Podcast Transcript
Hope
Welcome to the Hope for the Animals podcast, sponsored by United Poultry Concerns. I’m your host, Hope Bohanec. You can find all our past shows at our website, Hope for the Animals podcast.org and I’d love to hear from you. My email is Hope at UPC-online.org.
On this episode we have a fantastic interview with one of my longtime animal heroes and friends, Lauren Ornelas of the Food Empowerment Project. But first back by popular demand, we have another installment of the Glimmers of Hope segment. This is a segment where I dig into some good news for animals and share with you some positive stories from around the globe. Good things that are happening for animals that you might have missed with all that’s going on in the world. I want to thank the listeners who have sent me stories for the Glimmers of Hope segment. If you see some good news for animals, if you come across something that you think that I could use on the next Glimmers of Hope segment, please send a link my way.
So getting into some good news for animals, we’re definitely starting to see some positive effects from the pandemics and positive effects for animals because of the pandemic and in response to the pandemic. The origins of COVID-19 of course, were trafficked wildlife, trafficking wildlife for human consumption. Vietnam has made great strides to make the wildlife trade illegal in their country. The Prime Minister of Vietnam signed a new directive that bans wildlife imports and closes illegal wildlife markets. A scientific white paper was submitted to the administration by 14 prominent animal and environmental protection organizations asking for immediate action to ban wildlife trade, transport and consumption in order to address the threat they pose to public health. But in addition, animal welfare and species conservation issues as well. In Vietnam, endangered species such as cobra, turtle, pangolin, monkeys, birds, other unprotected species are consumed. This is really important legislation not only for human health, and to help prevent future pandemics but for those species whose numbers are dwindling rapidly. I want to congratulate the animal and conservation groups in Vietnam that helped to facilitate this change. There are always activists and advocates who worked very hard to make these things happen, and they never get enough recognition.
Thank you to those advocates in Vietnam. There is a similar story out of China. Pangolins are the world’s most trafficked mammal. They have also been possibly linked to the COVID-19 outbreak. Pangolins look very much like anteaters. They have these cool prehistoric looking scales all over them; they kind of look like little dragons. They’re captured in the wild mostly because of the falsely held belief in the medicinal properties of their scales. In China, their scales are believed to help cure numerous ailments, but there is no scientific basis for these claims. The scales are just keratin. It’s the same substance as our fingernails. But the demand has pushed the world’s pangolin species really to the brink of extinction. In addition to the removal of their scales, these animals are eaten. This year, in response to the pandemic, China has removed pangolins from their list of approved traditional medicines as a raw ingredient for 2020. China has also upgraded the pangolin endangered status to class one, which prohibits almost all domestic trade and use of the animals. The beloved panda is listed as a class one endangered species. So that gives you an idea of the protection afforded. So again, thank you to the groups in China who worked to help make this happen and helped to protect the pangolin.
Moving on to yet another story that again is in response to COVID-19: The Netherlands is Europe’s third largest mink fur producer. They just voted to ban mink fur farming this summer. In the beginning of the pandemic in the spring, there were a couple of mink farm workers who contracted COVID-19 from the mink, or it was extremely likely that they got it from the mink. In response, the industry killed hundreds of thousands of mink, some of them were just day old or week-old pups. This drew media attention and outrage to this already cruel and unnecessary industry. Conditions on fur farms are not all that different from those in a wet market, where COVID-19 originated. There are scared animals kept in filthy, crowded cages, many often sick and injured. The Netherlands had already phased out fox and chinchilla fur farming. Mink farming was being phased out. But the end date wasn’t until 2023. Because of the pandemic, advocates were able to successfully lobby to get an immediate ban. This is great news for mink. Thank you to those animal advocacy organizations that helped to speed the phase-out and get an immediate ban on mink farming in the Netherlands.
Moving on to some vegan stories: There is a London City Council that has banned meat for their official events. The environmental community finally seems to be recognizing veganism as a tool to fight the climate emergency. It’s really exciting to see this. We are also now seeing City Councils stepping up and banning meat at official city functions as a statement of support for a vegan diet to help curb climate change. Most recently, in July of this year, Enfield Council in London made such a pledge. They said all events held by Enfield council where catering is provided will offer only vegan or vegetarian options. In the US, the Berkeley, California City Council passed a similar ban on meat in 2018. This all sets a really great example for people to follow.
