UnchainedTV: What is the state of the global vegan scene in food & fashion?

0:02 Oh, we are in the midst of a revolution or is it an evolution? As many, many people go out of their way to try to convince the world we don't need to kill kangaroos for shoes. We don't need to kill chickens for chicken wings. These are made from cauliflower and they're delicious. And we're gonna talk to the chef. We don't need to kill cows to make burgers. These are quinoa burgers with a perfect protein in them. So how are we doing? How are we convincing 8.1 billion humans that the ways of old not working for us now?

0:43 We've got two incredible authors with us today. Jonathan Ohan of Fake Movement and Healthy Voyagers. Carolyn Scott Hamilton. They are amazing. I'm gonna start with Carolyn. Carolyn, you do everything you can to convince the public that you don't need to kill animals to have a fabulous, fabulous dish. How are we doing? How are we doing? Great, great. How are you? How are we doing as a movement to wake people up? I think I've been vegan for 26 years now and I am shocked and excited at how far we've come.

1:29 26 years ago, people would look at me and say, oh my gosh, that's gotta be so hard. No one had heard of it. It was just kind of starting grassroots. And now the fact that I hear vegan, plant-based everywhere around the world, it's, I think we're doing really well. We still have quite a bit of a ways to go, but I've seen it just go leaps and bounds ahead further than I ever expected it to go, especially in this short amount of time. Well, I love the fact that you are positive about this because there are so many people who are saying right now we're under attack. We've got nasty articles being written about vegans and veganism and there's sort of a campaign being waged against veganism probably because we are successful.

2:21 So I wanna bring in Jonathan Ohayon in. He's an amazing author of this book and we're gonna get to your book too, Carolyn, but this one is just out and it's a very provocative title. The Fashion Industry Does Not Want You to Read This Book. Oh my gosh, Jonathan, tell us why the fashion industry does not want you to read your book. Because they want to keep using greenwashing with us and to keep sending us things while we don't know what it truly is. So that's why they don't want you to be educated because they know that this is the power. The power is education. And yeah, I love to say we're all superhero.

3:03 Our superpower is choice and the responsibility we have is education. That's how we will be able to make those choices. So that's why they don't want you to read this book. What are some of the things in the book that are alarming? Oh, there's over 70 questions. Each question could be a whole book on his own. So there's so many problem. I talk about the way we treat humans, the way we treat, of course, animals, the way we treat our environment. So it will be very hard to just pick one, but yeah, there's so many different example of the thing they don't want you to read. Well, I think this is a fascinating book.

3:45 And one thing I really love about it is that, people go, oh, Amazon. Well, you are only printing out books after they are ordered. So there is no waste of like printing 20, 30, 40,000 books. I hope it sells 40,000, but if it doesn't, there's no trees that are gonna be killed and it's also available on Kindle. So why did you choose that? And to me, it's obvious, but maybe people don't understand because what it means is that no tree has to be cut down if somebody doesn't buy that book. Exactly. A lot of people ask me, so how many did you print? And I print zero because that's the beauty of it. So you upload your book on Amazon and basically it's print on demand.

4:29 So once someone place an order, they will print the book and then they will ship it. So yeah, this is why I choose this system. Love it. So Carolyn, you have a new series on Unchained TV. We are so delighted to have you on Unchained TV. We're thrilled. It's dozens and dozens of recipes. You've got all the favourite foods, the burgers, the wings, the enchiladas. And you did that on purpose, right? Because people generally say I could never give up, blah, blah and you're saying they don't have to give that up.

5:12 That's true. And that's been my mission ever since I started Healthy Voyager. I started my travel show in 2006 before social media even started. And in that, having been a chef, I thought, you know what? Let me start taking all these traditional foods that I'm trying all over the world and veganize them so that people who either travelled and didn't get to try that food or grew up eating some sort of traditional food, missed having that food, could enjoy it in their own homes and not have to sacrifice flavour. So I launched two, well now three cookbooks and the cooking show. And I feel like I've helped kind of push the movement forward to prove that vegan food is delicious, that eating ethnic international foods is easy to do in your own home, vegan style.

6:03 So I'm really excited that you guys are airing my show on Unchained. Yeah, and your book is called Global Kitchen, 150 Plant-Based Recipes from Around the World. Oh my gosh, just even thinking of 150 plant-based recipes is enough to blow my mind. I really have to ask you, how did you become this chef extraordinaire? I started kind of teaching myself on my own in the early days and then I went to culinary school and then I just kind of mixed everything I grew up with as a kid, I'm Colombian and French. So everything I learned from my grandmas, I always loved being in the kitchen mixed with traditional culinary training.

