can't wait to visit in 2021, an ethical vegan fish and chip shop company taking on the traditional British fish and chip shop model
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 And this is something that I'm very excited about today.
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I want you to all go and get this.
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He wrote his debut book, This is Vegan Propaganda and Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You.
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Welcome to the show, Ed Winters, or as I like to call him, Earthling Ed.
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Ed, thank you for doing this.
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Oh, my pleasure.
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Thanks for having me on.
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It is so good to meet you.
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It's a delight to be here and I really appreciate you making time for me and it's a real privilege.
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So thank you.
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 No, the feeling is very mutual.
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I've been a fan of what you've been doing.
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Like I said to you before, I came across your videos, I think probably 2017, 2018, and I'd only started my journey in 2016 as well.
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And so I remember seeing it and under your Instagram Earthling Ed, which again, highly recommend everyone goes and follows.
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And what I really appreciated was this very thoughtful, conscious, intentional,
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 sharing and messaging around veganism, around vegan diet, around an understanding of animal welfare, around educating people.
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And up until that point, I'd only ever seen people attack people, or I'd seen people try and scare people,
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 Or i'd seen people try and cause fear and i'm not saying any of those things are bad or wrong or shouldn't be done everyone's allowed to communicate the way that they feel is best.
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But i really connected to your way of giving a language to the work that you do.
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And so my wife and i big fans she's dying to meet you and now that you're releasing a book as well which you kindly sent to me so i've had the fortune of.
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 you know, seeing a bit of it, what I want to start with is I want to hear about your story of how you got to this point.
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Because I think what we're used to seeing is you debating, you being a very strong minded vegan, but I want to hear how you got there.
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So can you tell us where your journey started by telling us where you grew up, what you ate for dinner every day, what your life was like?
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 Yeah.
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So like most people, I grew up in a family that, uh, hadn't really even heard of veganism.
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So I was raised and we used to laugh about people who are vegetarian.
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We used to think it was kind of a bit of a joke that people wouldn't want to eat meat because you know, meat's delicious and everyone eats meat.
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So why wouldn't you?
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Um, and I remember we used to have this joke around the family dinner table and it was a very bad joke, a very bad joke.
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And it's cringy, but we used to sit around the dinner table, be eating, you know, beef casserole, be eating sausages, chicken breasts, whatever it might be.
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 And someone would say something like, what's the best thing about having a vegetarian around for dinner?
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And then the other person would go, more meat for all of us.
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Right.
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Yeah, exactly.
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It's just like so cringe, but that's the kind of mindset we had.
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And it wasn't that we were against people being vegetarian.
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We just thought it was a strange thing.
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So I was raised in a very much meat dominated household.
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We had meat every single day.
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I had cheese most days, eggs.
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And I really liked it as well.
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 And this kind of continued throughout most of my life until I came to university.
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And all of a sudden I was with a group of people who were vegetarians and it became very normalized for me.
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And I started to think about my relationship with animals.
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Where did you go to university?
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University of Westminster.
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So I was born in a place called York, which is Northern England.
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And then I moved to London to study when I was, when I was 18.
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So I'd gone to university kind of outside of that family dynamic, started to think a little bit more independently.
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 start to have some vegetarian friends and start to think about my relationship with animals a little bit more.
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I always considered myself to be, you know, someone who cared about animals.
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I mean, we all do because intrinsically we have this, you know, very deep compassionate side to us, which sees the other life forms that we share this planet with as being
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 I think very much kind of like a sacred relationship.
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These are beings who we share so much with and every action that we partake in influences them in the way that they live in the wildlife or indeed in our homes with the pets that we have.
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So I started to think a little bit more deeply.
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 And then in May 2014, I was reading the BBC, and I came across this story, and it really changed my life forever.
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The story is about this truck carrying around 6,500 chickens, and the truck had crashed while it was going to a slaughterhouse near the city of Manchester, which is again in northern England.
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And I was reading this story,
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 And something made me click on this story to begin with.
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And I was reading this story and I was thinking, this is a terrible thing.
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The journalist was saying that hundreds of the birds had died from the crash, hundreds more were suffering.
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That word suffering became really important to me because I recognized that the animals who I consumed had the capacity to suffer.