In our Glimmers of Hope stories, I know there are Costco lovers out there and I’ll admit I am not one of them. I have tried and friends of mine who love Costco have taken me shopping there with their card trying to show me the joys of vegan Costco shopping but to no avail. I am not a fan. But there is a company called Vedge, V-E-D-G-E, that is considered the vegan Costco. They are only available right now in Hawaii, but they’re very popular and the good news is that they’re expanding to the mainland. They are a vegan wholesaler that will be selling vegan products to both consumers and the food service sector like restaurants. They function like Costco in that they sell in bulk, and at accessible prices. Vedge plans to launch a website to have direct customer shipping for both consumers and businesses. They’re also going to be shipping their frozen products inside environmentally friendly and foam free packaging, which I really like; I hate getting perishables mail order. During the pandemic, I’ve been ordering bulk as well like bulk beans, but I just I’ve stopped ordering anything perishable or frozen because of all the horrible non-recyclable packaging that you get in the mail. I’m glad this company is looking into that. Vedge’s goal is to have vegan food be more accessible to everyone at lower price points and shipping directly to your door. That’s really some great news; I think it’s going to be a fantastic option for people. look forward to the arrival here of Vedge.
This next story is pandemic related, but in a different way. As of this summer, even during the pandemic, more vegan restaurants have opened their doors than closed them. In the US and in England, there have been a little over 400 restaurants that have closed their doors because of the pandemic. That’s bad news. But there have been over 500 businesses, vegan businesses that have opened. The market for vegan food is expanding and it seems to be increasing even during the pandemic. I reported in the last Glimmers of Hope segment that plant-based meats and cheese sales were up considerably over last year, but I saw recently that tofu and tempeih sales are up 88 percent over last year. That’s really great news. I love that because I love tofu. Back to the restaurants, even though we have lost so many vegan restaurants due to the pandemic, it’s good to know that there are even more that have opened their doors, so that kind of counterbalances that loss.
The next two Glimmers of Hope stories come from the oceans. Good news from our oceans. Sharks are starting to get the recognition of conservation circles that they so deserve, and Taiwan’s fishing agency is going to be imposing a ban on fishing three of the largest shark species, including mega mouth, great white, and the basking shark. The waters around Taiwan are very biologically diverse. They’re trying to preserve the sharks in that area. 60 percent of mega mouth sharks who are caught worldwide are caught in the fishing nets off of the Taiwan east coast. This is great recognition that sharks are vulnerable and an endangered species. Taiwan already has bans in place for killing whale sharks. This just adds to that growing protection. The group environment and Animal Society of Taiwan helped work to get this Taiwanese shark fishing ban, and I’m sure others that we don’t know. Congratulations to the activists who worked on this issue. This is another great win for sharks.
Our last Glimmers of Hope story is about two beluga whales, Little Gray and Little White. They were captured off the coast of Russia in 2011 and kept in a Chinese aquarium. Now they are on their way to freedom back to the ocean. The Shanghai aquarium where they were held captive was bought by a company that opposed keeping whales in captivity. That’s when their journey to freedom started to unfold. It took trucks and tugboats and airplanes and pulleys and stretchers to get these belugas from China to Iceland. I just I can’t imagine how stressful it must have been for them. They said that they did do trial runs to try to get them used to the equipment and noise. But I still just I can’t imagine how stressful that would be. Whales just should not be out of the ocean to begin with. They have been transferred to an 8-acre sanctuary in Iceland for rehabilitation. They’re getting acclimated to this new sanctuary. There’s sea life and kelp and a more natural environment there. The ultimate goal is to free them when they are ready and able to take care of themselves. I’m so happy to think of Little Gray and Little White, being so close to freedom. I want to thank the team that made this happen for them. There are over 300 beluga whales in captivity, who now have the potential to be free with the success of a Little Gray and Little White. There are good things happening for animals.
That’s it for our Glimmers of Hope segment. I think it’s really good to reflect on these wins for animals. There is so much sadness and strife in the world right now. Please know that there are good things happening. Strides are being made in the right direction. Even small steps can be significant. There are people fighting and sacrificing every day for other animals. There’s animals fighting for their freedom. So if you see some good news for animals out there, please send a link my way and I might feature that story in our next Glimmers of Hope segment.
