Nov. 20, 2024
UnchainedTV: Why America's Going Plant-Based... Town by Town
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Ft. Wayne, Indiana's Vegan Restaurant Month shows how America is going vegan, town by town! Ft. Wayne, Indiana is America's 83rd largest city in terms of population. It's the heart of the heartland and a typical example of America's Midwest. And, it's leaning plant-based as evidenced by the success of its Vegan Restaurant Month celebration, which is taking place all this month, through the end of November. Heather and JR Dahman are the husband and wife team leading the charge to show city residents the joys and health benefits of plant-based living. Fittingly, they also run a company called The Herbivore Next Door. Now, let's get the skinny on how they are veganizing their friends, neighbors, restaurants and institutions by showing everyone in their community that going plant-based is no sacrifice. It's a joyous adventure towards better health, sustainability and compassion for all beings. Every city needs to copy this model. Visit: FortWayneVegan.com and https://theherbivorenextdoor.com for more.
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If you want to revolutionise your health, get
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truly joyful and jump to the next phase
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of human evolution, all it takes is one
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simple choice.
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Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
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Welcome, we have an exciting show for you
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today.
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Check out these two mischief makers.
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They have created Fort Wayne, Indiana Vegan Restaurant
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Month, and it is all the rage.
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And we're looking at this to see if
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other people can replicate this in their cities
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and towns because it has really taken off
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and exposed, that's not egg, that's not cheese,
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that's not meat, that's vegan, that's 100%
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vegan, okay?
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All of the food that we are showcasing
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today is 100% plant-based, but you've
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got banana splits, you've got breakfast, all sorts
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of delicious smoothies and milkshakes and pastries, and
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it's all completely without any animal products whatsoever.
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That means it's zero cholesterol.
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And so this husband and wife team, the
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Domins, whom you're about to meet, have really
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opened this whole new world through Vegan Restaurant
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Month in Fort Wayne.
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And so I would like to introduce you
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to these change makers in the hopes that
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they can teach us how to do the
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same thing in other cities and towns, because
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I was thinking if I was gonna do
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this in my neighbourhood, I wouldn't have a
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clue.
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So Heather Domin, tell us, how did you
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make this happen?
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Right, hi Jane, thanks so much for having
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us on.
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So this started about six years ago, we're
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in our sixth year.
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Prior to this year, it's been a week
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-long event.
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And this year, because it's grown so much
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and we've had such great feedback from our
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restaurants and our community, we decided to make
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it a month-long event.
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So it's a month-long event of vegan
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food, going out and dining at different restaurants,
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the community gathering at different places and supporting
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these businesses that are participating in Fort Wayne
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Vegan Restaurant Month.
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And look at your husband there, inviting us
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into one of the participating restaurants.
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So I wanna go to JR, your husband,
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and ask how did you get all these
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restaurants to participate and what is in it
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for them?
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That's a really good question, because it's really
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great for the vegan community, but also it's
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really, really good for the restaurants because they
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lose nothing by offering these vegan options.
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Their regular people are still gonna come in
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or whatever, but they're gaining a whole new
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market.
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And I think for a lot of them,
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they wouldn't just throw something on the menu
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because they don't know if it's gonna work
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or not.
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And so this is a great opportunity for
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them to try something out.
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And then they realise, oh my God, this
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vegan community came out in force.
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And then a lot of this stuff winds
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up staying on the menu.
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And it's really cool because I think that
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they enjoy it because they can get a
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little creative, go a little off script.
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And Heather and I, we travel a lot
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and we eat the menu at all the
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vegan restaurants we go to.
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And some of these places have come up
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with concoctions.
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Like there's this place, Three Fires, that has
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a vegan Thai pizza.
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And it has gotta be the best thing
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that I've ever had.
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It is so unique.
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I've never had it anywhere else.
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It's only here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
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And it's only there because they tried it
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out for Vegan Restaurant Month.
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And then they said, oh, it's so good.
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Let's keep it on the menu.
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Let's keep it going.
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Well, the theme of this show is every
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city and every town should have a vegan
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restaurant week.
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And I wanna know how you put this
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together.
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And in fact, you need to have a
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vegan restaurant month.
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But as you said, Heather, you started out
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with a vegan restaurant week.
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So tell people, for those who say this
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is a fantastic idea, I would love to
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do this in my community.
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Let's start with the week.
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How did you first create the vegan restaurant
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week, which has now become Vegan Restaurant Month?
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Tell us.
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Right, so what I did is I just
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went to different restaurants.
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I already had a relationship with some other
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restaurants locally because we go out to eat
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so much and they know us.
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So reaching out to them and just asking
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them, hey, would you participate?
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We have Savour Fort Wayne in town, which
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is something similar.
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It's just not vegan.
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So I just explained it's similar to Savour
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Fort Wayne, but the menu is completely vegan.
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So just reaching out to different restaurants, letting
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them know what we're doing, what we wanna
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do, and how it could benefit them.
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I think the first- How could it
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benefit them?
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A lot more business.
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Restaurants who participate have seen such an uptick
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in their business, especially during the week or
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the month that they're participating in.
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Sometimes it's a little bit too busy where
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there's like, oh, wait, hold on a second.
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That's why we extended it for a month.
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But just reaching out to them and letting
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them know, you can see increased business.
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We have a large community that's ready to
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support you.
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We just need you to create some more
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vegan options.
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So that's where it started, just reaching out
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from there.
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I created a website, I created the logos,
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and actually I've talked to other people about
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implementing these vegan weeks or vegan months into
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their own cities, because it is such an
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easy thing to do.
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If you have restaurants that are already serving
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vegan options or have options on their menu
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that are customisable, have them participate.
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The only rule to being a participating restaurant
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is to offer at least two vegan options
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on a separate menu and to post about
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it during the month.
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So we're trying to normalise these vegan options
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and normalise people having vegan options and normalise
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people going out to these restaurants to support
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these businesses that are supporting our vegan community.
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Like Mocha Lounge, that's just one of the
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participating restaurants.
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Did they see an uptick in business, in
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your opinion?
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I haven't talked to everybody yet just because
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we're right in the middle of the month.
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At the end of the month, I'll put
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out a survey and talk to the restaurants
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and find out.
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But I do know I've been seeing a
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lot of posts about people going to Mocha
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Lounge, people that didn't know that they had
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vegan options.
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They have vegan options on their menu.
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They have a chorizo burrito on their menu.
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I've never had any idea that they had
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it.
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So now people are finding out about them.
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They're posting, they're posting about all the restaurants
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they're going to.
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They're posting pictures on social media and saying,
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hey, I just went to this place and
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had this.
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They're getting groups together and going out to
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eat.
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So I know that they're all seeing an
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uptick in business just because I've seen it
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online so far.
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Go ahead.
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And when we go out to these places,
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I mean, they'll tell us right out.
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They're just like, oh my God, thank you.
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We have gotten so much more business and
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it's good for the restaurants.
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It's good for the vegan community.
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But yeah, every one of them will report
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back to us that they've had an uptick
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in the business.
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And also vegan clients are very loyal clients.
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I mean, if you keep the vegan food
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flowing, we'll keep coming to you.
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And do you see people going vegan as
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a result of this, JR?
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Well, I think that there's definitely, there's a
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couple of things that happen, I think.
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Number one, maybe you have a vegan in
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the family and then they want to take
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the rest of the family out to show
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them, here, look, you guys have been razzing
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me saying that there's no such thing as
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good vegan food.
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Come with me.
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They take them to this restaurant and the
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family tries it out.
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And I think that that changes a lot
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of minds in the families.
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But also I think then there's a lot
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of people that are going into these restaurants
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like that vegan Thai pizza that I was
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talking about before.
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They're going to these restaurants and they're handing
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them menus.
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And they're saying, I'm talking about people that
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are not vegan.
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They're going to the restaurants.
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The people are handing them the menu.
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They're saying, hey, we've got these specials for
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vegan restaurant month.
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And then they look at something like the
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vegan Thai pizza and they're like, well, that's
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interesting.
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They'll look at what it's made of.
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This is really unique.
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Let me try this.
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And generally, I don't think that they would
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normally try something like that, but it being
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presented to them.
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And I do think that a lot of
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those people leave going, hey, this vegan food,
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maybe there is some good vegan food.
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And then they, I think Heather's dad was
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the same way where he was like, well,
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if I could eat like this all the
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time, I'd go vegan in a second.
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So yeah, they have an idea of what
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the vegan food is.
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And I think this is changing minds when
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they're going out there.
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And I think also the restaurants might want
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to top each other and come up with
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something special.
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It's just not another day in the office.
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It's, hey, look at us.
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You bring a little bit of that competition.
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And I was compiling footage of the dishes
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and I was getting so hungry.
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I mean, it was like, oh my gosh,
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these dishes are absolutely incredible.
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But others might be saying, Fort Wayne, Indiana
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is going to the dogs.
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Because your dog is just loving it so
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much.
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And actually I think it creates community because
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a lot of vegans feel isolated in places
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like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it may not
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be as big of a vegan meetup group
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as New York City or LA.
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So then it creates community for them.
266
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And honestly, I would love to see this
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where I live because you mentioned family.
268
00:10:24,100 --> 00:10:27,200
One of our biggest disagreements is I'm vegan,
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my nephew's vegan, his daughter's vegan, but others
270
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in the family are not vegan.
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Where are we going to go to dinner?
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Okay, and so sometimes I'll take them all
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to a vegan restaurant where I think the
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food's great.
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But sometimes they were like, well, it can't
276
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always be you making the decision.
277
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So this is a great way.
278
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I'm not the only one having these problems.
279
00:10:49,820 --> 00:10:52,180
Everybody who's vegan has this issue with their
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family members for the most part.
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I mean, I don't want to say that,
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but that seems to be the case anyway.
283
00:10:58,940 --> 00:11:00,640
And this is a great way to overcome
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that.
285
00:11:01,100 --> 00:11:04,200
So I want to ask you, if somebody
286
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were to say in their town, okay, I
287
00:11:06,420 --> 00:11:08,820
want to do this, I'm inspired and look
288
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at these incredible dishes.
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If you're listening, you're going to have to
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take our word for it.
291
00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:16,720
It's sinfully delicious, but you have to know
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that none of this has dairy and none
293
00:11:19,340 --> 00:11:20,900
of this has any animal products.
294
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So therefore it's completely cholesterol free and absolutely
295
00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:26,320
good for you.
296
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So it's healthier for you.
297
00:11:29,340 --> 00:11:31,100
It's obviously better for the animals.
298
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It's better for the planet because animal agriculture
299
00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:35,440
is a leading cause of climate change.
300
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And it also brings in business for the
301
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restaurants and gives people who are plant-based
302
00:11:41,820 --> 00:11:46,620
an opportunity to sort of enjoy being, just
303
00:11:46,620 --> 00:11:49,280
normalise it, bring your family in.
304
00:11:49,420 --> 00:11:52,160
It doesn't have to be this three-act
305
00:11:52,160 --> 00:11:54,060
play where there's negotiations.
306
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:57,260
You know, I've had negotiations with people on
307
00:11:57,260 --> 00:11:57,980
where we're going to eat.
308
00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:00,220
And it's so silly.
309
00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:01,380
It's so unnecessary.
310
00:12:02,820 --> 00:12:05,220
So what would you say, Heather?
311
00:12:05,880 --> 00:12:07,580
Not just go to the website, which is
312
00:12:07,580 --> 00:12:07,780
great.
313
00:12:07,780 --> 00:12:09,180
We're going to put the website up, but
314
00:12:09,180 --> 00:12:10,840
what would you say to somebody who says,
315
00:12:11,100 --> 00:12:12,800
I'm going to do this in my town?
316
00:12:13,260 --> 00:12:14,740
Take them through it.
317
00:12:15,060 --> 00:12:17,500
Right, so actually I have had people reach
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00:12:17,500 --> 00:12:18,080
out to me.
319
00:12:18,500 --> 00:12:22,620
And anytime I talk to like Victoria Moran's
320
00:12:22,620 --> 00:12:24,280
Main Street Vegan Academy, I've been on there
321
00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:26,400
a couple of times because I'm a graduate
322
00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:27,000
from there.
323
00:12:27,060 --> 00:12:29,920
And I tell her students that are graduating
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00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:30,780
what I do.
325
00:12:30,860 --> 00:12:32,520
And I tell them, reach out to me.
326
00:12:33,060 --> 00:12:33,740
Let's chat.
327
00:12:33,820 --> 00:12:34,560
I will help you.
328
00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:36,140
I will give you all of the tools
329
00:12:36,140 --> 00:12:36,760
that you need.
330
00:12:36,760 --> 00:12:38,080
I will give you the logos.
331
00:12:38,640 --> 00:12:40,280
I'll help you create your website.
332
00:12:40,420 --> 00:12:42,300
Actually, I'm working on a website that I
333
00:12:42,300 --> 00:12:46,920
can post everybody's vegan weeks on.