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It's a really strange thing to recognize because it's obvious.
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We all know that cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, even the marine life that we consume, we know that they suffer.
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 but I'd never really thought about it consciously.
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But the problem was in my fridge was a KFC and I was a huge KFC fan back when I was younger.
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I used to go to my local KFC outlet, you know, a couple of times a week.
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It was something that was very important to my identity.
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I was proud of my KFC consumption.
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I identified as being someone who did this.
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It was almost like this bi-weekly pilgrimage almost, you know, it really formed a huge part of my life.
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My girlfriend and I, we would always get KFC, watch a film.
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It was part of our relationship.
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 But I had KFC in my fridge at that time, where I was reading this story, and I remember just thinking about it and thinking, well, am I being hypocritical here?
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You know, are my actions not in alignment with my values?
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Am I in a bit of a state of cognitive dissonance where I say one thing, you know, I care about animals, I'm against animal suffering, yet for this recognition of what these chickens are enduring and the realization that they're going to a slaughterhouse, you know, where they were meant to end up is not much better, really, potentially even worse than where they were on the side of the road, of course.
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 So I went vegetarian at that point because I kind of faced this fork in the road.
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And it was, you know, maybe I could bury my head in the sand and just kind of get on with it.
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You know, pretend that I'm not uncomfortable about this, or I can accept that there's something here that has compelled me to want to make a change in my life.
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So I went vegetarian.
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And then eight months later, I became vegan.
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And now I went vegan because of a documentary called Earthlings, but really my girlfriend pushed me to do it.
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Now I'm a little bit, you know, a little bit cynical at times.
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I can be a little bit, um, I don't know what the word is.
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 a little bit stoic, you know, and maybe sometimes I don't want to accept change in my life.
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But she's, she's quite the opposite.
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She's very open-minded to things, you know, thankfully speaking.
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So she says, Ed, you know, we should watch this documentary called Earthlings.
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You know, it's about why we should be vegan.
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And I said, veganism?
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Really?
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Me?
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No, no, no.
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Vegetarians, fine.
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I can do that.
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But veganism is a bit extreme.
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You know, these people, you know, they're very forceful.
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They're a bit militant.
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They're very preachy.
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And I don't want to be one of those vegans.
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And she said, no, you should watch it.
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 So I put it off and put it off and put it off.
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And then one morning we woke up and you know, I'm a little bit lazy on the mornings.
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It takes me a little bit, a little bit of a while to get out of bed.
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And my girlfriend knows this very well, of course.
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So she took advantage of it.
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She gets the laptop, she puts the documentary on and she says, look, Ed, you can get out of bed or you can stay and watch the documentary.
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And I know that's a hard bargain.
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So I watched it 90 minutes later.
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Um,
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 I was, you know, kind of shell-shocked, really.
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The documentary is not pleasant.
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It isn't.
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It's objective about what happens to animals.
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It's all based in the US, but it's objective about what happens to animals in farms and slaughterhouses and other places as well, where we do the things we do to them, sadly.
0
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And I had a little pet hamster at the time called Rupert, and he was just the most adorable hamster ever.
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I'd never had pets growing up, really.
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So Rupert was kind of the first animal I spent any considerable time with.
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 he was just this adorable little, little being.
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And he loved broccoli so much.
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He just loved broccoli.
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Anytime you give him broccoli, he'd be so happy, but he never liked kale.
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SPEAKER_07
You know, he didn't like kale, which I can kind of relate to, to be fair, but he loved broccoli and didn't like kale.
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So I recognized he had likes and dislikes.
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So after the film had finished and I was, you know, I was very upset, very shaken.
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I got Rupert out and had him in my hands.
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I'm looking at him and I give him some broccoli because he loves broccoli.
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Right.
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 I give him some broccoli and I'm watching him eat and he's got his little paws and he's just so cute and I'm thinking wow you know Rupert this small tiny animal
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 has so much about him that I really admire.
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His likes, his dislikes, his personality.
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You know, things that make him unique.
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You know, hamsters love running on wheels.
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Well, not Rupert the hamster.
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Rupert the hamster hated running on his wheel.
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He'd got no exercise.
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You know, his cardiovascular health must have been dreadful.