Hope
I want to bring in our speaker now. I’m so honored to have lauren Ornelas here with us on the podcast today. lauren is the founder of Food Empowerment Project. She was the executive director for many years. lauren has been active in the animal rights movement for more than 30 years and I can personally attest to that as we did activism together back in the ‘90s. We’re both from Sonoma County, California and have stood side by side at many a protest. She is the former executive director of Viva USA, a national nonprofit. It’s a vegan advocacy organization. She also served as the campaign’s director with Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition for six years. She has achieved wins for the animals through the decades with campaigns against Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market and Pier One imports and others. She even helped halt the construction of an industrial dairy operation in California. She also has a TED talk that you should definitely check out and I will have a link to that in the show notes. So welcome to the podcast, lauren.
lauren
Thank you so much for having me. Hope. And I’m surprised you didn’t mention we got arrested together.
Hope
That’s right. We sure did. You’re welcome to tell the story if you’d like. We had many adventures back in the ‘90s. For sure.
lauren
Thanks for having me on your show.
Hope
Yeah, absolutely. It’s great to have you and great to talk to you. Why don’t we start by you just telling us your story about yourself, your activism journey? When and why did you go vegan? How did you get into activism? What’s lauren’s story?
lauren
Well, I will try to sum up lauren’s story. I actually am from Texas, I grew up in San Antonio. My parents got divorced when I was about four. When I was in elementary school, my mom told me that the chicken I was eating was a chicken. I decided I didn’t want to eat animals anymore. This is in hindsight, I realized that one of the reasons why I probably was becoming so attached to the idea of not wanting to hurt animals was the fact that, my parents got a divorce when I was young. Therefore, I pretty much was having to be taken care of by different people, being separated from my mom and my sisters. I think when I look back, of course, that that must have been my start to a realization that I didn’t want to separate families. I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s family.
I went vegetarian in elementary school. But I wasn’t able to stick with it, because my family didn’t have a lot of money. Eventually, I just had to eat what people gave us. I went back to eating animals. In high school, I decided when I was 16 that I was going to go vegetarian, and didn’t care if I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day, but I didn’t want to eat animals anymore. And by the time I was 17, this was in 1987, I got interested in animal rights. By 18 in 1988, I decided to go vegan for the animals. During this time, I had also been involved in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. My as being a very proud Chicana, being Mexican, I was also raised with an understanding of the grape boycott and what was taking place for farmworkers.
The grape boycott was started by Larry Itliong, a Filipino worker and was championed and brought to be more public by Dolores Huerta Chavez, the co-founder of the United farmworkers.
Hope
Yes, yes.
lauren
So but me being in high school at the time, I was against the war, I was against the death penalty. But so many of these issues were things that I couldn’t really do a whole lot on. So, I decided to focus all my time and energy on animal rights, because this is something I could decide in by what cosmetics I bought, what I ate, everything like that. I really just dedicated my life to the animal rights movement. I was involved with a local animal rights group and basically just asked them, what courses should I take in college, and they told me what classes to take. And that’s exactly what I took in college.
I started the first animal rights group for a high school in Texas. I had a university group and then I changed universities, partially because of animal rights reasons. When the Animal Liberation Front had done a raid on Texas Tech University, I decided to show that film at my university and got a lot of pushback from the administration there. I was not really welcomed anymore by the university that I was going to, so I moved to Austin, Texas, and started an animal rights group there when I went college.
I eventually started an animal rights group in Austin, Texas called Action for Animals, and then started working for the national animal rights organizations as well as doing grassroots activism. As you mentioned, I also was doing a group called BB USA where I did investigations of factory farms and slaughterhouses.
During this time, I was getting ready to get a lot of pushback from animal rights activists when I would talk about human rights issues. During this time, I learned about what was happening for chocolate in Western Africa. Also there was going to be a boycott against strawberries. I started to talk about these issues while running BB USA and just trying to get animal rights people to understand that there are other food justice issues going on.
I got a lot of pushback from the animal rights movement, saying that I was hurting the animals by talking about these other issues. I was at a loss as to what to do, because I felt like I didn’t want to separate these issues. I found that they’re both important. I wanted to elevate both of them. And it wasn’t until I went to speak at the World Social Forum and Caracas, Venezuela in 2006, that I really felt empowered by all the people that I was around. I went there to speak about corporate animal ag and how it impacts animals, workers, and the environment. There were so many people at this event who looked like me, who were talking about worker issues and the environment, and just everything. So, that was kind of the beginnings of Food Empowerment Project.