334
00:12:47,220 --> 00:12:49,040
So that way it's not a barrier for
335
00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:49,200
them.
336
00:12:49,280 --> 00:12:50,180
Well, I don't know how to build a
337
00:12:50,180 --> 00:12:50,440
website.
338
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:51,500
I have a website for you.
339
00:12:51,540 --> 00:12:52,540
I have logos for you.
340
00:12:52,580 --> 00:12:54,820
I have everything that you need to get
341
00:12:54,820 --> 00:12:55,420
this started.
342
00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:57,380
All you have to do is step one,
343
00:12:57,460 --> 00:13:00,000
create a list of restaurants that are in
344
00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,820
your city that you think would be good
345
00:13:02,820 --> 00:13:03,700
to participate.
346
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:05,560
That's the first thing you need to do.
347
00:13:05,560 --> 00:13:08,100
Once you have your list, start reaching out
348
00:13:08,100 --> 00:13:11,640
to the owners, the managers, the decision makers
349
00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:14,020
about what you wanna do.
350
00:13:14,940 --> 00:13:18,680
And then from there, just do it.
351
00:13:18,780 --> 00:13:19,800
It's super easy.
352
00:13:20,420 --> 00:13:21,580
Reach out to me if you have any
353
00:13:21,580 --> 00:13:22,980
questions, if you need help.
354
00:13:23,420 --> 00:13:25,540
I'm always happy to help people create this.
355
00:13:25,720 --> 00:13:29,060
Actually, we're getting ready to possibly next spring
356
00:13:29,060 --> 00:13:33,320
move into Indianapolis and do Indianapolis Vegan Restaurant
357
00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:33,720
Week.
358
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:36,240
And then from there, I wanna move into
359
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:38,500
some other towns as well, unless somebody else
360
00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:39,620
starts to do it there.
361
00:13:39,940 --> 00:13:41,880
Once I create it in the town, if
362
00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:43,680
they wanna take it over, great.
363
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:47,300
I just really want to see this going
364
00:13:47,300 --> 00:13:48,880
in to more cities.
365
00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:51,040
And Jane, let's do one in Marina Del
366
00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:51,300
Ray.
367
00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:52,900
Like, let's do it.
368
00:13:53,460 --> 00:13:57,080
I would like it because I'm in the
369
00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,120
Venice area and you'd think, oh, hipsterville, right?
370
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:02,120
Everybody's vegan.
371
00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:04,380
No, there's not that many vegan restaurants here.
372
00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:06,480
We have a fabulous Planta Casino.
373
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:08,680
And by the way, you're looking at some
374
00:14:08,680 --> 00:14:10,860
of the restaurants that participated.
375
00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:12,200
And I wanna give them a big shout
376
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,800
out for participating because it does take a
377
00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:19,540
certain amount of throwing your head over the
378
00:14:19,540 --> 00:14:21,280
fence, taking a wee bit of a risk
379
00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:25,860
because anything new involves a little bit of
380
00:14:25,860 --> 00:14:26,160
a risk.
381
00:14:26,180 --> 00:14:29,040
But I just wanna applaud these restaurants for
382
00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:29,560
doing it.
383
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:32,860
And of course, the other thing that we
384
00:14:32,860 --> 00:14:36,580
could do is have testimonials from the restaurants
385
00:14:36,580 --> 00:14:39,880
that participated to encourage other restaurants in other
386
00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:40,400
towns.
387
00:14:41,660 --> 00:14:45,360
That's something, essentially what I see you doing,
388
00:14:45,500 --> 00:14:48,200
Heather and JR, is sort of creating a
389
00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:48,640
franchise.
390
00:14:49,780 --> 00:14:54,640
I was just in Las Vegas to do
391
00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:56,320
a whole half hour special, which we're gonna
392
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:58,960
put on Unchained TV about vegan restaurants in
393
00:14:58,960 --> 00:14:59,640
Las Vegas.
394
00:14:59,840 --> 00:15:04,540
On the way back, we stopped at Veganburg,
395
00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:07,120
which is a new franchise.
396
00:15:09,540 --> 00:15:11,120
It's on the way back.
397
00:15:11,260 --> 00:15:13,420
So it's almost back here, but it's not
398
00:15:13,420 --> 00:15:13,800
quite.
399
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,440
Near Victorville, Hesperia is where it was.
400
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:18,820
And it's a franchise.
401
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:20,160
It's a vegan franchise.
402
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:23,700
So it's the first in the United States.
403
00:15:24,100 --> 00:15:27,900
It's a Singapore company, Turnkey, the best food,
404
00:15:28,820 --> 00:15:31,360
the best, it's a burger place, but the
405
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:32,900
most extraordinary burgers.
406
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:37,360
And it really got me thinking about franchises.
407
00:15:37,580 --> 00:15:40,020
Like I fantasise, oh, I wish I could
408
00:15:40,020 --> 00:15:41,200
have a vegan franchise.
409
00:15:41,620 --> 00:15:42,840
That would be wonderful.
410
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,520
Of course, I'm a person who burns toast
411
00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:49,940
and can't eat with coffee and toast together
412
00:15:49,940 --> 00:15:50,740
at the same time.
413
00:15:50,740 --> 00:15:52,040
So maybe it shouldn't be for me.
414
00:15:52,260 --> 00:15:53,920
I know you can make green smoothies.
415
00:15:54,140 --> 00:15:54,700
That's true.
416
00:15:54,700 --> 00:15:58,060
But the whole concept of a franchise just
417
00:15:58,060 --> 00:15:59,220
really struck me.
418
00:15:59,620 --> 00:16:01,900
And what I see you guys doing is
419
00:16:01,900 --> 00:16:05,980
actually franchising this concept all around the United
420
00:16:05,980 --> 00:16:07,480
States so that it's Turnkey.
421
00:16:07,660 --> 00:16:10,180
So that it's not like everybody has to
422
00:16:10,180 --> 00:16:12,940
reinvent the wheel if they wanna have a
423
00:16:12,940 --> 00:16:16,120
vegan restaurant week or a vegan restaurant month
424
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:16,980
in their area.
425
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,540
Now, when you say you have a website,
426
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:21,880
do you have one like start your own
427
00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:25,440
vegan restaurant week or is it simply you're
428
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:26,520
showing an example?
429
00:16:27,380 --> 00:16:30,420
It's just my website that I use for
430
00:16:30,420 --> 00:16:33,240
our vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
431
00:16:33,460 --> 00:16:35,920
But it's something that I want to create
432
00:16:36,460 --> 00:16:40,680
that anybody can log in and use for
433
00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:41,640
theirs as well.
434
00:16:41,820 --> 00:16:43,960
Or we can somehow, I haven't quite figured
435
00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:45,480
out how I wanna do it, but it's
436
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,180
something that I've been thinking about is putting
437
00:16:47,180 --> 00:16:49,400
together a package, like you said, like a
438
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:49,780
franchise.
439
00:16:50,460 --> 00:16:52,420
So I can hand it over to somebody
440
00:16:52,420 --> 00:16:55,200
and say, or I can take my website,
441
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,360
duplicate it and give that to somebody else
442
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:00,500
so they can start off without having to
443
00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:02,840
start from scratch because I've built it in
444
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:03,420
six years.
445
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:05,380
There's no reason to start from scratch.
446
00:17:05,740 --> 00:17:07,839
I wanna make it really easy for people
447
00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:10,079
to do this in their cities.
448
00:17:10,819 --> 00:17:14,920
I mean, even down to where the letter
449
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:17,480
that you write that you send to restaurants.
450
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:18,020
Right.
451
00:17:18,740 --> 00:17:22,760
I would think cold calling a restaurant would
452
00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:23,920
be kind of scary.
453
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,700
And saying, hey, how would you like to
454
00:17:26,700 --> 00:17:27,380
do this?
455
00:17:27,980 --> 00:17:30,180
I mean, I certainly think there are some
456
00:17:30,180 --> 00:17:33,280
very meat centric restaurants in my neighbourhood that
457
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:35,600
might be like buzz off.
458
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:40,840
Although I have convinced restaurants that restaurateurs, local
459
00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:42,380
mom and pop restaurants I know in my
460
00:17:42,380 --> 00:17:44,580
area, I've convinced them to add tofu dishes.
461
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:47,720
I've convinced them to add the word vegan
462
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:48,360
options.
463
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,880
So I've done that sort of just off
464
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:55,160
the cuff over the years, being sort of
465
00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:56,300
friendly with those people.
466
00:17:56,620 --> 00:17:59,000
But how would you approach?
467
00:17:59,100 --> 00:18:00,740
When you go in there to approach these
468
00:18:00,740 --> 00:18:03,520
restaurants, what would you say in terms of,
469
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:07,440
it seems like kind of scary.
470
00:18:07,620 --> 00:18:08,620
It's like you're cold calling.
471
00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:11,340
Yeah, actually I started out with an email.
472
00:18:11,940 --> 00:18:14,620
I have an email script and I keep
473
00:18:14,620 --> 00:18:17,160
all of my emails that I send out.
474
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,340
So that way, when I put together this
475
00:18:19,340 --> 00:18:21,000
package or if somebody else wants to do
476
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,520
it, I have everything ready to go.
477
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:24,160
This is year one, this is year two,
478
00:18:24,360 --> 00:18:25,340
year three, and so on.
479
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:26,600
So I have all of those.
480
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:28,800
And I even have a phone script because
481
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:30,920
my sister has helped me out the past
482
00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:32,840
couple of years because I don't have time
483
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,200
to be contacting every restaurant and saying, hey,
484
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:36,080
did you get my email?
485
00:18:36,620 --> 00:18:37,760
This is what's going on.
486
00:18:37,860 --> 00:18:40,100
So I have a phone script as well
487
00:18:40,100 --> 00:18:42,880
that my sister uses to contact the restaurants,
488
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,160
to ask them about participating and making sure
489
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:49,180
that they receive all the information that they
490
00:18:49,180 --> 00:18:49,420
need.
491
00:18:49,420 --> 00:18:51,420
I mean, we have everything down to phone
492
00:18:51,420 --> 00:18:54,160
scripts for this to make it really easy.
493
00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:57,660
Well, I think this is also a form
494
00:18:57,660 --> 00:18:58,520
of activism.
495
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:02,140
When you think of animal activism, vegan activism,
496
00:19:02,300 --> 00:19:03,400
you think of protests.
497
00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:05,620
I'll give you an example of one that
498
00:19:05,620 --> 00:19:07,520
we were at very recently.
499
00:19:07,660 --> 00:19:09,740
Dairy and milk means stomach pain.
500
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:12,020
Starbucks coffee is to blame.
501
00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:14,320
Plant-based milk should not cause more.
502
00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:16,660
Starbucks green, we do have more.
503
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,480
The intention of this campaign is to get
504
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,420
them to finally drop the plant-based milk
505
00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:23,640
upcharge, what they have already done in the
506
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,900
United Kingdom, France, Chile, Germany, Japan, and other
507
00:19:27,900 --> 00:19:29,320
major world countries.
508
00:19:29,420 --> 00:19:30,880
They have resisted here in the US so
509
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:31,040
far.
510
00:19:31,140 --> 00:19:32,160
This is their biggest market.
511
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,400
They make over, we've estimated they make over.
512
00:19:35,740 --> 00:19:39,100
That protest and others like it were ultimately
513
00:19:39,100 --> 00:19:40,240
successful.
514
00:19:40,700 --> 00:19:44,220
Recently, Starbucks announced they are dropping the vegan
515
00:19:44,220 --> 00:19:46,380
surcharge for plant-based milks.
516
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,120
In Las Vegas, I went into a Starbucks
517
00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:51,540
for the first time in years and no
518
00:19:51,540 --> 00:19:52,180
surcharge.
519
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:53,880
And their coffee's good.
520
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:55,720
So that was a huge victory.
521
00:19:56,220 --> 00:19:58,700
But when you look at activism, the reason
522
00:19:58,700 --> 00:20:00,980
I bring that up is that you think
523
00:20:00,980 --> 00:20:03,480
of things like that, protest marches.
524
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,080
But what you're doing, and JR, maybe you
525
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,820
can address this, is also activism.
526
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,980
But it's activism without any of the controversy.
527
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:14,280
Nobody can fault you.
528
00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:16,120
Nobody can say, why are you doing this?
529
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:18,920
It's a win-win.
530
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:20,600
It's like stealth activism.
531
00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:23,160
Yeah, I mean, that's always been kind of
532
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,100
our whole idea is like finding the soft
533
00:20:26,100 --> 00:20:26,420
sell.
534
00:20:26,860 --> 00:20:30,220
Finding the soft sell, the easy way.
535
00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:32,400
I mean, it doesn't have to be a
536
00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:32,700
struggle.
537
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,040
Heather and I, I mean, we've been vegan
538
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:39,020
for 16 years and we've been really active
539
00:20:39,020 --> 00:20:40,920
in our community since the beginning.
540
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,860
Step number one, before you do any of
541
00:20:43,860 --> 00:20:45,680
this, you have to build a community, right?