0
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You know, and I got him a ball to run around the apartment and, you know, the see-through balls that they can run around in.
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And he wouldn't use it.
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He would just sit there.
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He just liked being around us.
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He'd sit on the sofa with us.
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And so there was things that made him unique.
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And I thought, well, if Rupert has so much individuality about him,
0
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 Well, what about all the chickens and pigs and cows and even salmon and tuna?
0
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What about all of these other animals?
0
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And even as a vegetarian, I was abstaining from a huge part of the problem, but there was still all the other aspects, the dairy, the eggs and the, you know, the clothing, the leather, the wool, the things I didn't really think about even as a vegetarian.
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I thought, what about all these animals who
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 through these processes, who are individuals of likes and dislikes, who can feel, who can, you know, suffer and also experience pleasure and happiness as well.
0
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You know, animals experience, you know, positive emotions, not just negative emotions, as of course we do.
0
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What makes them different to Ruperts?
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And I couldn't come to think of a justification for continuing.
0
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So yeah, I went vegan and that was that.
0
SPEAKER_06
Wow.
0
SPEAKER_06
And your girlfriend at the time was already vegan.
0
SPEAKER_07
 we went vegan together, but she was making changes before I was, you know, she was thinking proactively.
0
SPEAKER_07
She was, you know, we had almond milk and soy milk in the fridge and we'd made small steps because she had been influencing me to do so.
0
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Um, and she, she knew that if I sat down and watch this documentary, that would be it.
0
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And I knew it as well, which is why I turned a blind eye.
0
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And I think that's another thing that often happens is
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 There's something called the ostrich effect, which is kind of like a cognitive bias.
0
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So basically when we are confronted with information that makes us feel uncomfortable, when there's the prospect of something that might challenge us in a way that we perceive to be inconvenient, we can just turn a blind eye to it.
0
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And I think what we do to animals is a great example of this.
0
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 I think we've all had a moment where we've maybe seen something shared online, or we've had a conversation with a friend who's maybe vegan, or we've just looked at a piece of meat on our dinner plate and just fought for a moment, just had something pass through our minds.
0
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 in that moment, we can kind of do two things, you know, acknowledge it or turn a blind eye.
0
SPEAKER_07
And we often turn a blind eye because it's easier and more comfortable to do so.
0
SPEAKER_07
And that's what I was doing.
0
SPEAKER_07
You know, I knew, I knew what happened deep down.
0
SPEAKER_07
I knew there was something about it that made me feel uncomfortable, but I ignored it for so long.
0
SPEAKER_07
And she was confronting that a little bit earlier than I was.
0
SPEAKER_07
And thankfully pushed me to confront it as well, because
0
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 you know, through that confrontation of our values, we can strive to be more in alignment with who we truly are as individuals.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I think that's a powerful thing that I've realized about being vegan is it's just, it's pushed me to reevaluate my place, you know, my relationship with others, how I interact with humans as well as animals, just, you know, how my actions impact the world around me and how we are vessels who can create, you know, a more positive world or a more negative world.
0
SPEAKER_07
 sometimes we feel disempowered in life, you know, especially with some of the geopolitical things that go on, we can feel very disempowered.
0
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But for me, one of the greatest things about veganism is the empowerment, empowerment to know that we can make a difference every day, you know, positive difference.
0
SPEAKER_07
And she encouraged me to, to learn that early on.
0
SPEAKER_06
I love that.
0
SPEAKER_06
Our journeys got some similarities to it.
0
SPEAKER_06
So when I, I grew up eating meat as well.
0
SPEAKER_06
And similar to you, like going to McDonald's was like our birthday.
0
SPEAKER_07
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_06
 Like, experience.
0
SPEAKER_06
Like, I used to love going to McDonald's for my birthday.
0
SPEAKER_06
And I remember when I was around, probably around 15 years old, and I used to walk past the butchers every day on my way to school and on my way back from school at a bus stop.
0
SPEAKER_06
And I would walk past these butchers, I can see the street where I grew up right now on Green Lanes, and they would hang a lot of the animals in the window.
0
SPEAKER_06
 And I never ate a chicken that looked like that.