Hope
You mentioned in there and I do want to talk about Food Empowerment Project. We’ll get there for sure. But I know that in the past, you’ve done and you mentioned, you’ve done multiple investigations on animal farms and animal farming. What are some of the stories that that stand out to you? Is there one of the investigations that was really egregious, or something that you remember that you could tell us about?
lauren
In every investigation I did, there was something that impacted me. I did investigations from duck farms to where hens are kept for laying eggs to where hens are raised for meat, dairy farms, “veal” farms, pig farms. In all of them, I basically would pick one animal who I saw that I would decide I was doing everything for. Each one of them had their own different egregious things that took place. When I close my eyes, and I think about it, I can see it all over again. Because this is UPC, one of the ones I want to mention is the chicken farms. I investigated chicken farms in Georgia, as well as in California. In the Georgia facilities, it was a price and location where I was in there for a very short amount of time and my lungs were burning because of the ammonia in there.
Hope
Was this a chicken meat farm or eggs?
lauren
Yeah, a meat farm in California was a little bit different, because of course, they change how they are. I will admit, I took animals from some of these facilities to live out their lives without harm. In one of the investigations I did on chicken farms, I can’t remember the name of it now. They use the talking chickens for their advertising clusters, Fosters Farms.
Hope
Foster Farm.
lauren
When I walked out of that chicken farm, I collapsed. It took me a while to get up. The reason why is because the enormity of how many animals were in these facilities. My mind was just reeling. How do we get people to understand that these animals are individuals? There was shed after shed after shed of hundreds of thousands of these precious little birds.
I’ll never forget the enormous pressure I felt in my chest trying to figure out how can we change this for them. There are stories I can tell of cows and their babies moving back and forth, of pigs, I videotaped the pig dying in front of me at a pig farm in North Carolina. That stuff was hard to do. But most importantly, it was trying to get this information out to the public and knowing that for those people who are compassionate, there’s no way they could look at eating animals in the same way again.
Hope
You were doing the really important work back earlier, you know, in the decades earlier than now of getting that information that we wanted to get out there. The video, the stories, so thank you for doing that. It’s so important for people to understand and just like you said, how you just collapsed from the enormity of it.
I think people aren’t able to see firsthand like we are, those of us who have actually been in these places, they’re not able to experience that. It’s so important for you to have that video and tell those stories. Thank you for doing that work.
You founded Food Empowerment Project in 2007. What inspired you to start the project? I know you talked a little about that, but, I’d love to hear more about that interconnection with food justice issues and worker issues. This is such a wonderful intersection of social issues with the veganism and animal rights. I’d love to hear more, because it’s just such an important project.
lauren
Thanks. When I started the Food Empowerment Project, I actually had a full-time job working for an environmental justice organization. So, when I started Food Empowerment Project, I always filled to the brim with all of the worker issues that I wanted to talk about.
I had to figure out a way to narrow the focus and food seemed the right way to do it. Obviously, that included non-human animals, and something that those of us who have the privilege do several times a day: we eat. We have the opportunity to make a difference with our food choices. It brought back for me, that the idea of trying to get people to go vegan to lessen the suffering of non-human animals is absolutely critical. But in doing so, we’re therefore then encouraging people to consume more produce. Those are two things I can’t disconnect anymore. It’s impossible for me now to talk to people about going vegan and not wanting to talk about what happens to farm workers as well. Those two issues really lead one into the other. So, that was pretty easily done.
I lived in San Jose for a while in California, and I lived across the street from two liquor stores. I worked across the street from two liquor stores, and the idea of lack of access to healthy foods was just starting to come to the forefront. I realized that when we talk about veganism, again, not wanting to cause harm to non-human animals, that not everybody has that right to choose, because they are living in communities where they don’t even have that access to healthy foods.
I thought it was really important to take a look at the lack of access to healthy foods, first, because it’s an injustice that’s taking place, but second, it impacts people’s ability to go vegan. More than anything, it’s just really trying to show people the various ways that our world is connected, it’s connected in terms of who puts it on our table, and how they’re treated. The various ways in which we need to look at oppression as a singular thread, that when we look at food is kind of woven together.