542
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,560
If there's no community to go to the
543
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:49,400
restaurants, there's not gonna...
544
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,180
So step number one, 16 plus years ago,
545
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,040
Heather had to make a Facebook group, brought
546
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:56,860
people together.
547
00:20:57,120 --> 00:20:58,960
Those people kind of fed in on each
548
00:20:58,960 --> 00:20:59,160
other.
549
00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:01,080
They were saying, hey, here's some recipe ideas.
550
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,220
Here's a restaurant that has this, whatever.
551
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:04,940
They're helping each other out.
552
00:21:05,100 --> 00:21:08,640
But we're constantly out there doing tabling events
553
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:12,760
at Earth Day, explaining how the best way
554
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:14,460
to be green is to be vegan.
555
00:21:14,460 --> 00:21:17,020
We're doing circus protests.
556
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,660
We're out doing tabling events at concerts.
557
00:21:21,020 --> 00:21:23,680
Like we did tabling for Paul McCartney.
558
00:21:24,060 --> 00:21:25,860
Heather's getting ready to do one for Morrissey
559
00:21:26,500 --> 00:21:27,720
coming up here this weekend.
560
00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:31,060
So we're constantly engaged in trying to reach
561
00:21:31,060 --> 00:21:32,420
people where they live.
562
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:35,140
And so yeah, this is just kind of
563
00:21:35,140 --> 00:21:36,000
an extension of that.
564
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:37,480
But yeah, number one thing, you have to
565
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,580
kind of build a network to grow that
566
00:21:39,580 --> 00:21:39,980
out of.
567
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:45,220
So do you have, Heather, a vegan community
568
00:21:45,220 --> 00:21:46,580
in Fort Wayne?
569
00:21:46,860 --> 00:21:49,220
We have a large vegan community in Fort
570
00:21:49,220 --> 00:21:49,420
Wayne.
571
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,860
I'm very surprised how large it is and
572
00:21:53,860 --> 00:21:55,340
how much it continues to grow.
573
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:57,660
I think we have about 3000 people alone
574
00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:00,920
just on our Facebook group, which is the
575
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,140
majority of them are in the Fort Wayne
576
00:22:03,140 --> 00:22:06,260
area because I've met everybody that sends a
577
00:22:06,260 --> 00:22:07,800
join request to our group because I do
578
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,380
wanna keep it as local as possible to
579
00:22:10,380 --> 00:22:13,020
kind of fight some of the infighting that
580
00:22:13,020 --> 00:22:13,940
you have on Facebook.
581
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:16,180
And then also because I wanna keep it
582
00:22:16,180 --> 00:22:17,420
local to our community.
583
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,060
I want people to share where they're going
584
00:22:20,060 --> 00:22:23,060
out to eat locally or share things that
585
00:22:23,060 --> 00:22:25,180
they found out at our local stores.
586
00:22:25,740 --> 00:22:27,620
So we have about 3000 people and we
587
00:22:27,620 --> 00:22:31,880
grew that from zero to almost 3000.
588
00:22:32,120 --> 00:22:35,000
Of course, not everybody participates, but it's funny
589
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,440
when I go out to restaurants and people
590
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:38,820
come up to me and they say, oh,
591
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:40,880
hey, I'm in your group.
592
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,520
And I love being able to meet new
593
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:47,720
people because we have such an amazing community
594
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:52,020
and a lot of our friends are from
595
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:52,740
this group.
596
00:22:52,900 --> 00:22:54,640
And I know a lot of people in
597
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:56,500
the group, they've made a lot of friendships
598
00:22:56,500 --> 00:22:57,100
out of it.
599
00:22:57,140 --> 00:22:59,740
So it's very supportive to have.
600
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,480
And so it's surprising to have that here
601
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,620
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in such a small
602
00:23:05,620 --> 00:23:06,160
community.
603
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:08,340
And it's hugely important.
604
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,820
It's hugely important because when we went vegan
605
00:23:11,820 --> 00:23:14,060
16 years ago, we had no idea.
606
00:23:14,300 --> 00:23:15,520
What do you even eat?
607
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,880
Before it was steak, potatoes, and like corn.
608
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:22,200
And now, okay, now is it just potatoes
609
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:22,660
and corn?
610
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:26,800
So when we first went vegan, the first
611
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,520
place we had tofu was at the place
612
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:31,260
that I worked at.
613
00:23:31,340 --> 00:23:34,020
They had a little cafe and the guy
614
00:23:34,020 --> 00:23:35,960
served us a piece of tofu that was
615
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:38,080
like a gelatinous piece of wedge, like a
616
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,940
piece of pie, wobble, wobble, and put some
617
00:23:40,940 --> 00:23:42,260
barbecue sauce on it.
618
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:43,940
And we're like, oh my God, this is
619
00:23:43,940 --> 00:23:44,280
tofu.
620
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:46,920
If it was just that time, we would
621
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:48,360
have never eaten tofu again.
622
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,420
But luckily, right when we went vegan, that
623
00:23:52,420 --> 00:23:55,260
loving cafe opened up and we got to
624
00:23:55,260 --> 00:23:56,260
try tofu there.
625
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,420
But that's where this is, the whole networking
626
00:24:00,420 --> 00:24:03,860
community is great because you can share these
627
00:24:03,860 --> 00:24:06,620
things and get ideas.
628
00:24:07,620 --> 00:24:10,820
Well, I think what I'm hearing is that
629
00:24:10,820 --> 00:24:15,140
you wanna start maybe, because we have people
630
00:24:15,140 --> 00:24:17,300
watching on our streaming network, which is behind
631
00:24:17,300 --> 00:24:17,540
me.
632
00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:22,000
We have people watching and listening on social
633
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,260
media as well as various platforms.
634
00:24:26,620 --> 00:24:28,580
But some people are saying, I don't have
635
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:29,240
any vegans here.
636
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:30,520
I don't know any vegan restaurants.
637
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:33,780
They're feeling isolated, but it doesn't have to
638
00:24:33,780 --> 00:24:34,500
be that way.
639
00:24:35,220 --> 00:24:37,300
The first step I think would be to
640
00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:38,680
create the group.
641
00:24:38,900 --> 00:24:40,520
If you're in a small town or a
642
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,160
small city, and by the way, I looked
643
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,600
it up, Fort Wayne is the 83rd most
644
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:48,560
populous city in the United States.
645
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,000
Now that's not a very big city.
646
00:24:51,300 --> 00:24:53,600
It's well under half a million people.
647
00:24:54,940 --> 00:24:57,920
It's under, I think 300,000 people, but
648
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:58,840
you know what?
649
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,000
In 300,000 people, you're gonna find some
650
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:01,320
vegans.
651
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:03,840
And it's the same thing in whatever town
652
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:04,400
you're in.
653
00:25:04,860 --> 00:25:07,180
So if you feel, we can't just have
654
00:25:07,180 --> 00:25:11,040
vegans clustered in New York and Los Angeles.
655
00:25:11,500 --> 00:25:11,600
Okay?
656
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:12,100
They're everywhere.
657
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,000
And one of the first things that I
658
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:16,920
do because we do travel a lot, one
659
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:18,000
of the first things that I do is
660
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:19,960
I go on Facebook and I look for
661
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:21,860
a vegan community in the town that we're
662
00:25:21,860 --> 00:25:22,460
going to.
663
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:28,080
And I can always find a vegan community.
664
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,400
And some of them might be small, but
665
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:31,320
they're going to grow.
666
00:25:31,580 --> 00:25:34,160
If you get those clusters of vegans together,
667
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,140
they're going to grow and they're gonna let
668
00:25:36,140 --> 00:25:38,180
other people know that they're there.
669
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,080
So that's one of the first things I
670
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:40,360
do.
671
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,980
Anytime I'm going to a new city, I
672
00:25:42,980 --> 00:25:46,420
join their Facebook group so I can see
673
00:25:46,420 --> 00:25:49,420
what they have going on and get ideas
674
00:25:49,420 --> 00:25:51,320
of where we wanna go out to eat
675
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:52,800
and try new things.
676
00:25:53,060 --> 00:25:55,020
And I like meeting other vegans.
677
00:25:55,020 --> 00:25:57,460
It's a fun thing for me to do
678
00:25:57,460 --> 00:25:58,260
when we're out.
679
00:25:58,580 --> 00:26:00,620
So- Let me jump in and say,
680
00:26:00,740 --> 00:26:03,000
Harolyn Sampson is saying, I'm in a small
681
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,460
town, closer to nature, not enough vegan restaurants
682
00:26:05,460 --> 00:26:06,500
within walking distance.
683
00:26:06,780 --> 00:26:09,200
So I'm pretty much on my own.
684
00:26:09,540 --> 00:26:12,120
What advice would you give her if she
685
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:14,620
wanted to create a vegan community in her
686
00:26:14,620 --> 00:26:18,120
small town and then ultimately grow it into
687
00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:19,500
a vegan restaurant week?
688
00:26:19,660 --> 00:26:21,900
Or when we say vegan restaurant week, we
689
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:22,980
don't mean vegan restaurants.
690
00:26:23,500 --> 00:26:25,500
There may be some vegan restaurants, but what
691
00:26:25,500 --> 00:26:31,880
we're talking about is restaurants offering vegan options
692
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,100
during this week or this month.
693
00:26:34,140 --> 00:26:36,100
Yeah, I would say, Harolyn, go on Facebook
694
00:26:36,100 --> 00:26:39,780
and create a Facebook group if there isn't
695
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:40,420
already one.
696
00:26:41,420 --> 00:26:42,280
Search for it first.
697
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:43,440
And if there isn't, create it.
698
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,340
So it's My Town Vegan Group or like
699
00:26:48,340 --> 00:26:51,040
ours is Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group.
700
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:52,720
Create that.
701
00:26:53,060 --> 00:26:54,200
And you'll be surprised.
702
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,080
You may start seeing people because they're searching
703
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:57,680
for one.
704
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,640
You may start seeing people popping up.
705
00:27:01,060 --> 00:27:02,880
Or what I did, because I wanted to
706
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,840
grow it faster, I threw a few dollars
707
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,880
at it and advertised my group because I
708
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,320
wanted to find where are those vegans?
709
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,660
Like we did, we felt alone.
710
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:13,840
We didn't know how to vegan.
711
00:27:15,140 --> 00:27:17,660
So I wanted to find other people.
712
00:27:17,860 --> 00:27:19,340
And so I threw a few dollars here
713
00:27:19,340 --> 00:27:22,540
and there at the group to promote it
714
00:27:22,540 --> 00:27:24,940
on Facebook and Facebook started sharing it with
715
00:27:24,940 --> 00:27:28,020
other people who were interested in veganism around
716
00:27:28,020 --> 00:27:28,960
my city.
717
00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:32,540
And we started finding other people and then
718
00:27:32,540 --> 00:27:34,840
getting together and going out to eat together
719
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:35,960
at different restaurants.
720
00:27:36,220 --> 00:27:38,480
I would call up different restaurants and say,
721
00:27:38,580 --> 00:27:39,900
hey, we have a group coming.
722
00:27:40,120 --> 00:27:41,600
Would you make us something vegan?
723
00:27:41,700 --> 00:27:43,180
If they didn't already have anything on the
724
00:27:43,180 --> 00:27:45,660
menu, we would do vegan dinner clubs.
725
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,180
We would get together and have meetups.
726
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,520
We've done vegan restaurant clubs where we, or
727
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,720
I'm sorry, vegan cookbook clubs, where we picked
728
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,980
one vegan cookbook and everybody made a different
729
00:27:56,980 --> 00:27:59,760
dish and we got together and ate them.
730
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,800
So just kind of slowly building that community.
731
00:28:03,020 --> 00:28:04,460
And when we first started, it was me
732
00:28:04,460 --> 00:28:04,980
and my husband.
733
00:28:04,980 --> 00:28:07,440
And I think we had another couple and
734
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,520
then it grew to another person, another person.
735
00:28:10,820 --> 00:28:13,480
And now when we have get togethers, they're
736
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:14,340
pretty nice.
737
00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:17,920
Yeah, so Amy Jean Davis, who's a wonderful
738
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,460
activist here in Los Angeles says, I am
739
00:28:20,460 --> 00:28:22,080
from Northwest Indiana.
740
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,520
The vegan options slash restaurants have been progressing
741
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,220
really well in that area.
742
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,680
Talk about that because I think there is
743
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,200
a sense that people who are not vegan
744
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,900
like to portray us as some sort of
745
00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:39,960
elitist hipsters only living in Brooklyn or Venice.
746
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:41,680
And that's not the case.
747
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,320
In fact, just having come back from Las
748
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,640
Vegas where there's an extraordinary array of incredible
749
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,320
vegan restaurants, it blew my mind.
750
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,500
I started to say to myself, you know
751
00:28:54,500 --> 00:28:54,860
what?
752
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,160
Maybe what's happening is America's going vegan town
753
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:00,700
by town.