6:46 I just love veganizing. And that actually is the original book. I released the 10th anniversary edition and now it has 175 recipes. So this is the one that's available on Amazon now. The previous one is now, I think out of print. So this is the one you wanna look for. It's the same book, just updated and with more recipes. All right, well, we've already got a caller to question you about our question. Our greater question is, how are we doing when it comes to convincing the world that we don't need to kill animals for a purse, a jacket, shoes, chicken wings, or a burger? Neelofar in Dallas, Texas, your question or thought.

7:27 Hi, this question is for Jonathan Ohayoun because you're from Belgium. If we assume that Western Europe is walking on the frontiers of veganism, are you guys considerably ahead of the US in terms of the vegan scene? Western Europe has a population of about 200 million US. We are at a population of 335 million. If let's say we give the United States one star as far as the veganism scene, how many stars would you give to Europe?

8:07 Thank you. Go ahead, Jonathan. I'm not sure I understood right the questions. So you're saying that- Let me just say this. I understood the question. United States is often behind Europe. We're behind when it comes to environmental protections, cruelty-free, cosmetics, all sorts of things. When it comes to the vegan movement in general, how far is Europe ahead of the United States? Yeah, it's funny because I see it a little differently. I actually think that the US is a little forward. We have so many vegan options, way more than in France from my perspectives.

8:49 I think it's a fight. It depends what we talk about. If we talk about food, I think the US is way above the French. When you go to a restaurant or somewhere and you ask for vegan options, people know what you talk about. In France, they don't understand as much as in the US. That's my perspective. Regarding textile, yeah, there's more law in France, but the US is about the same. That's why people produce overseas. It's because, yeah, I think it's about the same. I wouldn't say that one is better than the other. Well, I will say this.

9:30 Here in the United States, we have more protests. Now, there are a lot of protests in England. I'll give you that. And in fact, we profiled a group called Animal Rising, which does incredible protests. But we kind of take the cake for protests about fashion. I want to show you one or two that are pretty darn interesting. This one just happened a couple of days ago in New York City against Adidas for using kangaroo leather on shoes. Kangaroos are not shoes! Kangaroos are not shoes! Adidas. Stop killing kangaroos to make soccer cleats.

10:10 Stop the torture, stop the pain. Adidas football is not good. Kangaroos are not shoes! So here they go. They may be trying to go into the store. Let's see, maybe some of them will get in. This is called a disruption when they go inside. Adidas football is not good. Kangaroos are not shoes. Stop the torture, stop the pain. Stop the torture. It's clear, kangaroos are not shoes. That's the message. We're the largest slaughter of land-based mammals in the entire world of kangaroos. One million kangaroos are gunned down in the dark of night and Adidas hunters steal their skin to make soccer shoes. Kangaroos are not shoes. If Nike, Puma, and New Balance can make the switch in 2023 for kangaroo skin to cruelty-free material, then so can Adidas.

10:54 Kangaroos are not shoes. Stop the torture. There you go, a very intense protest. And I know that the head of Adidas has responded and said, we're not gonna respond to protests, but I have a feeling that that's primarily what these companies respond to is pressure campaigns. And by the way, Adidas is invited on any time. Thanks to Danny Rukin for providing that video. So, you know, that's one side of the equation. On the other side of the equation, when I just am out on the streets and I live here in LA, I was just in Washington, DC, I was just in New York City, and I look at people's feet, it used to be that everybody was wearing leather shoes.

11:39 And now I see the vast majority of people are not wearing, in my opinion, I look at people's feet. I've done this for a while, it seems more and more people are wearing non-leather shoes as just an unintended consequence, not as a political statement, Jonathan. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And that's what we need to do. We need to shift our mindset and stop to putting leather on a pedestal. Leather is horrible and we need alternatives. You can use amazing shoes made of organic cotton, organic hemp, and yeah, we don't need leather. And I find it funny how people, I mean, funny, it's not funny, but how people get offended and they get disgusted when we talk about kangaroo leather or dog leather, because it is something, it exists.

12:27 And what about cow leather? What is the difference between a kangaroo and a cow? They are both beings. And yeah, I'm happy that this helps people to make the connection. But yeah, the next step is to make people realise that there's no difference between a kangaroo and a cow. Absolutely. We've got more callers lining up. Let's go to our callers. Lindsay in Tarzana, California, your question or thought for our fabulous panel. We've got Jonathan Ohio, author of the new book, The Fashion Industry Does Not Want You to Read This Book. And Carol Scott Hamilton, author of Healthy Voyager's Global Kitchen, a new edition just out, as well as a fabulous series on Unchained TV.

13:12 What's your question? Question is more of a comment. I'm actually on the road, so hopefully you can hear me and I can hear you. I just wanted to say regarding the book about eating during travel, being able to have vegan food while travelling, I think that's an amazing, necessary thing for myself and many other vegans. I did have a question actually. Nike kind of caved very quickly, thankfully to the pressure campaign. Why do you think Adidas is resisting since you are an expert, you both are experts? I'd like to get your opinion on that.