Oppression and exploitation are very much part of the food system. Food Empowerment Project is really about making connections. We’re here to help inform people about what’s taking place in the food industry, but also give people tools so that they can make a difference. As a Chicana, I feel that many of the things that those of us who are black and brown and indigenous, we’ve lived through in our lives to where we can’t piece apart different things, that it’s all connected for us. When starting Food Empowerment Project, there was no way I could do any differently but keep everything and show how things are connected.
Hope
Something that I’ve learned from you and your work is that vegan talks, and when we give presentations, oh, going vegan, so easy. It’s so easy, anyone can do it. I think it’s something that we had in our toolbox that we used to always say as vegans. But it’s not that way for every community. It’s not that way for everyone. There are food deserts. There are low income people who have no access to fresh produce and to vegan alternative foods. I now have changed the way I speak about that because I’m much more aware that it’s not just so easy for everyone.
lauren
Yes, and thank you for listening, Hope. We think it for so long. We are just wanting people to go vegan and that it’s so easy, it’s so easy. I think that we never realized because I’m sure I’ve said that as well that that how we might have found it to other people who have different lived experiences that we did, who knew better and who knew that wasn’t true and that possibly eroded our credibility with them. At Food Empowerment Project we work on lack of access to healthy food or food apartheid, where black and brown and indigenous communities do not have the same access to fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as meat and dairy alternatives.
We do this work in a variety of ways. We follow environmental justice principles. We only go into communities when we’re asked to. We make an assessment of the community where we physically go in and we survey for fresh, frozen, canned fruits, and vegetables, as well as meat and dairy alternatives. We put out a report on that community and the availability of it in the higher income areas and in the lower income communities.
After we do that, we then put out focus groups. Depending on the community, we make sure that our focus groups represent the community appropriately. We had three focus groups in San Jose, and they were all conducted in Spanish. In Vallejo, California, where we’re currently working, we did seven focus groups to make sure we captured the black Filipino community members, the seniors, and we conducted one of those in Spanish. To make sure what the community is experiencing as barriers, as well as what some of the solutions might be, one of the reasons we do this work is because access to healthy food should be a right, not a privilege. In the United States, and in other black, brown, and indigenous communities, that that’s not the case.
Our work is really just trying to take a look at the project, to make sure that we help the right or wrong that’s taking place. But also it is to acknowledge that for those people who want to go vegan, it may be difficult to impossible for them to do so. And they should have a right to if they want to. And recognizing as well that the fact in these communities that this food is not available to them increases dietary diseases. We know that diets higher and fruits and vegetables are better for your health. For these communities to not have that access means that their health is going to be in a decline.
More important, it is the fact that things like dairy alternatives being not available is very problematic. Many people call those of us who can’t digest cow’s milk lactose intolerant, but at Food Empowerment Project, we call that lactose normal. First of all, how is it normal for anybody to consume cow’s milk into adulthood, or goat milk for that matter? But also that too many times the onus is put on black, brown, and indigenous people that something’s wrong with us and there’s not. Colonization is what brought milk to many of our lands, to my ancestors especially. To not have these dairy alternatives available for those of us who are lactose normal means that what is actually available as is bad for our health.
Hope
I love that term lactose normal. Absolutely. What is normal and natural about drinking another animal’s milk? We’ve always been the only animal on earth that drinks another animal’s milk and drinks milk after infancy. It’s not normal or natural. So, I love that that term lactose normal.
Food Empowerment Project has a unique campaign that exposes child slave labor in the chocolate industry. Many vegans think that chocolate that’s dairy free is cruelty free. As you have educated me on this issue, and I now buy only slave-free chocolate. On a personal level, I try my best to only have slave-free chocolate at my events like the Conscious Eating Conference. I encourage other organizers to do that as well. Please tell us about this issue. How are the children used and abused by the chocolate industry? And what can we do to help?
lauren
Thank you, Hope, for making sure that you’re eating your ethics and not buying chocolate from slavery and child labor, and making sure that the events that you organize, don’t as well because consistency is what matters.
What’s happening right now is that in different parts of the world, primarily Western Africa and Brazil, child labor and slavery are taking place for the chocolate industry. You have millions of children in Western Africa who are victims of the worst forms of child labor, including slavery, working in the cacao industry. Children as young as seven years old, holding heavy machetes trying to cut the cacao pods out of the trees, and young children who are being forced to carry 40 pound bags of cacao pods. They’re beaten if they don’t move fast enough. Some of these children are locked in overnight and they’re beaten if they try to escape, and all of this for chocolate.