754
00:29:02,580 --> 00:29:04,920
Would you like to address that, Heather?
755
00:29:05,980 --> 00:29:11,080
Yeah, I think people are creating these little
756
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,040
pockets of veganism in their communities.
757
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,340
And when we travel, it's fun to be
758
00:29:17,340 --> 00:29:22,240
able to go out and see what communities
759
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:23,220
people are building.
760
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,000
We go to a lot of veg fests
761
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,100
with one of our jobs that we do.
762
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:29,800
And it's just kind of nice to see
763
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,240
these little pockets of veganism popping up here
764
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:32,580
and there.
765
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:34,640
And when I go to LA or when
766
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,500
I go to New York, it's fun to
767
00:29:37,500 --> 00:29:39,140
go out to all of those vegan restaurants.
768
00:29:39,260 --> 00:29:40,700
You have a lot of choices, but in
769
00:29:40,700 --> 00:29:43,980
these smaller towns, you don't have as many
770
00:29:43,980 --> 00:29:46,480
choices as you do in the bigger cities.
771
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:48,720
I mean, we're three hours from Chicago.
772
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,480
And Northwest Indiana, I'm in your Facebook group,
773
00:29:52,940 --> 00:29:53,860
so hello to you.
774
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,800
And they do, I've watched their vegan community
775
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:58,800
growing as well.
776
00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:00,580
I mean, I think- And it didn't
777
00:30:00,580 --> 00:30:01,980
just- Go ahead.
778
00:30:02,300 --> 00:30:04,200
Yeah, and it didn't just start, we didn't
779
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,200
just magically get there.
780
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,160
Yeah, at the beginning, it really was just
781
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,960
getting together and having meetups and doing potlucks
782
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,680
and getting together.
783
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,720
I mean, you got to start somewhere.
784
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,020
And I think that that was so key
785
00:30:20,020 --> 00:30:23,340
here is just those getting together, especially if
786
00:30:23,340 --> 00:30:25,600
you're from a very small town that doesn't
787
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,640
have very many restaurants at all, you really
788
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:29,600
got to lean into each other and you
789
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,240
have to share recipes and you have to
790
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:32,840
get together and you have to support each
791
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:33,140
other.
792
00:30:33,860 --> 00:30:36,260
Because yeah, you do feel isolated and especially
793
00:30:36,260 --> 00:30:39,140
anymore with the whole world and everybody kind
794
00:30:39,140 --> 00:30:40,340
of feels like they're in their own little
795
00:30:40,340 --> 00:30:40,700
corner.
796
00:30:41,100 --> 00:30:43,780
And this is where Facebook can really help
797
00:30:43,780 --> 00:30:46,940
out and that you can build that community
798
00:30:46,940 --> 00:30:47,260
there.
799
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,020
I mean, I think this is super important
800
00:30:50,020 --> 00:30:55,900
because it's a way to weave veganism across
801
00:30:55,900 --> 00:30:58,940
the United States and make an entire web.
802
00:30:59,460 --> 00:31:01,300
Look, I am a huge fan of the
803
00:31:01,300 --> 00:31:02,200
Happy Cow app.
804
00:31:02,300 --> 00:31:03,880
I urge everyone to get it.
805
00:31:04,220 --> 00:31:06,520
I have used it from Texas to Vienna
806
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:08,180
and all points in between.
807
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,840
And it shows when you, wherever you are,
808
00:31:11,060 --> 00:31:12,920
you go in and it shows you a
809
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,960
vegan restaurant closest to you or vegan restaurants.
810
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,500
It also shows you non-vegan restaurants with
811
00:31:18,500 --> 00:31:19,220
vegan options.
812
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,560
And that has been an incredibly powerful app
813
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,780
that has been a game changer.
814
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,940
I almost see this as an app that
815
00:31:29,940 --> 00:31:34,320
could be developed to connect people.
816
00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:36,840
I actually tried to start something like this
817
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:38,960
but it didn't quite take off.
818
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,040
The reason being, it was the idea was
819
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,780
to create like vegans next door, just like
820
00:31:44,780 --> 00:31:46,280
you have next door that I go on
821
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,240
all the time, trying to tell people coyotes
822
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,640
aren't the enemy, you know, and helping people
823
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,480
when their dogs are lost in the neighbourhood.
824
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:55,660
It's a neighbourhood thing.
825
00:31:55,740 --> 00:31:57,860
So it's either zip code or maybe even
826
00:31:57,860 --> 00:32:00,200
smaller than zip code but I don't know
827
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,940
where anybody lives as a result of that.
828
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:03,380
But wouldn't it be great to have an
829
00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:07,040
app where we could identify how many vegans
830
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,120
we have in either a zip code or
831
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,780
in a sub-zip code and then bring
832
00:32:11,780 --> 00:32:12,540
them together.
833
00:32:13,100 --> 00:32:16,360
Personally, I have found half a dozen vegans
834
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:17,920
that live right in my neighbourhood that I
835
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,320
never knew were there.
836
00:32:20,660 --> 00:32:22,860
And it was just accidental.
837
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,680
It shouldn't have to be accidental, Heather.
838
00:32:25,820 --> 00:32:28,740
There should be a mechanism to allow vegans
839
00:32:28,740 --> 00:32:31,700
in their community to connect.
840
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:32,560
Right.
841
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:34,520
I love the idea.
842
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,000
And I remember when you were talking about
843
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,380
the idea of that app and I always
844
00:32:38,380 --> 00:32:42,840
love the idea of getting other vegans together
845
00:32:43,780 --> 00:32:45,660
in one giant community.
846
00:32:45,860 --> 00:32:49,020
But the problem with that is we're segregating
847
00:32:49,020 --> 00:32:51,140
ourselves from the rest of the world.
848
00:32:51,340 --> 00:32:54,400
And we want to normalise veganism.
849
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,340
And if we're over here on this other
850
00:32:56,340 --> 00:33:00,520
app, we're not over here on Facebook or
851
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:05,480
Instagram or Blue Sky or wherever sharing veganism.
852
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,520
We're kind of hiding ourselves away from them.
853
00:33:08,660 --> 00:33:10,360
Now, on the other hand, it would be
854
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,080
nice to not see all the meat images
855
00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:16,940
and images of people hunting or fishing.
856
00:33:17,580 --> 00:33:19,320
That's always hard as a vegan.
857
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:20,900
So, you know, both ways.
858
00:33:21,060 --> 00:33:23,100
But I think the problem with creating an
859
00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:29,140
app is it starts out so small that
860
00:33:29,140 --> 00:33:30,960
people are like, well, there's not enough people
861
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:31,580
on here.
862
00:33:31,980 --> 00:33:34,160
And I have all of my community over
863
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:34,500
there.
864
00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:37,160
But I think we'll eventually have to figure
865
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:38,260
out some way.
866
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,020
And I think Facebook groups is a great
867
00:33:40,020 --> 00:33:42,320
way because we have here locally, we have
868
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,180
Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group, but then
869
00:33:45,180 --> 00:33:47,400
we have Vegan Indiana, which brings our whole
870
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:48,160
state together.
871
00:33:48,500 --> 00:33:51,320
And that's one of my next ones as
872
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:53,020
well is I want to do a Vegan
873
00:33:53,020 --> 00:33:57,460
Indiana Restaurant Week where it's all of Indiana
874
00:33:57,460 --> 00:34:01,280
that's coming together and doing this, not just
875
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:01,700
Fort Wayne.
876
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:03,280
Well, I'll be honest.
877
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,540
I'll be honest, like this is all blue
878
00:34:07,540 --> 00:34:07,860
sky.
879
00:34:07,940 --> 00:34:10,020
I think this is all brand new thinking
880
00:34:10,020 --> 00:34:12,620
for me because really, and we did this
881
00:34:12,620 --> 00:34:15,020
because we wanted to have great food, you
882
00:34:15,020 --> 00:34:16,239
know, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
883
00:34:16,380 --> 00:34:17,980
So this was a little bit of a
884
00:34:17,980 --> 00:34:21,400
selfish enterprise for us to first get in
885
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,840
there, get the restaurants to be okay with
886
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,340
making, you know, vegan food, putting it on
887
00:34:26,340 --> 00:34:27,460
their menus on the regular.
888
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,760
Yeah, I think we should branch out.
889
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,280
I think it seems like a logical conclusion.
890
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:34,719
I've never thought about it before.
891
00:34:35,139 --> 00:34:37,719
Well, I just think what you've created with
892
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,960
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vegan Restaurant, first week and
893
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:47,659
then you graduated to month is really a
894
00:34:47,659 --> 00:34:52,760
template for what could happen across the United
895
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,800
States in many different towns.
896
00:34:55,380 --> 00:34:58,080
And I think that's super exciting.
897
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,740
And the whole idea is to present what
898
00:35:01,740 --> 00:35:04,400
you've done and then have other people get
899
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,260
it in their mind, like, ooh, I'd love
900
00:35:06,260 --> 00:35:06,840
to do it.
901
00:35:07,180 --> 00:35:09,040
I would love to do it in Marina
902
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:10,240
Del Ray, absolutely.
903
00:35:10,620 --> 00:35:13,180
And I've had problems with, there's a hotel,
904
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,040
shall go unnamed, that had just opened and
905
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:18,340
had no vegan options.
906
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:20,340
And then to make it worse, they were
907
00:35:20,340 --> 00:35:22,740
serving octopus.
908
00:35:23,460 --> 00:35:26,440
And what I did was I did a
909
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,560
petition to say, you need to have vegan
910
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,200
options because it happens to be on land
911
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:34,080
owned by the county.
912
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,320
There's a lot of land owned by the
913
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:37,620
county in Marina Del Ray.
914
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:39,700
And I said, you have an obligation.
915
00:35:40,020 --> 00:35:42,020
But see, that was the activist in me
916
00:35:42,020 --> 00:35:44,800
immediately with the petitions and the thinking about
917
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:51,260
protests, whereas perhaps your approach of creating a
918
00:35:51,260 --> 00:35:53,580
vegan restaurant week and a vegan restaurant month
919
00:35:53,580 --> 00:35:56,000
and showing them that it can be good
920
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,520
business is the answer.
921
00:35:57,640 --> 00:35:59,760
Now, let me ask you this question, because
922
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:01,760
I think we've all had the experience of
923
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,500
being at either a hotel or a restaurant
924
00:36:04,500 --> 00:36:05,680
that's not vegan.
925
00:36:06,260 --> 00:36:09,360
And then the entree that they put together
926
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,500
that's vegan is, I don't wanna use curse
927
00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:14,560
words, but not good, not good.
928
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,180
I've had situations where it was drenched in
929
00:36:18,180 --> 00:36:19,960
you could tell some kind of a lard
930
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,660
that they didn't realise they were cooking and
931
00:36:22,660 --> 00:36:23,780
it was inedible to me.
932
00:36:24,860 --> 00:36:27,760
So how do you train the non-vegan
933
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,080
restaurants to create vegan food that A, is
934
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:31,340
vegan?
935
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:32,360
Do you have to educate them?
936
00:36:32,380 --> 00:36:35,260
Because sometimes people don't know honey isn't vegan.
937
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,720
There's certain things that they don't realise are,
938
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:42,740
I mean, it's a process, not an event.
939
00:36:42,820 --> 00:36:44,040
What do you do to educate them?
940
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,120
Right, and a lot of times people think,
941
00:36:46,240 --> 00:36:47,260
oh, it's gluten free.
942
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,200
You can eat that, it's gluten free.
943
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,860
Or I've had family members when we first
944
00:36:51,860 --> 00:36:54,040
went vegan, oh, it's organic, you can eat
945
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:54,360
that.
946
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,520
And we're like, no, it's still A, because
947
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,120
even if they're organic, they're still coming out
948
00:36:59,120 --> 00:36:59,660
of a chicken.
949
00:37:00,180 --> 00:37:01,700
So we're not going to eat it.
950
00:37:02,340 --> 00:37:05,800
But I mean, just letting people know, going
951
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,080
into a restaurant and saying, hey, do you
952
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:09,100
have any vegan options?
953
00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:12,300
Or looking at their menu and creating your
954
00:37:12,300 --> 00:37:13,600
own options out of it.
955
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:14,900
You can always go in and get a
956
00:37:14,900 --> 00:37:15,560
baked potato.
957
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,040
Just leave off the butter, get vegetables, ask
958
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:20,120
if they're cooked in butter.
959
00:37:20,700 --> 00:37:23,020
So just starting to educate your restaurants that
960
00:37:23,020 --> 00:37:24,320
way and the servers.
961
00:37:24,660 --> 00:37:29,400
And it is kind of like hard sometimes
962
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:33,540
because not everybody is interested in feeding vegans.
963
00:37:33,700 --> 00:37:36,420
But I mean, it's almost 2025.
964
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:38,660
Like if you don't have a vegan option
965
00:37:38,660 --> 00:37:42,020
on your menu currently, you're behind the time.