0
SPEAKER_06
To me, a chicken looked like this perfect crispy round burger, right?
0
SPEAKER_06
That's what chicken looked like to me.
0
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And I ate pork sausages, but they never looked like pigs hanging.
0
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I just ate the pork sausages that you buy in the store.
0
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And so for me, when I would walk
0
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 pass that butchers every day on the way to school and on the way back from school, that's when it started to hit me where I was like, no, no, no, no, that's the same thing.
0
SPEAKER_06
Like I couldn't bear to look at a hanging pig or couldn't bear to look at a hanging chicken, but I would get really excited about eating my burger and I wouldn't make the connection when I ate the burger until that point.
0
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And so I remember deciding that I would
0
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 become vegetarian at the time.
0
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And I lasted around three months before I went back into McDonald's.
0
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Three months later, I was craving it so badly for taste.
0
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And then from that point on, I never have eaten meat since that day.
0
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And so that was around, I was 15, 16 years old.
0
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And so that's been around 18 years now.
0
SPEAKER_06
 And then it was my wife who introduced me more to plant-based and vegan.
0
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She's been vegan for like 10 years now.
0
SPEAKER_06
And so she's been vegan for a long time and she's the one who trained me and helped me shift my habits and also be a healthy vegan and not become an unhealthy vegan and all these beautiful things that she's thought about.
0
SPEAKER_06
And you see that and you sit down with students, you sit down with people from all over the world, from all walks of life and hear their
0
SPEAKER_06
 You debate them, you hear their answers, you hear their options and their opportunities.
0
SPEAKER_06
I want to go back to talking about when you made that journey and you made that shift, did you ever land up at the other side of becoming the militant version that you didn't want to be?
0
SPEAKER_07
 Oh, I have at times.
0
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And I think that's, that encouraged me to hopefully become more effective as an advocate, as someone who speaks about this issue.
0
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I remember when I'd first kind of gone vegan, I started to first kind of venture into kind of like activism, education, you know, and I was uploading some videos and I had this conversation with two South African guys in Trafalgar Square in London.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And I was asking them, you know, some questions about animals, and they were telling me that they hunted in South Africa, and they thought it was okay if it was humane.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I said, what does this word humane mean?
0
SPEAKER_07
Because we throw this, you know, this word humane around a lot when we talk about our treatment of animals.
0
SPEAKER_07
You know, and they said, well, you know, we think an example of a humane death might be some electricity and then, you know, the knife, you know.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I said, how would you like that to happen to a family member?
0
SPEAKER_07
And I was quite abrupt about it, and they were really taken aback.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And they said they were very unhappy about what I'd said.
0
SPEAKER_07
And it was the manner in which I'd said it.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I reflect a lot on that moment because their reaction to me showed that I'd actually been very ineffective in what I was trying to do.
0
SPEAKER_07
And the way that they kind of like seem very accosted by that comment and the manner, the tone of my voice, the language, my body language, which is of course so important when we're communicating how we look as opposed to, you know, as well as how we say things and what we say.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And I reflected a lot after that because I realized that I was kind of fulfilling that stereotype.
0
SPEAKER_07
Now, vegans do have a stereotype, whether, you know, for better or for worse, whether it's true or not.
0
SPEAKER_07
Some people do fulfill that stereotype, but many vegans don't, most vegans don't.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I think often we build up this caricature almost of what a vegan is, because in a way it allows us to distance ourselves from being vegan, you know?
0
SPEAKER_07
Oh, I don't want to be like them, which is exactly what I used to be like.
0
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I don't want to be like them because they're like this.
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 when actually it stops us from thinking about the arguments.
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But I realized in that moment I was kind of fulfilling that stereotype, which is everything I don't want to do.
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SPEAKER_07
And my content, I try mostly, you know, as much as I can in the situations I'm in, to try and not be that person that seems like they're taking a position that is judgmental, is looking down on someone, and is instead hopefully asking people questions in a way that encourages them to think proactively for themselves.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And so, like you said, I try very hard to have conversations with people from all across the spectrum.
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SPEAKER_07
So I have conversations with people who've never thought about these issues before, who were just casual, you know, meat, dairy and egg eaters who aren't necessarily that invested in doing so, but just do it because they always have.