13:54 Jonathan. Thank you. Hey, I'm sorry it gets a little bit. What is the reason why Adidas is not responding the way Nike, Puma, and New Balance responded by stopping the kangaroo leather? Oh, I have no idea. Maybe we're not loud enough. It's, let's say, I think the problem is the educators are not educated. They keep buying goods that they probably don't know. It's kangaroo leather, because when you take the label, it doesn't say kangaroo leather. It say either genuine leather or okay leather. They might think it's a type of leather, but most of people, if we go on the street and we ask them, would you wear kangaroo leather?

14:41 Most of them will say, oh no, this is horrible. I wouldn't. So yeah, again, I think it's the lack of education. We need to educate people and then people, meaning the consumers, are the one who will make this shift. Yes, very, very interesting. My theory is that they feel like they can get away with it. These companies, in my opinion, they only respond when it's, it's like a mathematical calculation. If it's costing them more in terms of their brand, in terms of their global image, in terms of dollars and cents to keep the kangaroo leather on because of all these protests, that's the ultimate reason when they will take it off.

15:27 It's not like they're gonna have a change of heart or suddenly care about kangaroos. That's my humble opinion. I invite Adidas on anytime. And I also think when it gets personal, before any of these campaigns happen, organisations, including members of parliament from Australia have written letters politely urging these companies to stop, in this case, the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife in the world. And so it's not like people just wake up and start charging into stores. There's a whole thing that has happened prior to that where people are begging and pleading with people, these executives, to stop for environmental reasons.

16:15 I mean, we have reduced wildlife biomass to 4% of total mammal biomass on this planet while increasing livestock biomass to 62%. And if you think about that, what that means is that most animals, most living beings on this planet were born to be paged, tortured, and killed at a very young age. And there is something profoundly, morally, environmentally, and spiritually wrong with that fact. And we wonder why our lives are in such turmoil, our world is in such turmoil.

16:57 I mean, my God. So it's not like people haven't asked nicely. They ask nicely, it just doesn't work. So I wanna get back to the other side of this equation. Fashion is very controversial right now, but so is food. And it doesn't have to be that way. Carolyn, I wanna play a video of one of your many, many cooking segments. And they offer a way to have all this comfort food that people say they can't live without, a healthier version with better ingredients that have better qualities, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, perfect proteins, all the amino acids.

17:42 It's a win-win-win. Hi guys, it's me, Carolyn Scott-Hamilton, and welcome to another episode of the Healthy Voyager's Global Kitchen. It's summer grillin' season, and we're making a buffalo black bean quinoa burger. Good general hot sauce for all sorts of things. All right, so we'll flip these guys over one more time just to seal in the flavour of this hot sauce on those. Yeah, grill it. Yeah, those are gonna, like the fun thing about using quinoa too when you're making a burger is that it gets crispy too and crunchy.

18:24 Wow, look at that. Look at that, big mouth burger. Huge. That's good stuff. Now, okay, we'll see. The bread is really big here. All right. All right, you first. Mm, mm, really good. It's pretty good, huh? Yeah, I'm not kidding. I mean, you know, I mean, I'm not a vegan eater. Yeah. And this is really good. The spice is great, by the way. All right, Carolyn, here he is. He's not a vegan eater, but he loves the vegan food. What's your takeaway on that? Because the burger, I chose that because it's the ultimate. It's really the ultimate battleground when it comes to food is the burger.

19:05 Yeah, I think that's a good gateway into the non-vegans, right? That and some kind of pasta dish. And I get that a lot, and I've been getting that for years. A majority of my followers aren't even vegan. And I love that I get comments all the time. Oh, wow, I never would have known this was vegan. Oh, I didn't know vegan could taste so delicious. I think, you know, there's still such a weird myth of like, you know, 70s health food, you know, of like dry, tasteless, nothing food. And we've come such a long way, not just with, you know, inventing cool alternatives or recipes, but all the alternatives that exist now for vegan meats, vegan cheeses, which is the one I get the most.

19:53 Oh, I could never give up cheese. I'm like, you can. And now it's so easy. You know, back when I started, there was no such thing. I think we had Tofurella, which was terrible. And I thought to myself, well, I'll just have to give up cheese and make some kind of funky sauces, right? But now we have come so far and the amount of vegan cheeses and alternatives are just mind blowing. And this is worldwide. And it's funny that you guys were talking about in Europe. When I'm in Europe, the amount of vegan options at restaurants, as well as in the markets are just astounding. I'm so excited to see the constant growth in that space.

20:36 I agree. It's funny because Jonathan, you're from France and I haven't been to France for a while. And when I was there years ago, I think it was like 2012, there were no vegan options that I could find. But I've heard that that's changed. Now, when I went to Berlin and on Unshamed TV, we have an entire mini doc on vegan Berlin. It was so vegan that I actually had to stop videotaping because we couldn't get a couple of blocks. The same thing for London. So it really depends just like in the United States, there's Texas and then there's LA. It depends on where you are in Europe. We've got another caller, Paige from Los Angeles, your question or thought for our fabulous panel.