966
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,200
Let me ask you, what were some of
967
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,660
the objections for those who, because we have
968
00:37:49,660 --> 00:37:51,980
to be prepared if we do this for
969
00:37:51,980 --> 00:37:55,120
some pushback, not everybody's going to say, yes,
970
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:55,960
I'm going to do this.
971
00:37:56,060 --> 00:37:56,500
I'm going to devote.
972
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:58,160
They may feel they have to go out
973
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,800
and buy different products that they might have
974
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,060
to spend some time and money educating their
975
00:38:03,060 --> 00:38:03,460
chefs.
976
00:38:03,700 --> 00:38:05,380
What were some of the pushbacks you got
977
00:38:05,380 --> 00:38:06,240
from the restaurants?
978
00:38:06,540 --> 00:38:08,660
And again, I want to applaud all the
979
00:38:08,660 --> 00:38:10,600
restaurants that took part in this, but what
980
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:11,620
were some of the pushbacks?
981
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:13,140
How many restaurants said no?
982
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:14,900
And how did you respond to that?
983
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:17,420
Well, we have a lot of restaurants in
984
00:38:17,420 --> 00:38:20,680
Fort Wayne and we have 15 of them
985
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,140
that participated this year.
986
00:38:23,260 --> 00:38:26,060
So not everybody's going to participate and that's
987
00:38:26,060 --> 00:38:26,440
fine.
988
00:38:26,540 --> 00:38:28,960
Even the, like our all vegan restaurant doesn't
989
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:30,120
participate and that's fine.
990
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:31,740
It's not for everybody.
991
00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:35,600
Some places don't have the manpower to get
992
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,740
as busy as the restaurants do, but just
993
00:38:38,740 --> 00:38:41,320
educating them on what vegan is and looking
994
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,840
at their current menu and helping them create
995
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,020
vegan options out of that.
996
00:38:47,140 --> 00:38:50,080
Or if they're wanting to try something new,
997
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,740
just letting them know what's vegan, what they
998
00:38:53,740 --> 00:38:57,060
can't have in that.
999
00:38:58,620 --> 00:39:00,320
But I mean, what did they say to
1000
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:01,400
you when you approached them?
1001
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:03,620
Did everybody just say, yeah, absolutely.
1002
00:39:03,720 --> 00:39:05,920
Or what was the dialogue so people could
1003
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:06,480
be prepared?
1004
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:08,680
Yeah, so we live in the Midwest.
1005
00:39:09,060 --> 00:39:11,100
So there's such a thing as Midwest nice,
1006
00:39:11,180 --> 00:39:13,040
where even if people don't like you, they're
1007
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:14,920
going to be friendly.
1008
00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:16,980
And so sometimes they would just simply say,
1009
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:18,860
no, we're not going to participate.
1010
00:39:19,060 --> 00:39:21,340
Some people would just not return phone calls
1011
00:39:21,340 --> 00:39:24,420
or emails or talk to me.
1012
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,260
But for the most part, I think a
1013
00:39:28,260 --> 00:39:30,460
lot of restaurants that I reached out to
1014
00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:33,100
were excited to participate and they would ask
1015
00:39:33,100 --> 00:39:34,500
me questions about it.
1016
00:39:35,020 --> 00:39:36,800
Otherwise they would just say, no, we're not
1017
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:38,880
interested in doing it at this time.
1018
00:39:39,660 --> 00:39:41,440
Most people are gonna at least be nice
1019
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:42,480
to your face.
1020
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,800
They're not going to yell at you when
1021
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:46,640
you go into their restaurant.
1022
00:39:47,780 --> 00:39:51,660
I feel like approaches everything, because we're not
1023
00:39:51,660 --> 00:39:53,480
going and demanding anything from anybody.
1024
00:39:54,620 --> 00:39:57,460
Heather, I mean, before Vegan Restaurant Week was
1025
00:39:57,460 --> 00:39:59,760
even a thing, we were engaging with these
1026
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,320
restaurants on a very nice way saying, hey,
1027
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:08,080
you could get more people coming in if
1028
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:09,040
you did this.
1029
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:13,020
And Heather was consulting with restaurants years ago
1030
00:40:13,020 --> 00:40:15,200
before we ever started doing it.
1031
00:40:15,460 --> 00:40:17,920
But it was always out of an engagement
1032
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,220
of, hey, here's something that might be good
1033
00:40:21,220 --> 00:40:21,880
for you.
1034
00:40:22,100 --> 00:40:24,580
You have to kind of position the whole
1035
00:40:24,580 --> 00:40:26,020
thing, what's in it for them.
1036
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,400
So instead of being like, we demand that
1037
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:30,320
you do this for us.
1038
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:31,060
Does that make sense?
1039
00:40:31,980 --> 00:40:34,540
Absolutely, it makes perfect sense.
1040
00:40:34,940 --> 00:40:37,200
Yeah, I had restaurants reach out to me
1041
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,620
who we had gone to their restaurants before
1042
00:40:40,620 --> 00:40:43,900
and they wanted to know, okay, what can
1043
00:40:43,900 --> 00:40:46,060
I label vegan on my menu?
1044
00:40:46,260 --> 00:40:48,320
And they brought out their book of recipes
1045
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:49,680
and I would go through their book of
1046
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:51,720
recipes and mark it if it was vegan,
1047
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,220
if it was vegetarian or nothing at all,
1048
00:40:55,260 --> 00:40:57,180
or to let them know, if you just
1049
00:40:57,180 --> 00:41:00,100
switch this one little ingredient, it would be
1050
00:41:00,100 --> 00:41:01,700
vegan and everybody can eat it.
1051
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:03,640
You'll get more business that way.
1052
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:08,040
So I did start there with restaurants and
1053
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,800
just kind of building those relationships, being nice
1054
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,520
is free and it goes a long way
1055
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,840
when you're talking to these restaurants who you
1056
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,300
want to go and dine at and you
1057
00:41:18,300 --> 00:41:19,780
want to participate in things.
1058
00:41:20,580 --> 00:41:23,320
Starting to build a community of restaurants as
1059
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,360
well as your community of vegans is I
1060
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:27,300
guess your first step.
1061
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,260
Wow, well, I think this is so exciting
1062
00:41:30,260 --> 00:41:33,760
and I really hope that it inspires others.
1063
00:41:33,900 --> 00:41:36,620
It's inspired me, but I'll tell you, it's
1064
00:41:36,620 --> 00:41:39,140
a little scary because I don't like rejection
1065
00:41:39,140 --> 00:41:40,400
and the idea that I'm going to go
1066
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,120
into some of these places and get rejected,
1067
00:41:42,940 --> 00:41:44,920
but I like your approach.
1068
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,800
Your approach is, hey, this is, oh, first
1069
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:50,820
of all, it just occurred to me, once,
1070
00:41:51,140 --> 00:41:53,080
do you say, hey, this one signed up,
1071
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,100
this one signed up, this one signed up,
1072
00:41:55,180 --> 00:41:57,820
you should sign up because if not, you're
1073
00:41:57,820 --> 00:41:59,060
going to be kind of out of it.
1074
00:41:59,140 --> 00:42:03,360
Like, is there that competition that- You
1075
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:05,920
know, there really hasn't been.
1076
00:42:06,300 --> 00:42:08,040
I'm trying to think back of when we
1077
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:11,700
did our first one six years ago, I
1078
00:42:11,700 --> 00:42:13,520
think it was just kind of, we had
1079
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:15,800
another all vegan restaurant at the time that
1080
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,180
participated in a few small places and then
1081
00:42:19,180 --> 00:42:21,220
from there, people heard about it on the
1082
00:42:21,220 --> 00:42:24,500
news or different things and they said, oh,
1083
00:42:24,580 --> 00:42:25,780
hey, I want to be a part of
1084
00:42:25,780 --> 00:42:25,960
that.
1085
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,080
And we just started looking at the different
1086
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,700
restaurants that we thought would be a good
1087
00:42:30,700 --> 00:42:32,580
fit for Vegan Month that would do something
1088
00:42:32,580 --> 00:42:35,980
really, really good, especially local restaurants.
1089
00:42:35,980 --> 00:42:38,040
If you reach out to local restaurants, they're
1090
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:39,560
able to do a lot more than if
1091
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:40,720
it's a national chain.
1092
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:43,620
National chains have to go through corporate, they're
1093
00:42:43,620 --> 00:42:46,340
not going to be interested in trying to
1094
00:42:46,340 --> 00:42:49,880
change things for us, but the local restaurants
1095
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,760
want the business and they want to keep
1096
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,020
their community happy.
1097
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,220
So a lot of times they'll go out
1098
00:42:58,220 --> 00:42:59,720
of the way, even when we go into
1099
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:02,660
dine, we'll ask for, hey, you don't have
1100
00:43:02,660 --> 00:43:05,080
really anything on the menu, would you mind
1101
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,080
making us this using the ingredients that you
1102
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:09,480
have that are actually vegan?
1103
00:43:10,100 --> 00:43:11,520
And they're always, a lot of them are
1104
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:12,940
always happy to do that.
1105
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,560
So starting with those restaurants that are local
1106
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:19,380
and that can do scratch foods is going
1107
00:43:19,380 --> 00:43:22,040
to be the ones to focus on first.
1108
00:43:22,460 --> 00:43:24,220
I absolutely agree with you.
1109
00:43:24,260 --> 00:43:27,080
Mom and Pop, smaller restaurants that are not
1110
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,080
part of big chains, forget the big chains,
1111
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:32,060
like that hotel that was serving octopus, that's
1112
00:43:32,060 --> 00:43:33,860
a major brand, one of the biggest in
1113
00:43:33,860 --> 00:43:34,320
the world.
1114
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,280
That's going to be very hard to get
1115
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,420
in there with corporate and make that change.
1116
00:43:39,740 --> 00:43:41,220
We've got a lot of comments coming in.
1117
00:43:41,380 --> 00:43:43,860
Amy Jean Davis says, we're doing the same
1118
00:43:43,860 --> 00:43:46,020
menu adjustment campaign with Plant Based Treaty.
1119
00:43:46,540 --> 00:43:48,300
Paige Parsons Roach and I were out yesterday
1120
00:43:48,300 --> 00:43:50,320
going to cafes and everyone we spoke to
1121
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,080
was very nice.
1122
00:43:52,500 --> 00:43:56,700
So yes, menu adjustment, I like that phrase.
1123
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,400
I think that there's a tendency and I
1124
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,040
suffer from it of all of nothingness.
1125
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,120
Like I want everybody to go vegan tomorrow.
1126
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,360
The idea of adding a vegan option may
1127
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,500
seem like a small thing, but if all
1128
00:44:14,500 --> 00:44:19,700
of that put together is cumulative and I
1129
00:44:19,700 --> 00:44:22,760
really have a new attitude toward what's happening
1130
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,320
with veganism in the United States, I think
1131
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:26,240
that it's morphing.
1132
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,460
I think it did start out where it
1133
00:44:29,460 --> 00:44:33,500
was kind of like this Californication type, you
1134
00:44:33,500 --> 00:44:34,720
know, hipster thing.
1135
00:44:34,820 --> 00:44:36,240
And then we realised, well, a lot of
1136
00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:37,760
people are alienated by that.
1137
00:44:38,420 --> 00:44:40,720
They may not, they think it's expensive.
1138
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,080
They try to make this, the meat industry
1139
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,780
tries to make that veganism is more expensive
1140
00:44:46,780 --> 00:44:48,560
when we all know it's cheaper.
1141
00:44:48,820 --> 00:44:50,660
You could buy a sack of brown rice,
1142
00:44:50,820 --> 00:44:53,060
a sack of dried beans and a sack
1143
00:44:53,060 --> 00:44:54,920
of potatoes and live for two months.
1144
00:44:55,260 --> 00:44:57,920
And so we all know it's cheaper, but
1145
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:03,280
the word out there that the advertiser-based
1146
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,340
media tries to push is that it's vegan
1147
00:45:06,340 --> 00:45:07,020
and elitist.
1148
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,560
Now I see a change happening.
1149
00:45:09,780 --> 00:45:14,080
I see that it's going mainstream in these
1150
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:14,880
smaller towns.
1151
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,060
And I was, again, blown away by the
1152
00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:20,400
vegan options in Las Vegas.
1153
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:22,900
Not that that's such a small town, but
1154
00:45:22,900 --> 00:45:26,140
it was just, it was shocking.
1155
00:45:26,140 --> 00:45:29,380
I mean, and we talked to a couple
1156
00:45:29,380 --> 00:45:31,300
who came all the way from Florida, who
1157
00:45:31,300 --> 00:45:33,760
run a sanctuary, who fly all the way
1158
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:35,820
to Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to
1159
00:45:35,820 --> 00:45:39,060
go to this vegan Asian restaurant that makes
1160
00:45:39,060 --> 00:45:43,240
vegan sushi, vegan dim sum, and traditional Chinese
1161
00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:43,980
dishes.