0
SPEAKER_07
But I also have conversations with people on the other end of the spectrum, you know, farmers, people who are very much ingrained in these systems whose families farmed animals, you know, whose grandparents farmed animals, who are, you know, as much in these cultures and communities as we are in our own cultures and communities, you know, it forms their identities.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And I always try to take that same approach of trying to understand people's viewpoints.
0
SPEAKER_07
We live in a slightly troubling time when it comes to the disconnection and division that exists.
0
SPEAKER_07
The US is a great example, but it's not just here, let's be honest.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And veganism can have what seems to be at times an element of division to it.
0
SPEAKER_07
But ultimately, the way that I see it is that like everyone else in this world, hopefully by and large, vegans are just trying to make this world a little bit better, just trying to reduce suffering, you know, improve the environment, improve people's health.
0
SPEAKER_07
 And I think we all share that in common.
0
SPEAKER_07
So when I have a conversation with a farmer who's in that mindset, you know, I try and view it from their perspective, which is, you know, they want to see the same things I do.
0
SPEAKER_07
It's just, we've split apart because of the way that we were raised on how to get there.
0
SPEAKER_07
And so it's just about me trying to show them, well, actually the way that you've been raised, as well as creating validity in your views, doesn't actually create authenticity in the objectivity of your views.
0
SPEAKER_07
What I mean by that, it doesn't make them right.
0
SPEAKER_07
So I try and see people where they are, but encourage them to reflect.
0
SPEAKER_07
 to look beyond their views, to look beyond their culture, to look beyond their communities, to look beyond their social groups and social norms and reflect on something larger, which is, you know, how do we all achieve what we want to achieve, which is hopefully a world of more cohesion and less suffering.
0
SPEAKER_07
Humans, animals, to everyone.
0
SPEAKER_06
 And what you just said there's beautiful because that's what the human capacity of the mind is for.
0
SPEAKER_06
Like we know that animals struggle to see beyond certain barriers.
0
SPEAKER_06
And even then we see animals, you know, drag different animals off the street and do these beautiful acts of kindness.
0
SPEAKER_06
But overall as humans, we do have the broad mindedness,
0
SPEAKER_06
 and the capacity to see beyond just our territory, right?
0
SPEAKER_06
And so when I'm listening to you, I'm wondering, because I know a lot of people who saw Earthlings, who saw, what were some of the others, Game Changers?
0
SPEAKER_06
What were the other ones that were quite popular?
0
SPEAKER_07
Dominion was a popular one.
0
SPEAKER_07
Cowspiracy has been popular.
0
SPEAKER_06
Cowspiracy, that was really, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_06
So I had a lot of friends actually who saw those and they all did the same thing.
0
SPEAKER_06
They became vegan straight after watching it.
0
SPEAKER_06
 but then it wasn't sustainable for them.
0
SPEAKER_06
They didn't know how to bring it into their diet.
0
SPEAKER_06
Tell me about how you made it sustainable.
0
SPEAKER_06
How did it really work?
0
SPEAKER_06
Because it's been six years for you now.
0
SPEAKER_06
I would say it's a fairly long time since you discovered this path and know about it.
0
SPEAKER_06
How have you made it sustainable?
0
SPEAKER_06
How have you made it healthy for yourself?
0
SPEAKER_06
Because I think the biggest thing people struggle with that I know that have watched those documentaries is not that they disagree, it's that they're just like, Jay, I'm putting on weight.
0
SPEAKER_06
I'm eating fried food all the time.
0
SPEAKER_06
 I don't know how to cook with it.
0
SPEAKER_06
I don't know what I'm doing.
0
SPEAKER_06
And then six weeks later, I've had many friends go back.
0
SPEAKER_06
So walk us through how you made it sustainable.
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0
SPEAKER_07
 Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_07
I mean, it's a really good point.
0
SPEAKER_07
And just before I touch on that, I just want to just reiterate the point that you just made just previous to that, which I thought was really interesting, which is, you know, it's an important thing to recognize that humans and non-human animals are vastly different from one another as a role animal species.
0
SPEAKER_07
You know, we, as humans have capabilities and capacities that other animals in this planet don't have.