Brazil is now just starting to show some of these same problems. You have slavery taking place as well, and this is not a good sign. We hope that Brazil will try to deal with this issue immediately. Hopefully, things won’t become as bad as they are in Western Africa. In 2008, there were children in Western Africa who were sold into slavery for about $10 each. This is a huge problem that’s taking place primarily because these farmers aren’t being paid what they should be by these multibillion dollar chocolate companies.
We have a list of chocolates we do and do not recommend on our website. It’s broken down into different categories. You can see why we don’t recommend particular companies. We also have free apps that people can download for their Android or their iPhone. We update this list every month, and every company has to make at least one vegan chocolate to make our list. If there’s a company that you love that is not on our list, reach out to us. We’ll be happy to contact them. If there’s a company that you love that is not recommended on our list on our app, you’re able to reach out to that company and ask them to do better.
Hope
That’s awesome. I love your app. I highly recommend it to people; I use it when shopping. If you’re in the chocolate aisle, and there’s a new brand of chocolate you’re not familiar with and you’re excited about it, then you can check it out on the list and see if it is recommended or not. I really appreciate that so much.
lauren
Thank you, thanks for using it.
Hope
Absolutely. It’s so critical to look at the broader picture here and see that it’s not only the animals suffering, that these children are suffering to. I have seen stories from your website that children were coerced with promises of bikes, toys, and things like that. After being promised these things, they are whisked away, with the child enslaver saying that, oh, we’ll get you a bike. The children are taken from their families
lauren
A lot of them are taken. A lot come from very poor families that they think they’re going to be going into work, and just being able to send them money back to their families. The parents never see their children again. Some are trafficked hundreds of miles away, to places where they do not speak the local dialect. Some enslaved children have escaped, which is how we know what’s been happening.
Hope
It’s awful. Thank you so much for doing this work and for making these connections and showing us that there are a lot of places where we can make a difference. We’re already as vegans used to avoiding products. This is just another tool in our wheelhouse that we can make a difference. I appreciate the work you do on this so much.
lauren
Thanks. I always say that as vegans, we’re kind of already equipped for this, we’re already thinking about these things. We’re already reading labels. We’re already in the best position to make a difference on all these other issues as well.
Hope
I know that Food Empowerment Project has a new effort called fight for the ocean. I love it when we get to talk about fish. They’re really the forgotten food animal. I want to hear all about this campaign and how it’s going.
lauren
It’s fairly new. We have a two-prong approach to the effort. The fight for the ocean was created in honor of Dr. Sylvia Earle. On August 30, we have people go out and do ocean cleanups. This year, due to COVID-19, it’ll look different. Our goal is to remind people that even though we’re for vegan, and we’re doing all that we can for the ocean by not consuming the creatures in her, we all have to do a little bit more because the ocean is dying. We coordinate ocean cleanups around the world where people go out and they pick up trash like any other group would do. But we’re also talking about veganism and the information cards that we hand out are also talking about not consuming animals.
Another part of the work that we’re doing is has not started yet. I will not be able to talk about that part. It’s basically just trying to get people to understand. We’ve all seen it where you have people who see animals such as dolphins or sea turtles caught up in nets, and people are pained by it. Then somebody goes in and they cut the nets and rescue them, and then everybody’s so happy about what’s just taken place. But these people still consume sea creatures, and they don’t recognize that those nets are only in those oceans because of their consumption of the creatures. What we’re going to try to do is try to bridge this gap with conservationist and veganism. We want to show people that we’re looking at vegans, and we’re saying, yes, we all must do more. Let’s go and do those ocean cleanups. We also want to look at the conservationists out there and say, thanks for doing the ocean cleanup. Thanks for doing everything you’re doing. But please don’t forget that by consuming creatures from the ocean, you are contributing to their death as well.
Hope
Yeah, absolutely. People don’t realize that all those nets are made of nylon, which is plastic. I think people think that those nets are cotton and will just biodegrade. But they’re not. They’re all made of plastic now. They just continue to float in the ocean. After a fisherman has a rip in one of his nets, he doesn’t responsibly haul it in to land. It just gets thrown into the ocean. I think they are called ghost nets.
lauren
We had one donated to us, which I cut apart to use as information to show people if they can feel it for themselves and know what it’s made out of. But we still had about 100 feet of it. So I reached out to everybody I could to find out what we can do with this net and there was nothing. You can’t burn it because it will release toxic fumes. If you bury it, it’s still plastic and not going to go anywhere. One of the suggestions that was given to us was donate it to an artist. That’s what we ended up doing, because there was no way to dispose of it in an environmentally safe way.