21:23 Paige. Hello. Yes, Paige, your question or thought. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yes, great. Hi, thank you. I know we were talking about food and cheese here, but I wanted to circle back to Jonathan's book, which I have in my hand. Incredible. And one thing I've noticed is there's so much conversation about the greenwashing, right? As well as vintage, retro, transparent, zero waste, all these terms, these buzzwords and terms, it kind of gets confusing. Where do you shop? How do you shop? And then also, I know I brought this up when we were in person, wool. A lot of people come up to me at the LA Fashion, the LA Fur Vigils that we hold, with the signs that say, I am not wool, which are the sheep.

22:12 Can you please advise us the best way to answer that question of, is it wool ethical? Great question. Jonathan. Yeah, it's not ethical at all, especially nowadays. Basically before, the wool were having their hair growing during the winter to protect from the cold. And when the summer arrived, the wool will naturally fall, which is normal. But now they genetically choose them to breed them into this kind of sheep that have wool that keep growing and never stop growing.

22:54 And so like that, they can produce more. The way they shred them is horrible. You can Google it, you will see there's so many horrible videos about this, because they don't get paid per sheep, but they get paid per hour, but per sheep. So the more sheep they can have, the more wool they can have per day, the more they're gonna make money. So that's why they go super fast. The sheep are very scared. But that's not only that, it's their entire life that is suffering. They have to do a nose sling, which is basically cutting a piece of the tail so they don't get infected. They do it without anaesthesia.

23:35 And one of the worst thing I ever watched is what they call the dipping. So there's a cage where you can have maybe 10 sheep. They're gonna put 15 to 20 sheep inside. So they are compacting this cage. And this cage will slow being totally submerged in a pool of pesticides. And this is to kill all the flea and all the little insects that can be on them. And they are inside this pool, completely submerged for like 10, 20 seconds, and then it goes up slowly. So it's a lot of horrible practises like that that they have. And yeah, definitely wool is horrible, especially you have so many alternatives. You have organic cotton. You're asking where you can find those.

24:17 There's many places online. There's a marketplace that actually I'm gonna start helping them to develop in US called Shop Like Give Them. Yeah, on fakemovement as well, fakemovement.com. But yeah, the marketplace shop like you give them, you have, I think, hundreds of brands already inside from Europe, US, from everywhere. So yeah, you can find solution easily online. All right, wonderful. We're gonna go to our next caller, Tiffany in Los Angeles. Your question or thought for our fabulous panel. Where are we when it comes to the vegan movement in food and fashion? Thank you, Jane, for taking my call.

24:59 And Carolyn, it looks like lunchtime and you're showing these beautiful burgers. And Jonathan, I'm excited to order both of your books. And I was wondering how, all right, do you have a background in fashion or what was your inspiration for this book? Was there an incident or something that happened? Yeah, so all my life I was into fashion. Both my grandfather and grandmother were tailor. They had their own store. They even used to sell fur. They were teaching me how to recognise real fur from fake fur. They even had fur made of cats, like crazy, but it was like very long time ago.

25:42 And also since I'm a kid, I'm working with my dad on the street market, selling bags, selling gloves. So I've always been around this entrepreneur fashion life. And recently, I mean, recently, 10 years ago, when I became vegan, with me, my dad and my brother, we built a brand called Arsayo. It's a backpack brand and we try to always make it as sustainable as possible. It was vegan already, but we wanted to be more and more ethical every time. So we tried new alternatives and I created the fake movement, which stands for fashion for animal kingdom and environment out of necessity because I couldn't find places where I could probably showcase the backpack that we created.

26:33 And yeah, that's how everything started. I create ethical fashion pop-ups. Then we had a vegan fashion museum. We had fashion show all over the world in Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Paris. And yeah, that's how I realised that the biggest gap in the fashion industry was education. And I realised I have to write this book. I did it out of necessity. I never see myself as an author. It was just that we need a book like that. So that's how I did it. And can you get the, people wanna know where can they get the backpack? Can they get it? It's a cork backpack because I have it and it's fabulous. Can they get it on savemovement.com, fakemovement .com?

27:16 Yes, you can find it there or directly on the website, arsayo.com, A-R-S -A-Y-O. And we have different, we have a synthetic, we have cork, we have apple leather, we have different fabric. Of course, cork being for me the best as well as apple leather. But yeah, we have different style, different fabric, different pricing, so yeah. Yeah, well, I have it again, the cork. And at first when I got it, I thought, let's see how long this lasts, right? Brainwashing, conditioning, it is the sturdiest. I have thrown it around, it's gotten stomped on and the cork is just, it's immutable. And it's a beautiful bag, keeps the colour, keeps the shape.