1162
00:45:44,180 --> 00:45:46,700
And the food was so good, I brought
1163
00:45:46,700 --> 00:45:48,780
the leftovers home and had it for lunch
1164
00:45:48,780 --> 00:45:52,100
yesterday because it was absolutely delicious.
1165
00:45:52,100 --> 00:45:55,540
And I'm thinking, we need you to open
1166
00:45:55,540 --> 00:45:56,980
a restaurant in LA like that.
1167
00:45:57,060 --> 00:45:58,500
I was trying to convince all these people.
1168
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,240
But it made me think that, when you
1169
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:03,260
try to push something down and you try
1170
00:46:03,260 --> 00:46:06,120
to suppress something, which let's face it, the
1171
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,160
meat industry is, there's an article in the
1172
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,780
Guardian that says basically they have a war
1173
00:46:10,780 --> 00:46:14,380
room in Colorado where they send out all
1174
00:46:14,380 --> 00:46:17,540
this negative stuff about ultra processed and never
1175
00:46:17,540 --> 00:46:21,200
mentioning that processed meat is officially cancer causing,
1176
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:22,940
according to the World Health Organisation.
1177
00:46:23,460 --> 00:46:25,560
So we have to push back.
1178
00:46:26,140 --> 00:46:30,620
And so I see that it's coming, the
1179
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:32,680
vegan movement is sort of like, okay, you're
1180
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:33,960
gonna try to push it down here, it's
1181
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:34,740
gonna pop up here.
1182
00:46:34,900 --> 00:46:36,280
What's your thought on that, JR?
1183
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,420
Well, I think it's all about normalising the
1184
00:46:40,420 --> 00:46:40,740
whole thing.
1185
00:46:41,380 --> 00:46:43,500
Heather and I have been involved with that
1186
00:46:43,500 --> 00:46:46,700
for years, whether it's, Heather gives cooking demos,
1187
00:46:47,720 --> 00:46:49,640
Heather does tabling events.
1188
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,440
And I wanna also stress, one of the
1189
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,260
cool things that these restaurants get is publicity
1190
00:46:56,260 --> 00:46:57,040
out the wazoo.
1191
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:59,620
I mean, like Heather is doing, she's done
1192
00:46:59,620 --> 00:47:03,440
like maybe three TV interviews.
1193
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,880
She's done, you've got a newspaper and whatever.
1194
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,540
So that's huge for them.
1195
00:47:13,660 --> 00:47:15,400
So they're getting their name out there and
1196
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:16,700
people are curious.
1197
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,980
So yeah, I think it's all about-
1198
00:47:19,980 --> 00:47:21,980
This is a list of, we're putting up
1199
00:47:21,980 --> 00:47:24,200
a list of all the restaurants that participated
1200
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:25,860
and kudos to you.
1201
00:47:26,140 --> 00:47:26,820
You're right.
1202
00:47:27,260 --> 00:47:29,580
So that's the other piece of the puzzle
1203
00:47:29,580 --> 00:47:31,240
that we have to explain to people, Heather.
1204
00:47:31,500 --> 00:47:33,640
It's not just, oh, you go up to
1205
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,040
these restaurants, you've issued a news release, which
1206
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,660
I've read, which names all these restaurants, they're
1207
00:47:38,660 --> 00:47:39,780
named on the website.
1208
00:47:40,220 --> 00:47:43,740
And you're also doing TV interviews where you're
1209
00:47:43,740 --> 00:47:46,780
saying, hey, look at these great restaurants that
1210
00:47:46,780 --> 00:47:47,540
are participating.
1211
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:49,760
So you're providing them free advertising.
1212
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,480
Right, well, the restaurants do pay a little
1213
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:56,560
bit of money to be in this because
1214
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,060
we do have a lot going on behind
1215
00:47:59,060 --> 00:48:01,020
the scenes that we have to pay for.
1216
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,880
So the restaurants do pay, but they don't
1217
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,480
pay a lot to be included.
1218
00:48:06,620 --> 00:48:08,400
They pay enough to help pay the bills.
1219
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,780
So it's not quite free, but they're getting
1220
00:48:12,780 --> 00:48:14,000
publicity all month.
1221
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,080
I own a marketing agency.
1222
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,540
You can't get the type of publicity that
1223
00:48:18,540 --> 00:48:22,320
these restaurants are getting for even one day
1224
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:25,240
on what they pay to be included in
1225
00:48:25,240 --> 00:48:25,520
this.
1226
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:27,960
So yeah, veganism is popping up.
1227
00:48:28,100 --> 00:48:29,380
To go back to what you said, I
1228
00:48:29,380 --> 00:48:32,680
mean, veganism, I see it popping up in
1229
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:33,480
different cities.
1230
00:48:33,620 --> 00:48:35,240
I mean, we go up to Michigan and
1231
00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:38,720
small towns there, there's Detroit, there's Ann Arbour,
1232
00:48:38,860 --> 00:48:41,720
Traverse City, have all these little pockets of
1233
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:43,040
veganism around there.
1234
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:47,200
We go to upstate New York and Rochester
1235
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:49,780
and different places, and there's little pockets of
1236
00:48:49,780 --> 00:48:50,320
veganism.
1237
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,880
And it's so fun to know that we're
1238
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:54,600
out there.
1239
00:48:54,860 --> 00:48:56,680
We're not just in the big cities.
1240
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,200
Anywhere you go in the US or even
1241
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,520
outside of the US, there's vegans everywhere, and
1242
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,080
you just are hiding.
1243
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:06,280
We're hiding everywhere.
1244
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:09,100
You just don't, yeah, you just don't know
1245
00:49:09,100 --> 00:49:09,280
it.
1246
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:14,080
So it's a lot of work.
1247
00:49:14,240 --> 00:49:17,140
Don't let me lie and say it's not
1248
00:49:17,140 --> 00:49:17,900
a lot of work.
1249
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:19,720
I put a lot of work into this
1250
00:49:19,720 --> 00:49:22,540
leading up to it, but I think the
1251
00:49:22,540 --> 00:49:25,560
benefits for the vegan community and the benefits
1252
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,840
for the restaurant and the benefits for the
1253
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,160
animals outweigh like all of the work that's
1254
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:31,940
put into it.
1255
00:49:31,980 --> 00:49:33,960
And it is kind of a streamlined process
1256
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:35,880
that I've done the past six years.
1257
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:37,500
That makes it a lot easier.
1258
00:49:37,500 --> 00:49:37,940
It's a labour of love.
1259
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:40,120
It's a labour of love.
1260
00:49:40,300 --> 00:49:40,740
I do love it.
1261
00:49:40,900 --> 00:49:43,600
And there's no doubt that, I mean, the
1262
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:47,060
other restaurants that don't participate, the first year,
1263
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,380
maybe it's a little harder, but they see
1264
00:49:49,380 --> 00:49:49,640
that.
1265
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:51,680
The other restaurants that don't participate, they see
1266
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:53,820
that coverage and they're like, ooh, I kind
1267
00:49:53,820 --> 00:49:54,940
of missed the boat on this one.
1268
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:56,940
And I'll tell you what, if they see
1269
00:49:56,940 --> 00:49:59,420
it two years and they weren't participating and
1270
00:49:59,420 --> 00:50:01,060
they see that coverage, they're like, man, I
1271
00:50:01,060 --> 00:50:03,840
am, so number three, they're definitely on board.
1272
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,980
So yeah, it's a labour of love.
1273
00:50:06,980 --> 00:50:08,340
I know Heather puts in a lot of
1274
00:50:08,340 --> 00:50:09,700
time into this.
1275
00:50:10,660 --> 00:50:12,880
I just get my picture taken, so.
1276
00:50:13,340 --> 00:50:15,620
Well, speaking of that, this conversation has been
1277
00:50:15,620 --> 00:50:17,880
so much fun and it's gone by so
1278
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,600
quickly, I forgot to play, but I'm going
1279
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:21,820
to play it right now.
1280
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,360
What you do when you're not doing vegan
1281
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,160
restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
1282
00:50:27,820 --> 00:50:28,500
Oh, right, right.
1283
00:50:28,580 --> 00:50:29,380
Long live the king.
1284
00:50:29,460 --> 00:50:31,820
But what if, say, Jailhouse Rock had been
1285
00:50:31,820 --> 00:50:33,440
written by a vegan instead?
1286
00:50:35,380 --> 00:50:37,600
When a vegan throws a party, you can
1287
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:39,360
bet your tail, all the chips on the
1288
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:40,620
plate will all be made of kale.
1289
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:42,620
The salad and the smoothie will be kale
1290
00:50:42,620 --> 00:50:44,700
as well, cause every single vegan loves the
1291
00:50:44,700 --> 00:50:45,480
kale, kale, kale.
1292
00:50:45,660 --> 00:50:48,820
Let's rock with the lettuce, let's rock.
1293
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,880
Every vegan living on your block will be
1294
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:54,480
munching on the kale nonstop.
1295
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:03,420
I'm kale-less.
1296
00:51:04,060 --> 00:51:05,440
Kale-less parsley.
1297
00:51:06,140 --> 00:51:07,020
Thank you very much.
1298
00:51:10,340 --> 00:51:11,220
It's ridiculous.
1299
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:13,900
I love it.
1300
00:51:14,340 --> 00:51:16,120
And I will say you have a whole
1301
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:18,300
bunch of others, but I did check and
1302
00:51:18,300 --> 00:51:20,540
Jailhouse Rock is public domain.
1303
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:22,720
That's why I played that one.
1304
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:23,660
Oh, is that right?
1305
00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:24,360
Okay, okay.
1306
00:51:24,780 --> 00:51:26,220
You've got plenty of others.
1307
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:27,480
Super fun.
1308
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:31,340
Another example of how veganism is a joyous,
1309
00:51:31,580 --> 00:51:35,860
fun, very fun adventure, no sacrifice involved.
1310
00:51:36,100 --> 00:51:37,840
And that's what I think is the final
1311
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:38,140
thing.
1312
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:39,620
We've only got a couple of minutes left,
1313
00:51:39,700 --> 00:51:43,780
is that this whole vegan restaurant month, vegan
1314
00:51:43,780 --> 00:51:49,440
restaurant week shows that it's fun, that our
1315
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:51,860
lifestyle is a blast.
1316
00:51:52,180 --> 00:51:56,040
And frankly, I have to control myself not
1317
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,680
to just make it a social club because
1318
00:51:57,680 --> 00:51:59,780
I could go somewhere every night to a
1319
00:51:59,780 --> 00:52:02,860
different potluck or a different restaurant or a
1320
00:52:02,860 --> 00:52:05,660
different meetup or a different party or a
1321
00:52:05,660 --> 00:52:06,740
different veg fest.
1322
00:52:09,300 --> 00:52:12,840
Your programme of vegan restaurant month needs to
1323
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:13,820
go coast to coast.
1324
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:16,460
I personally want to get involved to help
1325
00:52:16,460 --> 00:52:16,780
this.
1326
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:21,080
I think it should maybe become a 5013
1327
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:25,400
nonprofit project where you get funding to do
1328
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:25,960
all this.
1329
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:31,480
And so that we enable people all around
1330
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,800
the United States and beyond, Canada, Europe, Latin
1331
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:40,500
America, everywhere, the entire world could be creating
1332
00:52:40,500 --> 00:52:44,020
their vegan restaurant weeks and months in their
1333
00:52:44,020 --> 00:52:47,640
towns because you've provided a very specific template
1334
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,100
almost like a franchise.
1335
00:52:49,540 --> 00:52:53,140
So final thoughts, Heather, what do you say
1336
00:52:53,140 --> 00:52:53,460
to that?
1337
00:52:53,460 --> 00:52:55,900
Yep, I think Jane, you're definitely right.
1338
00:52:55,980 --> 00:52:59,180
And I've procrastinated long enough and I think
1339
00:52:59,180 --> 00:53:00,780
you've just kind of given me the push
1340
00:53:00,780 --> 00:53:03,680
that I need to put together my package
1341
00:53:04,460 --> 00:53:07,080
of everything that we do for vegan restaurant
1342
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:08,680
week or vegan restaurant month.
1343
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:10,580
I mean, I don't think many places can
1344
00:53:10,580 --> 00:53:13,280
jump straight to a vegan month starting at
1345
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:15,720
a vegan restaurant week, even with two restaurants
1346
00:53:15,720 --> 00:53:17,160
is good.
1347
00:53:17,340 --> 00:53:19,140
So yeah, I think that's kind of given
1348
00:53:19,140 --> 00:53:20,620
me the push that I need to put
1349
00:53:20,620 --> 00:53:24,500
everything together and touch base with other vegan
1350
00:53:24,500 --> 00:53:27,240
communities and other towns to say, hey, let's
1351
00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:28,600
get this started in your town.
1352
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,320
And a final thought from JR. You said
1353
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:35,300
something really interesting.
1354
00:53:35,460 --> 00:53:38,640
You said, you feel like you should make
1355
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:39,500
it a social club.