0
SPEAKER_07
 and intellect, you know, moral agency, height, you know, height and cognitive capacities.
0
SPEAKER_07
These are all things that humans hold, whichever animals don't.
0
SPEAKER_07
Not in the same ways that we do, at least.
0
SPEAKER_07
But I think with that comes a great deal of responsibility.
0
SPEAKER_07
You know, there's a quote from Spider-Man, Uncle Ben says, with great power comes great responsibility.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I think that's a great, great thing because we as humans do have power.
0
SPEAKER_07
We have so much power.
0
SPEAKER_07
 have power over each other, but we have power over the world and over animals within this world.
0
SPEAKER_07
And so when we have that situation of authority, we have kind of two choices, don't we?
0
SPEAKER_07
We can either be kind of tyrannical and abusive with our power and authority, or we can kind of be stewards and nurturers.
0
SPEAKER_07
Like parents, you know, parents have ultimate power over their children, but we see children because of the disadvantagement of their, you know,
0
SPEAKER_07
 lack of cognition, lack of agency.
0
SPEAKER_07
Parents have a responsibility to look after children.
0
SPEAKER_07
We in a society have the responsibility to look after those less privileged than us, who don't have the situations that we have, who are maybe disenfranchised or weakened within the constructs of the society that we live in.
0
SPEAKER_07
How we should live is those with power should look after those who
0
SPEAKER_07
 who don't have those same attributes that we do.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I think the relationship of animals is the same.
0
SPEAKER_07
We as humans are absolutely more dominant and can be more dominant, but that dominance doesn't give us the right to arbitrarily harm.
0
SPEAKER_07
Quite the opposite, I think, you know, to look after and nurture and, and try and create a better world, you know, not just for us.
0
SPEAKER_07
But to come back to the point you made.
0
SPEAKER_06
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_06
I'm really glad you raised that.
0
SPEAKER_06
I'm really glad you said that.
0
SPEAKER_06
Carry on.
0
SPEAKER_07
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_07
The point that you made is potentially one of the most important points.
0
SPEAKER_07
 the recognition that we want to change is really important, but then the capacity to do that is very different.
0
SPEAKER_07
So for me, when I first went vegan, I made a dreadful mistake, which is I only ate kale and quinoa, right?
0
SPEAKER_07
I thought, you know, vegans eat this type of food, therefore I have to eat this type of food.
0
SPEAKER_07
And you should eat kale and quinoa, they're two great food sources.
0
SPEAKER_07
But I was eating a lot of quinoa and kale and thinking, why don't I feel full?
0
SPEAKER_07
You know, why don't I feel satiated?
0
SPEAKER_07
And I realized that I was taking out, you know, big kind of calorie dense foods that were kind of full of protein and full of fat.
0
SPEAKER_07
And I wasn't replacing them with
0
SPEAKER_07
 necessarily good alternatives.
0
SPEAKER_07
So I was eating less calories than I should have done.
0
SPEAKER_07
So I was feeling hungrier and maybe wasn't eating enough.
0
SPEAKER_07
So I think the first thing to do is to research, really important to research because what we want as, you know, as we change into this new way of life is to make sure that we do it in a way that optimizes the longevity of that change.
0
SPEAKER_07
As you say, people do it for a little bit and then they go back because it's more comfortable, more convenient, or maybe, you know, they don't feel like they're eating enough and they're not full enough.
0
SPEAKER_07
And so they think, well, this vegan thing doesn't work for me.
0
SPEAKER_07
 So what we have to do is do a little bit of research.
0
SPEAKER_07
So I always say to people, recognize why you want to make the change.
0
SPEAKER_07
Then sit down and look at, okay, protein sources.
0
SPEAKER_07
Really easy.
0
SPEAKER_07
It's really easy when you look at it, but it's, it feels like it's a big thing when you're, before you're vegan.
0
SPEAKER_07
So look at protein sources.
0
SPEAKER_07
How do I get protein?
0
SPEAKER_07
Look at iron, especially if you're a young woman, how do you get your iron?
0
SPEAKER_07
Really important.
0
SPEAKER_07
Zinc, you know, omega-3, just do a little bit of research and look into how you can do it.
0
SPEAKER_07
And then also don't be afraid to experiment.