27:59 It's really, really amazing. I just wanna talk a little bit about what you said, is that here we are in the 21st century. You know, we're talking about putting people on Mars. We're talking about driverless cars. We're talking about artificial intelligence. We're talking about robots that are gonna replace humans. And yet somehow we still can't get our head around the idea that, hey, you don't need to kill a cow to have a frigging purse. And this was New York Fashion Week and Anna Wintour and all sorts of fashionistas were there as animal activists took over the runway and they paraded proudly until they were tackled.

28:39 You'll see that in a second, but their message is, leather kills. Coach, leather kills. We invite coach on anytime. But you know, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that, hey, if you're gonna have a product with leather, an animal died. And yet it seems like while we embrace all the modern conveniences, you know, and I'm asking things on chat GPT now, you know, whip up a recipe. There she is getting tackled. The amazing activist, Jamie Logan. Yep. But it's somehow all these fashionistas and these people are taking private planes and oh my gosh, using artificial intelligence and embracing robots. They can't get their new guns around the concept that you don't have to kill a cow or a kangaroo or any of animal to have a frigging purse or shoes.

29:30 You know, I don't, you're nodding your head, Carolyn. I know you're in the food space, but what is this cognitive dissonance that doesn't wanna go away? Well, it's funny. I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend years ago. And I remember her saying, well, since they have to kill the cow for meat anyway, they may as well use the leather. I said, no, no, no, no. Those are two completely different factories. They have animals just for leather and they have animals just for meat. And it blew her mind. I said, no, it's not like none of the animal goes to waste. That's not how it works. It's totally different. She's like, oh, and I think that's the thing. I think people don't realise that it's a completely separate animal, literally, that's being used for fashion versus meat, which shouldn't be used at all.

30:22 But I think people are thinking, well, they're using them for food anyway. They may as well use their skin. I'm like, that's totally not how it works. And I think that's what it is. People just don't connect those dots. Yeah, I mean, people tell themselves fairy tales, but for what? Do they tell themselves? I mean, I'm actually astounded at the rapidity with which the artificial intelligence technology has been embraced. I mean, literally people that I think can't even figure out how to programme their television are working with artificial intelligence. No problem, no problem. Well, why is it so difficult to figure out that you can have a beautiful, sustainable purse without killing an animal?

31:09 And there's the status too. I wanna talk about that in a second, but we've got, I believe, another caller, Annie, in Sherman Oaks, your question, who thought? Annie just dropped off, I'll let you know if she calls back. Oh, she dropped off, okay. Well, I wanna get to this point, and that is status. I was recently going to the Vegan Women's Summit, and I decided to get a cup of coffee, and I normally don't shop in fancy stores at all, right? I don't really shop in stores much at all. But I went in because I was killing time, and I saw all these fashionable stores right in West Hollywood, like the hipster Ground Zero, and there's cashmere, and there's leather, and there's all these things, and I realised they're still status symbols.

31:56 Oh my God, how, you know, because vegan leather, love him or hate him, I know he's extremely controversial, and he's torturing monkeys, according to a lot of complaints with his Neuralink company, and he's invited, Elon Musk, I would love to talk to you, please come on. But he did make vegan leather fashionable in cars, and I thought that was incredible. I thought that was a huge leap for humanity that suddenly vegan leather was a status symbol. So far, a cry from when I bought a car and tried to beg people to put vegan leather in it so it didn't have real leather, and basically I got a car that wasn't very well made as a result, but you know, there seems to be a divergence.

32:48 In some areas, vegan leather and sustainable materials are becoming super hip, but yet there's still this old school kind of, I would say 19th century mentality that equates dead animals with status, Jonathan. Yeah, I think the number one mistake people make as well with leather is to see it as a by-product. Leather is not a by-product, it's what we call a co-product. So when you call it a by-product, you feel like, oh, instead of wasting this, we should use it and wear it because it's better for the environment, it's better for the planet, but it's not this at all. A by-product will be to actually, once you remove the skin, to put it directly on you, which is impossible because it's gonna rot, it's gonna smell, it's gonna be horrible.

33:37 So it has to go through a whole process. We call it tanning, is to make sure that it doesn't biodegrade anymore. We use horrible chemicals that are made to burn the hair, to bleach the colour, to make it completely flat and so it won't biodegrade. So this makes it a co-product. I love to talk about cotton, for example, to give the understanding of the difference between by-product and co-product. When you harvest cotton, you are left with the cotton seeds. If you use these cotton seeds and you sell it, you can sell it as a by-product. But if you crunch it and you modify it to make cotton seed oil, this becomes a co-product because there's a whole production behind.