Hope
There’s so much of it in the ocean. The marine mammals get caught in it and they drown because they can’t surface for oxygen. It’s just horrible. You’re right. They don’t make the connection that it’s because of fish, fishing, eating fish; that all this ghost netting exists.
lauren
That’s what’s responsible for the destruction. We’re not going to ignore the fact that people shouldn’t eat fish for the fish’s sake either. We don’t want people to feel bad about the compassion that they have. It’s great that people are upset by sea turtles being caught in them. That is great. That is compassion. We just want them to take that a step further and recognize that they are unfortunately contributing to that.
Hope
I think another aspect of this that I’m sure you know about and possibly going to incorporate is that we’re eating so many fish. So, much of the ocean’s fish supply that fish that eat fish are starving. We’re taking so much of the resources away from the animals who need them for survival. We don’t need these resources for survival, but they do.
lauren
Right. You can look up the food chain too. Why are they killing seals? And sea lions sometimes? It’s because they don’t want them eating the fish.
Hope
I’d like to switch focus and talk about something that, of course, is on a lot of people’s minds right now, with the Black Lives Matter protests that happened and the subsequent national reckoning with race issues that I’m seeing all over the mainstream media right now, which is wonderful. How can vegans be better anti-oppression activists? How can we be better allies?
lauren
It’s a great question. I think that there’s a lot that vegans can do and need to do. I would start by first saying that, I’m not on a lot of social media, but my understanding is there’s a lot of push-back, and actually Food Empowerment Project has experienced this, that any time anybody talks about any other issue other than that impacts non-human animals, we are told we’re hurting the animals. We are told that it’s not as important as what’s happening to the animals. What’s happening to the animals should be the only thing that we care about.
It’s as if they’re trying to push us out of the animal rights movement, even though many of us have dedicated our lives to it. I think that vegans who are doing that need to be ignored. People need to step away from those vegans. They’re not helping anything. What they’re doing is they’re saying some vegans are more important than other vegans, that some vegans’ lived experiences are more important than others. I think that first and foremost that has to happen. This movement needs to take a stand. I think that vegans need to learn, I think they need to listen, I think that they need to amplify the voices of black, brown, and indigenous vegans and animal rights activists and organizations. What’s happening is that the animal rights movement has the reputation that it does with many of whom, I feel are our natural allies, partially because the types of campaigns that some organizations have run, but also because the only organizations that seem to get a lot of attention are those run by white people.
Hope
Ultimately, if we want to help animals, if we want everyone to go vegan, then you need to embrace everyone. You have to open your arms wide. And be able to adjust the message, and adjust your thinking and adjust your center of concern to be broader.
lauren
We can’t expect other people necessarily to widen their circle of compassion if we can’t widen our circle of compassion to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
Hope
That’s right.
lauren
I don’t mean vulnerable necessarily in that can’t speak for themselves. Black Lives Matter has proved that with all this taking place around the US right now. It means that they still don’t have the power when white people are the ones in charge and making these decisions and punishing them just for the color of their skin. I think that we need to be better. We have a long way to go.
Hope
Yes. So, do you have any specifics on what individuals can do that are doing animal rights activism or what organizations can do to be better?
lauren
I think that people need to really evaluate how they do their activism. I think we’ve talked about some of that today in terms of not saying things like it’s easy to go vegan or claiming that chocolate’s cruelty free. Those are two things.
But I think they need to take a look at their activism and how they’re doing it and if it’s incorporating the voices of black, brown, and indigenous vegan activists. I think they need to take a look at the types of campaigns and the language that they’re using. If they’re using language that’s offensive to black, brown, and indigenous people or not. They need to recognize if they’re promoting quotes from people who may be racists.
I don’t think that it’s a true evaluation about everything that they’re doing. I don’t think that it’s just about hiring black, brown, and indigenous employees. I honestly think that we need to have more animal rights and vegan organizations run by black, brown, and indigenous people. I say that very strongly because I think that there needs to be a way for a different type of activism.
I started Food Empowerment Project. We’re a vegan organization but the way we do veganism is different. We do it differently partially because of my lived experiences and just the way my life is and the way I look at things and how I see the world. We could see the same thing if we just had more black, brown, and indigenous people running their own groups.