1356
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:41,700
And I think that that's where it's gotta
1357
00:53:41,700 --> 00:53:42,380
start, right?
1358
00:53:42,700 --> 00:53:44,400
It's gotta start as a social club and
1359
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:47,480
it's gotta start as a network and people
1360
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:48,680
leaning into one another.
1361
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,740
I mean, the things that we do, everything
1362
00:53:50,740 --> 00:53:53,120
that we do, whether it's the tabling, whether
1363
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:56,020
it's the vegan restaurant month, whether it's Heather's
1364
00:53:56,020 --> 00:53:58,080
doing the cooking classes, we do all of
1365
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,380
these things out of love and because it's
1366
00:54:01,380 --> 00:54:02,300
a fun thing to do.
1367
00:54:02,620 --> 00:54:03,920
And we wouldn't do any of this if
1368
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:04,620
it wasn't fun.
1369
00:54:04,740 --> 00:54:09,540
I mean, it's great to be there fighting
1370
00:54:09,540 --> 00:54:11,700
for the animals, but I wanna be a
1371
00:54:11,700 --> 00:54:12,420
happy warrior.
1372
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,320
So that's where it's gotta start, I think.
1373
00:54:14,780 --> 00:54:17,320
Wow, well, please reach out to Plant Based
1374
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,880
Treaty for possible collaboration, says Amy Jean Davis,
1375
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,640
who's a very well-known activist and who
1376
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:28,060
does so much for animals, people and the
1377
00:54:28,060 --> 00:54:28,480
planet.
1378
00:54:28,700 --> 00:54:31,860
So yes, I think that Plant Based Treaty,
1379
00:54:32,060 --> 00:54:36,100
which tries to turn institutions, cities and restaurants,
1380
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,440
plant-based and individuals would be a great
1381
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:39,040
collaborator.
1382
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:41,280
And somebody else said, put them on the
1383
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:41,620
team.
1384
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:42,540
Well, guess what?
1385
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,560
Full disclosure, they're already on the team.
1386
00:54:45,020 --> 00:54:47,640
Heather Dahman is on our board on the
1387
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:52,000
Unchained TV, Jane Unchained News Network, 501C3 nonprofit
1388
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:52,600
board.
1389
00:54:52,820 --> 00:54:56,140
And she is also our technical director.
1390
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,820
And a lot of what happens on our
1391
00:54:59,820 --> 00:55:02,560
streaming network would not be able to happen
1392
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,360
without Heather.
1393
00:55:04,580 --> 00:55:06,780
So with that, I am going to urge
1394
00:55:06,780 --> 00:55:12,700
everybody, yes, make a vegan restaurant week in
1395
00:55:12,700 --> 00:55:13,260
your town.
1396
00:55:13,260 --> 00:55:16,780
And also, I think you should download Unchained
1397
00:55:16,780 --> 00:55:17,120
TV.
1398
00:55:17,380 --> 00:55:19,320
So it's a vegan Netflix.
1399
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:21,520
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
1400
00:55:21,540 --> 00:55:22,800
I love Unchained TV.
1401
00:55:23,020 --> 00:55:25,760
Unchained, Unchained TV, your life will change.
1402
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:26,920
It's just that easy.
1403
00:55:27,300 --> 00:55:29,760
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
1404
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:30,240
everybody.
1405
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:32,720
Unchained TV changed my life.
1406
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,800
Unchained TV is crushing it.
1407
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:37,480
I love Unchained TV.
1408
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:39,480
Unchained TV is my go-to.
1409
00:55:39,780 --> 00:55:41,580
Unchained TV, who knew?
1410
00:55:42,380 --> 00:55:44,000
Unchained TV, yeah.
00:00:00,440 --> 00:00:03,180
If you want to revolutionise your health, get
2
00:00:03,180 --> 00:00:05,920
truly joyful and jump to the next phase
3
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:08,600
of human evolution, all it takes is one
4
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:09,680
simple choice.
5
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:12,680
Now, here's your host, Jane Velez Mitchell.
6
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:16,740
Welcome, we have an exciting show for you
7
00:00:16,740 --> 00:00:17,620
today.
8
00:00:18,220 --> 00:00:20,500
Check out these two mischief makers.
9
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:25,840
They have created Fort Wayne, Indiana Vegan Restaurant
10
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:29,080
Month, and it is all the rage.
11
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:32,420
And we're looking at this to see if
12
00:00:32,420 --> 00:00:35,920
other people can replicate this in their cities
13
00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:38,960
and towns because it has really taken off
14
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,460
and exposed, that's not egg, that's not cheese,
15
00:00:42,580 --> 00:00:44,920
that's not meat, that's vegan, that's 100%
16
00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:46,320
vegan, okay?
17
00:00:47,100 --> 00:00:50,120
All of the food that we are showcasing
18
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:53,720
today is 100% plant-based, but you've
19
00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:59,400
got banana splits, you've got breakfast, all sorts
20
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:04,519
of delicious smoothies and milkshakes and pastries, and
21
00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:08,520
it's all completely without any animal products whatsoever.
22
00:01:08,700 --> 00:01:10,140
That means it's zero cholesterol.
23
00:01:11,060 --> 00:01:13,640
And so this husband and wife team, the
24
00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:16,800
Domins, whom you're about to meet, have really
25
00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:22,220
opened this whole new world through Vegan Restaurant
26
00:01:22,220 --> 00:01:24,360
Month in Fort Wayne.
27
00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,880
And so I would like to introduce you
28
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:30,180
to these change makers in the hopes that
29
00:01:30,180 --> 00:01:33,040
they can teach us how to do the
30
00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,260
same thing in other cities and towns, because
31
00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:37,600
I was thinking if I was gonna do
32
00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:39,940
this in my neighbourhood, I wouldn't have a
33
00:01:39,940 --> 00:01:40,220
clue.
34
00:01:40,700 --> 00:01:43,180
So Heather Domin, tell us, how did you
35
00:01:43,180 --> 00:01:44,700
make this happen?
36
00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:46,960
Right, hi Jane, thanks so much for having
37
00:01:46,960 --> 00:01:47,380
us on.
38
00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:50,660
So this started about six years ago, we're
39
00:01:50,660 --> 00:01:51,700
in our sixth year.
40
00:01:52,780 --> 00:01:55,480
Prior to this year, it's been a week
41
00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:56,160
-long event.
42
00:01:56,380 --> 00:01:58,400
And this year, because it's grown so much
43
00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:01,020
and we've had such great feedback from our
44
00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:03,540
restaurants and our community, we decided to make
45
00:02:03,540 --> 00:02:05,280
it a month-long event.
46
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:08,660
So it's a month-long event of vegan
47
00:02:08,660 --> 00:02:12,120
food, going out and dining at different restaurants,
48
00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:15,580
the community gathering at different places and supporting
49
00:02:15,580 --> 00:02:19,200
these businesses that are participating in Fort Wayne
50
00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:19,880
Vegan Restaurant Month.
51
00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:24,400
And look at your husband there, inviting us
52
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:27,320
into one of the participating restaurants.
53
00:02:27,580 --> 00:02:30,240
So I wanna go to JR, your husband,
54
00:02:30,380 --> 00:02:32,460
and ask how did you get all these
55
00:02:32,460 --> 00:02:36,000
restaurants to participate and what is in it
56
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:37,280
for them?
57
00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:41,640
That's a really good question, because it's really
58
00:02:41,640 --> 00:02:44,600
great for the vegan community, but also it's
59
00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:47,580
really, really good for the restaurants because they
60
00:02:47,580 --> 00:02:51,780
lose nothing by offering these vegan options.
61
00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:54,600
Their regular people are still gonna come in
62
00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:57,380
or whatever, but they're gaining a whole new
63
00:02:57,380 --> 00:02:57,700
market.
64
00:02:57,920 --> 00:02:59,260
And I think for a lot of them,
65
00:03:00,980 --> 00:03:03,520
they wouldn't just throw something on the menu
66
00:03:04,140 --> 00:03:06,160
because they don't know if it's gonna work
67
00:03:06,160 --> 00:03:06,520
or not.
68
00:03:06,660 --> 00:03:09,020
And so this is a great opportunity for
69
00:03:09,020 --> 00:03:10,700
them to try something out.
70
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,620
And then they realise, oh my God, this
71
00:03:14,620 --> 00:03:16,580
vegan community came out in force.
72
00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:18,860
And then a lot of this stuff winds
73
00:03:18,860 --> 00:03:19,880
up staying on the menu.
74
00:03:20,380 --> 00:03:21,900
And it's really cool because I think that
75
00:03:21,900 --> 00:03:23,900
they enjoy it because they can get a
76
00:03:23,900 --> 00:03:26,200
little creative, go a little off script.
77
00:03:27,020 --> 00:03:29,300
And Heather and I, we travel a lot
78
00:03:29,300 --> 00:03:31,080
and we eat the menu at all the
79
00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:32,280
vegan restaurants we go to.
80
00:03:32,940 --> 00:03:35,780
And some of these places have come up
81
00:03:35,780 --> 00:03:36,520
with concoctions.
82
00:03:37,140 --> 00:03:40,280
Like there's this place, Three Fires, that has
83
00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:41,740
a vegan Thai pizza.
84
00:03:42,220 --> 00:03:44,540
And it has gotta be the best thing
85
00:03:44,540 --> 00:03:45,620
that I've ever had.
86
00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:46,620
It is so unique.
87
00:03:46,740 --> 00:03:47,960
I've never had it anywhere else.
88
00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:49,800
It's only here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
89
00:03:50,020 --> 00:03:52,080
And it's only there because they tried it
90
00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:53,940
out for Vegan Restaurant Month.
91
00:03:53,980 --> 00:03:55,380
And then they said, oh, it's so good.
92
00:03:55,460 --> 00:03:56,340
Let's keep it on the menu.
93
00:03:56,420 --> 00:03:57,060
Let's keep it going.
94
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,640
Well, the theme of this show is every
95
00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:02,600
city and every town should have a vegan
96
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:04,220
restaurant week.
97
00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:07,300
And I wanna know how you put this
98
00:04:07,300 --> 00:04:07,820
together.
99
00:04:08,380 --> 00:04:11,700
And in fact, you need to have a
100
00:04:11,700 --> 00:04:12,940
vegan restaurant month.
101
00:04:13,100 --> 00:04:15,459
But as you said, Heather, you started out
102
00:04:15,459 --> 00:04:17,480
with a vegan restaurant week.
103
00:04:17,620 --> 00:04:19,920
So tell people, for those who say this
104
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:21,920
is a fantastic idea, I would love to
105
00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:23,000
do this in my community.
106
00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:24,780
Let's start with the week.
107
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:27,740
How did you first create the vegan restaurant
108
00:04:27,740 --> 00:04:32,580
week, which has now become Vegan Restaurant Month?
109
00:04:32,840 --> 00:04:33,600
Tell us.
110
00:04:34,380 --> 00:04:37,020
Right, so what I did is I just
111
00:04:37,020 --> 00:04:38,260
went to different restaurants.
112
00:04:38,420 --> 00:04:40,260
I already had a relationship with some other
113
00:04:40,260 --> 00:04:42,820
restaurants locally because we go out to eat
114
00:04:42,820 --> 00:04:44,660
so much and they know us.
115
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:48,380
So reaching out to them and just asking
116
00:04:48,380 --> 00:04:49,720
them, hey, would you participate?
117
00:04:49,900 --> 00:04:52,000
We have Savour Fort Wayne in town, which
118
00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:53,200
is something similar.
119
00:04:53,340 --> 00:04:54,260
It's just not vegan.
120
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:57,520
So I just explained it's similar to Savour
121
00:04:57,520 --> 00:05:00,320
Fort Wayne, but the menu is completely vegan.
122
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:02,740
So just reaching out to different restaurants, letting
123
00:05:02,740 --> 00:05:05,040
them know what we're doing, what we wanna
124
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:07,500
do, and how it could benefit them.
125
00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:09,900
I think the first- How could it
126
00:05:09,900 --> 00:05:10,780
benefit them?
127
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:13,140
A lot more business.
128
00:05:13,740 --> 00:05:16,480
Restaurants who participate have seen such an uptick
129
00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:18,900
in their business, especially during the week or
130
00:05:18,900 --> 00:05:20,800
the month that they're participating in.
131
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,360
Sometimes it's a little bit too busy where
132
00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:26,000
there's like, oh, wait, hold on a second.
133
00:05:26,500 --> 00:05:28,680
That's why we extended it for a month.
134
00:05:29,220 --> 00:05:30,760
But just reaching out to them and letting
135
00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:33,240
them know, you can see increased business.
136
00:05:33,540 --> 00:05:35,720
We have a large community that's ready to
137
00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:36,340
support you.
138
00:05:36,540 --> 00:05:39,420
We just need you to create some more
139
00:05:39,420 --> 00:05:40,180
vegan options.
140
00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,920
So that's where it started, just reaching out
141
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:44,780
from there.