34:20 And that's what's happening with leather. It's a co-product, which means that it's a brand new product on its own. And it's one, I mean, not one of the most, it's the most horrible product for the environment. They usually produce it overseas because producing this with chromium and all these chemicals create a lot of waste water. And it's very hard to recycle this water, especially with the low you have in Europe and the US. So they produce overseas. So then they can just dump this water on the river because there's no low where they produce it. And you have kids that are playing in those river that are fishing, that are depending on those resources on this water.

35:02 And they just throw all these chemicals in this water. So people don't realise the impact that the leather has on their environment. And I think if they do, again, I go back to this, to the education. If they knew what is the impact of the leather, I don't think they will want to wear that. They will realise- Yeah, but I remember talking to this so-called environmentalist, top environmentalist when I was in New York and media. And I looked down and she had like a Birkin bag or one of those status bags. And I thought, you know what? You're playing both sides of the fence here, lady. Either you're an environmentalist or you're a status seeking, low self-esteem queen.

35:46 You gotta choose one. You can't be both. All right, we've got some more callers. Annie in Sherman Oaks, quick question or thought. Oh, hi, yes. Thank you for having this so, Jane. And oh, Jonathan, you're awesome. And Carolyn, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. The books and what you're doing, amazing, amazing. The chemicals, can you tell a little more about it? That was something that I wanted to address. You read my mind, Jonathan. People don't seem to understand that how much of this chemical is dangerous for even the people that are, they don't understand that these industries are oppressing humans as well as the animals and the environment. Everything is going in our soil, water, and air.

36:27 And we do protest urban outfitters of the kangaroos or we organise all this, H&M. I mean, they're all, it's so prominent, it's disgusting. So, you know, how- All right, thank you. Okay, we're gonna get you to answer the question, Jonathan. Yeah, it's chemicals that go into the water. And Annie's point is that if you're an environmentalist, if you care about marginalised communities, this chemical-filled water is not going into the sewers in Beverly Hills. There's no slaughterhouses in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue.

37:08 And this is what the other thing I don't get is that it's hurting the very people that a lot of the folks who use these products purport to wanna help. Yeah, I actually, in the book, I put a list of 50 chemicals, the most common used in the leather industry, but you can have- Basically, when they tan the leather, they do their own recipe. So each tanning factory have their own recipe. So you can have anywhere between 50 to 250 different chemicals. And those chemicals, of course, are horrible. The worst of them is chromium. So some people tell you, but it's okay, they use chromium-3 because chromium-3, it's actually an oligo element that is good for the humans.

37:52 But what they don't tell you is that once you go through the process and you get heated, it becomes chromium-6, which is extremely carcinogenic. In those countries, you can see they have their hands that is completely bleached. They have a problem of asthma, of many different diseases. They die very young. At 30 years old, they get disease that make them dead. There's many documentary about this. And yeah, also for us, when we wear it, there was this other documentary where this guy in the shipping, he's taking all the container to see the level of chromium in, I mean, chromium and other different chemicals in the container.

38:36 And he explained that there's not enough people to check that. So 99% of the container just come in the country. They cannot check them. So you have a lot of chromium everywhere and you wear that on you. And then this can affect you as well. And it has been proved. There's many study as well. I talk about it in the book. But yeah. I mean, you're scaring the wits out of me, but I'm not that scared because I'm not wearing leather. I'm not wearing fur. I'm not wearing cashmere. I'm not wearing silk. And guess what? Here I am, okay? I'm surviving just fine, thank you. And actually saving a heck of a lot of money. That's one thing. Being an environmentally conscious consumer means consuming less and it saves you money.

39:22 I wanna talk to you about how you also try to, Carolyn, approach people from the standpoint of tradition. Because tradition is one of the biggest excuses that people use to validate their, I would call it sometimes mediaeval choices. Let's look at another quick clip of one of your amazing recipes, now streaming on Unshade TV, and we'll get you on the other side. Hey guys, it's me, Carolyn Scott Hamilton, the Healthy Voyager. And welcome to another holiday edition of the Healthy Voyager's Global Kitchen. Today, we're making a vegan shepherd's pie. And it's perfect for this time of year because you can make it ahead of time.

40:04 You can put it in the freezer. It's nice and crispy and golden brown. The potatoes are a little bit of the sauce bubbled up. That's all right. It just makes it pretty. So we're gonna serve some up so you can see how nice it looks once you've gotten it out. And it's shepherd's pie. It's not like lasagna or anything like that. So it can be a little messy to get out, but we will do our best. But that's kind of the fun part of shepherd's pie. All right. Wow, that made me hungry. I don't think there's anything more traditional than shepherd's pie. It makes me wanna have an Irish accent. I am half Irish, so I can do that. All right. So Carolyn, what's this hang up that people have with tradition?