An antivivisection campaign might look completely different if it was run by a black woman, than it would done run by another organization. I’m not saying one’s right; I’m not saying one’s wrong. I’m simply saying that there are different ways of doing things and until you allow us to have this same type of control, we’re not going to be given that opportunity to maybe do things completely differently and yet reach a different audience.
Hope
Really powerful. Thank you, lauren so much for all this. So I want to ask you, what gives you hope?
lauren
If you had asked me that a year ago I wouldn’t have known completely what to say. But right now, and the time that we’re at it’s absolutely the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s the young people. I feel like young people right now, to try to explain to people our age, Hope, about what Food Empowerment Project does, it requires an explanation. To the younger generations, they need no explanation. They already get it. I don’t even have to explain to them how these issues are connected. They get it.
So it’s absolutely what’s happening in the world today is giving me hope. It’s just scratching the surface. Absolutely. But even just taking down the statues of Confederate soldiers, of racists. Although that’s scratching the surface, we want much more than that and we deserve much more than that. To imagine myself being in Texas and seeing statues to the people who in my textbooks showed killing my people and my ancestors, was a great start. This is giving me hope. This is giving me hope that this generation is just not going take it.
I am so thankful for them. I’m standing by their side, or I’m standing behind them, or in front of them to protect them. Whatever it is that they need me to do. During the Michael Brown protests here in Santa Rosa everybody laid in the middle of the street and cars were trying to drive over the activists and as an elder, as I see myself now, I stood up and accepted it was my responsibility to maybe not be able to participate and lie down in the street but I had to make sure these cars didn’t run over these activists.
So, there’s a place for all of us in what’s happening right now and we just need to learn to listen and to watch and to support as much as we can. This change goes much further than just tearing down these statues. We tear down these systems that have never been made for many of us to succeed in this country.
Hope
Yeah. Really powerful. You said that you were holding cars back from coming toward the protesters that were lying down, so I just wanted to clarify that. So I know that some vegans might say, oh it’s just too much to think about my chocolate or the oceans or whatever, you know? I’m already doing so much for veganism or the animal issue that they are focused on. What would you say to that?
lauren
I would understand. I mean, I know that going vegan can be a tremendous change in someone’s life because it impacts every aspect of it really, because we eat, if we have the privilege, several times a day. So I get that.
I would say that in the work that we do at Food Empowerment Project, we’re not asking anybody to change necessarily what it is that they’re doing for non-human animals as much as we’re asking them to be more consistent in their ethics. In fact, what we call, eat your ethics. So, to make sure that you’re not buying chocolate that’s supporting slavery and child labor. That you’re honoring boycotts called by farm workers themselves. That you’re thinking more about your food choices in terms of how it impacts everyone. And so to look at these as opportunities, to help make the world a better place, and really just to be more consistent.
But I don’t want anybody ever thinking this is, you know, I can’t do all this and not do anything, right? That’s how we hear vegans, people who we’re trying to talk to about going vegan, that’s what they say as well. This is a way that we can show too that we’re willing to grow and we can open our minds as well to new forms of oppression and adjust our lives accordingly.
Hope
That’s great. I think once someone has been vegan, solidly vegan fora period of time and they feel secure in it, you shouldn’t stop there. That shouldn’t be the end of it. There’s so much more that we can do. Once you’re feeling secure in that, then there are so many other issues that you can incorporate in your life to do better.
We do need to wrap up soon. How can our listeners get ahold of you, and how can they help Food Empowerment Project and further your mission?
lauren
We have a website, Food is Power dot O-R-G. We also have two sites, vegan Mexican food.com which is in English and in Spanish, just like our main site. We also have vegan Filipinx food.com and that is in English and Tagalog. We’re working on vegan Lao food right now as well. And we are on social media. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. People are welcome to reach out to us. We’re always happy to have volunteers help grow our work.
Hope
Thank you so much for being with us, lauren. It was really wonderful to have you on.
lauren
Thank you so much for having me, Hope.
Hope
And thank you for listening to the Hope for the Animals Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can support this podcast by leaving a rating or review wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also support us by going to Hope for the Animals podcast.org and signing up on our E news list, or making a donation with the donation button. We appreciate your support so much. And please have hope for a better world for animals, and live vegan.