40:49 Actually using it as a cudgel. I'm often reminding people that the first fast food hamburger, the first cheeseburger was invented in 1920. Take it away. Yeah, I think we're just programmed and most people are programmed to believe that the way things have always been is as they should be. But if that were the case, we'd all still be living in caves. So progress is the thing here, right? We wanna move forward. We wanna learn. We wanna grow. And tradition is the excuse that people use for so many things. Being Hispanic, I would get that a lot early on in my vegan days.

41:32 Like, oh, well, what do you do being vegan with your family? I'm like, I'll cook my own stuff or I'll cook for them. And it's grown so much that my family is now vegan. My mom, my dad, a couple of cousins and their children. I actually have another cookbook that just came out. This one, it's all about Latin American vegan recipes. So it's a bunch of different Latin American countries. And you know- What's it called? Put it right in the camera. Want people to see it so they can get it. Cause this really interests me. Latin American, the healthy voyage. This is out just now. You are very prolific. I have to say, it's hard to keep up with you.

42:13 I was gonna interview you and I'm like exhausted just coming up with all the incredible achievements that you have. All the cookbooks, all the cooking episodes. You know, when you agreed to send me some episodes and I was so thrilled. And then I got like 40 of them. I'm like, wow! This woman really knows how to cook. So yeah, I don't buy the tradition argument. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. And even when it comes to, let's say, the Latin culture in general, which is so many different cultures. And that's one of my things. I'm Puerto Rican and Irish. Puerto Rican culture is so different than the Mexican culture. That's different from the Cuban culture, the Argentinian culture, on and on and on.

42:56 Different foods, et cetera. But there is a growing vegan movement within all of those countries. And I've been told Mexico City has something like 90 vegan restaurants and it's a hotbed of veganism. Absolutely, yeah. I eat so well in Mexico. Some of the best chefs in the world exist in Mexico and vegan or not, they know how to cook vegan food and really celebrate plants and just make it so beautiful. And in Colombia, where I'm from, it's become quite a big deal, especially in the bigger cities like Bogota and like Cartagena, Medellin for sure. Yeah, but all over the world, I've seen such a huge, huge movement.

43:40 So I think as time kind of trudges on, we're gonna see the excuse of tradition go by the wayside because I've veganized pretty much everything that I grew up with, foods that I loved. And in all the countries that I've been to, and I've been to 140 countries now, I have been able to enjoy their traditional foods in a vegan way. So that excuse I think is gonna die off fairly quickly, I hope. All right, we've got still more callers. This is a hot topic. Michael in Los Angeles, your question or thought?

44:21 Oh, hi everyone. Thanks so much for taking my call. Yeah, this question is for Carolyn. I was wondering, in all your travels, what do you consider to be the most vegan -friendly cities in the world? Thank you. Well, definitely Europe takes the cake. Anywhere in Germany, like Jane said earlier, Berlin is like vegan Mecca. And all over Germany, they're so progressive when it comes to vegan. A lot of Scandinavian countries, like wow, like Stockholm had amazing vegan options and gourmet, beautiful foods. France is definitely becoming vegan, like Jane said earlier as well. London, it's very easy.

45:03 And Southeast Asia, and yes, Mexico. So all over the world, it's popping up, but I think my favourite places to find great vegan food are Germany, Mexico, and Scandinavia. And Southeast Asia. Yeah, well, again, Berlin, it blew my mind. The gourmet, the five-star, the vegan supermarket, it was just so vegan. It was shocking in a good way. One more caller, Michelle in Los Angeles, your question or thought? Hi guys. Well, my question is both for Carolyn and Jonathan.

45:45 How do we reinforce that vegan food is delicious and beautiful as well as vegan fashion? I talked to Kip Anderson at the Christ Thirsty premiere, and he's wearing this gorgeous leather, non-leather jacket, and he's like, this is luxury. And I think that's the perception that we have to get across that it's compassionate and it's luxurious and it's beautiful and the food is amazing. How do we change people's perceptions? Jonathan, you wanna start? That's the $24,000 question. I think, again, I'm sorry I'm gonna repeat myself again, but I think it's all about education.

46:28 It's understanding how horrible leather industry, wool industry, silk industry, all these industry are horrible and how good it is to have vegan alternatives for the environment, for the planet, for our health, for the humans, for everyone. So I will say again, I'm sorry I repeat myself, but education is the number one. Yeah, well, education, people say education. We've got 8.1 billion human beings. So the reason I started Unchained TV, which is a 501c3 nonprofit, by the way, feel free to donate, become a monthly donor. We rely on monthly donors to sustain us, but it's because we don't have time to educate everybody one-on-one.

47:12 We're running out of time. There's only nine boundaries. And that's not me saying that, that's Sir David Attenborough, who has a documentary called Breaking Boundaries. And there's nine boundaries, once we cross them, there's no going back and our planet is gonna become unlivable. And we were already bursting through six of them. And one of them is wildlife extinction. Again, we've reduced wildlife down to just 4 % of total mammal biomass. And it's because they're killing kangaroos in Australia. It's because people leave poison traps out here where I live in LA, which I would love to see be illegal. And then, you know, it just goes right up the food chain while we're simultaneously trying to save the hawks and the owls and all these animals.

47:58 And they're dying because people wanna use poison when there are other solutions. Okay, I had mice in my apartment. I had it sealed. I brought people in who sealed the entire thing. No more mice. We didn't have to kill any mice to make that happen. And don't get me started. We've only got a couple of seconds. It's your turn, Carolyn, to answer that question. I think that the vegan movement has crossed the line of being kind of fringe to cool. Vegan restaurants, vegan fashion, vegan celebrities, I think all of this becoming the new school of what's cool is what's changing minds.

48:42 Regular restaurants, you know, mainstream restaurants, having vegan options, just the insane amount of how much I hear vegan, vegan, vegan in every aspect of my life, from food to fashion to celebrities. I think that's what needs to keep happening, proving that it's cool. And it's not just some fringe hippie thing from, you know, 30 years ago. Oh, I agree with you entirely. And, you know, one of the reasons we're doing this today is that The Guardian, which is a very, very respectable, journalistic organisation that happens to be independent. So it's not beholden to its advertisers. So it does a lot of articles that you don't see in other mainstream media that, well, look at their commercials, meat, dairy, and pharmaceuticals.

49:28 They're not gonna cover this stuff. And The Guardian reported that the meat industry has a ginormous like Pentagon slash newsroom style facility in Colorado, where they send out negative stuff about veganism and they try to make it sound unhealthy. And they try to, and this is 24 seven, 365. And they also have something called a Masters in Beef Advocacy, where they train all these social media people to go out and advocate for meat. That's one of the reasons why you're seeing nasty articles popping up where quote unquote mainstream writers are attacking veganism because look, I was in media for 38 years.

50:12 These things happen in waves, they happen in trends and people don't do the kind of fact-checking they should. For example, they talk about some vegan burgers being processed. Well, first of all, there's not all processes created equal because processed meat is officially cancer causing. According to the World Health Organisation, processed vegetables are not officially cancer causing at all, they're in fact good for you. So if you took a mango and a banana and stuck it in a smoothie machine, that would be processed. That doesn't mean it's unhealthy for you. But they're twisting, they're using terminology to try to scare people off because we are growing so fast.

50:56 So we only have a couple of minutes. I wanna get final thoughts from each of you. Yes, we've come far, but how do we get over the finish line to hit the tipping point? Because we are running out of time. Jonathan, Jonathan. Again, I say to Caroline, can you hear me? Sorry, my reception is a little bad. I'm gonna start with Caroline, you broke up a little bit. Let me start with Caroline, see if your signal gets better. Go ahead, Caroline. I've always been an advocate for leading by example. Having been vegan for so long, showing that I can travel the world, I can have fun with my friends and have a social life and do all the things that everyone else does normally as a vegan, I think has been proof positive for now almost three decades that people are starting to realise that it's not difficult and that you're not gonna lose your social life because of it.

51:55 And if we continue to be positive and showcase the best of veganism, I think that's gonna continue to push it forward. Very well said. Jonathan, we're back to you. Yeah, can you hear me? Good. Yes. Yeah, like I was saying, education, but the next step of education is then to educate others, to become an activist. And activist doesn't mean to scream at people, it's just to be active and to talk to people, to educate them, to plant seeds, to if they already have seeds, to just put some water and make sure that this grow in people's mind and yeah, help people to understand the ramification of their choice.

52:39 Well, I end with this video of the New York Fashion Week Coach Runway Show being disrupted by advocates who are trying to educate. This wasn't violent. In fact, they themselves were tackled very roughly at the very end, at least the one holding the sign, Jamie Logan. But this is what you would call nonviolent confrontation to let people know, it's like, there she gets, oh, look, there she goes, there she goes, there she goes, right? It's like, if you could just tell people, here's the reality, the killing of animals is destroying the environment.

53:23 It's terrible for the people who are forced to do the killing or the tanning. It's terrible for people who have to live next to slaughterhouses or factory farms. It's also terrible for your health when it comes to eating or wearing it. It's terrible for the environment because it's a leading cause of climate change, the deforestation, the wildlife extinction, the habitat destruction, the human world hunger, because we're feeding a huge percentage of the food that we produce, not to people who are starving, but to cows. Most people don't know the majority, the vast majority of soybeans produced is fed to farmed animals. So we tell people these facts when they don't listen, then you do the protest.

54:08 But I don't have the answer. If I had the answer to what is going to change people, I would reveal it. I think there's many, many, many answers depending on who those people are. We have to really throw all this against the wall and see what sticks. Different people are gonna respond to health. Different people will respond to the environmental issue.