142
00:05:45,260 --> 00:05:48,400
I created a website, I created the logos,
143
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:51,020
and actually I've talked to other people about
144
00:05:51,020 --> 00:05:54,680
implementing these vegan weeks or vegan months into
145
00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:58,760
their own cities, because it is such an
146
00:05:58,760 --> 00:05:59,680
easy thing to do.
147
00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,360
If you have restaurants that are already serving
148
00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:04,820
vegan options or have options on their menu
149
00:06:04,820 --> 00:06:08,220
that are customisable, have them participate.
150
00:06:08,500 --> 00:06:12,840
The only rule to being a participating restaurant
151
00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:15,060
is to offer at least two vegan options
152
00:06:15,060 --> 00:06:17,920
on a separate menu and to post about
153
00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:18,960
it during the month.
154
00:06:19,100 --> 00:06:21,900
So we're trying to normalise these vegan options
155
00:06:21,900 --> 00:06:24,320
and normalise people having vegan options and normalise
156
00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,020
people going out to these restaurants to support
157
00:06:27,020 --> 00:06:30,700
these businesses that are supporting our vegan community.
158
00:06:31,060 --> 00:06:33,420
Like Mocha Lounge, that's just one of the
159
00:06:33,420 --> 00:06:35,560
participating restaurants.
160
00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:37,660
Did they see an uptick in business, in
161
00:06:37,660 --> 00:06:38,000
your opinion?
162
00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:41,640
I haven't talked to everybody yet just because
163
00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:43,420
we're right in the middle of the month.
164
00:06:43,500 --> 00:06:44,680
At the end of the month, I'll put
165
00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:46,280
out a survey and talk to the restaurants
166
00:06:46,280 --> 00:06:47,000
and find out.
167
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:48,600
But I do know I've been seeing a
168
00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:51,160
lot of posts about people going to Mocha
169
00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:53,160
Lounge, people that didn't know that they had
170
00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:53,860
vegan options.
171
00:06:53,980 --> 00:06:55,440
They have vegan options on their menu.
172
00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:58,400
They have a chorizo burrito on their menu.
173
00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:00,500
I've never had any idea that they had
174
00:07:00,500 --> 00:07:00,720
it.
175
00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:03,760
So now people are finding out about them.
176
00:07:03,900 --> 00:07:05,980
They're posting, they're posting about all the restaurants
177
00:07:05,980 --> 00:07:06,700
they're going to.
178
00:07:06,780 --> 00:07:09,040
They're posting pictures on social media and saying,
179
00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:10,720
hey, I just went to this place and
180
00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:11,600
had this.
181
00:07:11,660 --> 00:07:13,780
They're getting groups together and going out to
182
00:07:13,780 --> 00:07:14,060
eat.
183
00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:15,780
So I know that they're all seeing an
184
00:07:15,780 --> 00:07:18,060
uptick in business just because I've seen it
185
00:07:18,060 --> 00:07:18,840
online so far.
186
00:07:20,940 --> 00:07:21,680
Go ahead.
187
00:07:21,860 --> 00:07:24,460
And when we go out to these places,
188
00:07:24,460 --> 00:07:27,100
I mean, they'll tell us right out.
189
00:07:27,180 --> 00:07:28,460
They're just like, oh my God, thank you.
190
00:07:29,460 --> 00:07:31,880
We have gotten so much more business and
191
00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:34,500
it's good for the restaurants.
192
00:07:34,700 --> 00:07:35,900
It's good for the vegan community.
193
00:07:36,140 --> 00:07:37,880
But yeah, every one of them will report
194
00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:40,520
back to us that they've had an uptick
195
00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:42,000
in the business.
196
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And also vegan clients are very loyal clients.
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I mean, if you keep the vegan food
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flowing, we'll keep coming to you.
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And do you see people going vegan as
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a result of this, JR?
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Well, I think that there's definitely, there's a
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couple of things that happen, I think.
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Number one, maybe you have a vegan in
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the family and then they want to take
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the rest of the family out to show
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them, here, look, you guys have been razzing
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me saying that there's no such thing as
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good vegan food.
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Come with me.
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They take them to this restaurant and the
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family tries it out.
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And I think that that changes a lot
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of minds in the families.
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But also I think then there's a lot
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of people that are going into these restaurants
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like that vegan Thai pizza that I was
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talking about before.
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They're going to these restaurants and they're handing
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them menus.
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And they're saying, I'm talking about people that
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are not vegan.
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They're going to the restaurants.
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The people are handing them the menu.
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They're saying, hey, we've got these specials for
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vegan restaurant month.
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And then they look at something like the
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vegan Thai pizza and they're like, well, that's
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interesting.
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They'll look at what it's made of.
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This is really unique.
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Let me try this.
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And generally, I don't think that they would
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normally try something like that, but it being
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presented to them.
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And I do think that a lot of
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those people leave going, hey, this vegan food,
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maybe there is some good vegan food.
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And then they, I think Heather's dad was
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the same way where he was like, well,
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if I could eat like this all the
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time, I'd go vegan in a second.
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So yeah, they have an idea of what
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the vegan food is.
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And I think this is changing minds when
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they're going out there.
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And I think also the restaurants might want
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to top each other and come up with
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something special.
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It's just not another day in the office.
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It's, hey, look at us.
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You bring a little bit of that competition.
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And I was compiling footage of the dishes
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and I was getting so hungry.
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I mean, it was like, oh my gosh,
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these dishes are absolutely incredible.
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But others might be saying, Fort Wayne, Indiana
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is going to the dogs.
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Because your dog is just loving it so
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much.
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And actually I think it creates community because
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a lot of vegans feel isolated in places
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like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it may not
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be as big of a vegan meetup group
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as New York City or LA.
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So then it creates community for them.
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And honestly, I would love to see this
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where I live because you mentioned family.
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One of our biggest disagreements is I'm vegan,
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my nephew's vegan, his daughter's vegan, but others
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in the family are not vegan.
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Where are we going to go to dinner?
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Okay, and so sometimes I'll take them all
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to a vegan restaurant where I think the
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food's great.
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But sometimes they were like, well, it can't
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always be you making the decision.
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So this is a great way.
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I'm not the only one having these problems.
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Everybody who's vegan has this issue with their
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family members for the most part.
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I mean, I don't want to say that,
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but that seems to be the case anyway.
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And this is a great way to overcome
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that.
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So I want to ask you, if somebody
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were to say in their town, okay, I
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want to do this, I'm inspired and look
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at these incredible dishes.
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If you're listening, you're going to have to
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take our word for it.
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It's sinfully delicious, but you have to know
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that none of this has dairy and none
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of this has any animal products.
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So therefore it's completely cholesterol free and absolutely
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good for you.
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So it's healthier for you.
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It's obviously better for the animals.
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It's better for the planet because animal agriculture
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is a leading cause of climate change.
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And it also brings in business for the
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restaurants and gives people who are plant-based
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an opportunity to sort of enjoy being, just
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normalise it, bring your family in.
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It doesn't have to be this three-act
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play where there's negotiations.
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You know, I've had negotiations with people on
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where we're going to eat.
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And it's so silly.
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It's so unnecessary.
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So what would you say, Heather?
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Not just go to the website, which is
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great.
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We're going to put the website up, but
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what would you say to somebody who says,
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I'm going to do this in my town?
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Take them through it.
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Right, so actually I have had people reach
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out to me.
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And anytime I talk to like Victoria Moran's
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Main Street Vegan Academy, I've been on there
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a couple of times because I'm a graduate
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from there.
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And I tell her students that are graduating
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what I do.
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And I tell them, reach out to me.
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Let's chat.
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I will help you.
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I will give you all of the tools
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that you need.
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I will give you the logos.
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I'll help you create your website.
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Actually, I'm working on a website that I
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can post everybody's vegan weeks on.
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So that way it's not a barrier for
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them.
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Well, I don't know how to build a
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website.
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I have a website for you.
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I have logos for you.
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I have everything that you need to get
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this started.
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All you have to do is step one,
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create a list of restaurants that are in
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your city that you think would be good
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to participate.
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That's the first thing you need to do.
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Once you have your list, start reaching out
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to the owners, the managers, the decision makers
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about what you wanna do.
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And then from there, just do it.
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It's super easy.
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Reach out to me if you have any
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questions, if you need help.
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I'm always happy to help people create this.
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Actually, we're getting ready to possibly next spring
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move into Indianapolis and do Indianapolis Vegan Restaurant
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Week.
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And then from there, I wanna move into
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some other towns as well, unless somebody else
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starts to do it there.
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Once I create it in the town, if
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they wanna take it over, great.
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I just really want to see this going
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in to more cities.
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And Jane, let's do one in Marina Del
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Ray.
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Like, let's do it.
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I would like it because I'm in the
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Venice area and you'd think, oh, hipsterville, right?
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Everybody's vegan.
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No, there's not that many vegan restaurants here.
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We have a fabulous Planta Casino.
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And by the way, you're looking at some
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of the restaurants that participated.
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And I wanna give them a big shout
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out for participating because it does take a
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certain amount of throwing your head over the
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fence, taking a wee bit of a risk
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because anything new involves a little bit of
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a risk.
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But I just wanna applaud these restaurants for
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doing it.
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And of course, the other thing that we
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could do is have testimonials from the restaurants
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that participated to encourage other restaurants in other
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towns.
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00:14:41,660 --> 00:14:45,360
That's something, essentially what I see you doing,
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00:14:45,500 --> 00:14:48,200
Heather and JR, is sort of creating a
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00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:48,640
franchise.
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00:14:49,780 --> 00:14:54,640
I was just in Las Vegas to do
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a whole half hour special, which we're gonna
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put on Unchained TV about vegan restaurants in
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00:14:58,960 --> 00:14:59,640
Las Vegas.
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On the way back, we stopped at Veganburg,
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which is a new franchise.
396
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It's on the way back.
397
00:15:11,260 --> 00:15:13,420
So it's almost back here, but it's not
398
00:15:13,420 --> 00:15:13,800
quite.
399
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:17,440
Near Victorville, Hesperia is where it was.
400
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:18,820
And it's a franchise.
401
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:20,160
It's a vegan franchise.
402
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:23,700
So it's the first in the United States.
403
00:15:24,100 --> 00:15:27,900
It's a Singapore company, Turnkey, the best food,
404
00:15:28,820 --> 00:15:31,360
the best, it's a burger place, but the
405
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:32,900
most extraordinary burgers.
406
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:37,360
And it really got me thinking about franchises.
407
00:15:37,580 --> 00:15:40,020
Like I fantasise, oh, I wish I could
408
00:15:40,020 --> 00:15:41,200
have a vegan franchise.
409
00:15:41,620 --> 00:15:42,840
That would be wonderful.
410
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,520
Of course, I'm a person who burns toast
411
00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:49,940
and can't eat with coffee and toast together
412
00:15:49,940 --> 00:15:50,740
at the same time.
413
00:15:50,740 --> 00:15:52,040
So maybe it shouldn't be for me.
414
00:15:52,260 --> 00:15:53,920
I know you can make green smoothies.
415
00:15:54,140 --> 00:15:54,700
That's true.
416
00:15:54,700 --> 00:15:58,060
But the whole concept of a franchise just
417
00:15:58,060 --> 00:15:59,220
really struck me.
418
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And what I see you guys doing is
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00:16:01,900 --> 00:16:05,980
actually franchising this concept all around the United
420
00:16:05,980 --> 00:16:07,480
States so that it's Turnkey.
421
00:16:07,660 --> 00:16:10,180
So that it's not like everybody has to
422
00:16:10,180 --> 00:16:12,940
reinvent the wheel if they wanna have a
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00:16:12,940 --> 00:16:16,120
vegan restaurant week or a vegan restaurant month
424
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:16,980
in their area.
425
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,540
Now, when you say you have a website,
426
00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:21,880
do you have one like start your own
427
00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:25,440
vegan restaurant week or is it simply you're
428
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:26,520
showing an example?
429
00:16:27,380 --> 00:16:30,420
It's just my website that I use for
430
00:16:30,420 --> 00:16:33,240
our vegan restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
431
00:16:33,460 --> 00:16:35,920
But it's something that I want to create
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00:16:36,460 --> 00:16:40,680
that anybody can log in and use for
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00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:41,640
theirs as well.
434
00:16:41,820 --> 00:16:43,960
Or we can somehow, I haven't quite figured
435
00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:45,480
out how I wanna do it, but it's
436
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,180
something that I've been thinking about is putting
437
00:16:47,180 --> 00:16:49,400
together a package, like you said, like a
438
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:49,780
franchise.
439
00:16:50,460 --> 00:16:52,420
So I can hand it over to somebody
440
00:16:52,420 --> 00:16:55,200
and say, or I can take my website,
441
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,360
duplicate it and give that to somebody else
442
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:00,500
so they can start off without having to
443
00:17:00,500 --> 00:17:02,840
start from scratch because I've built it in
444
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:03,420
six years.
445
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:05,380
There's no reason to start from scratch.
446
00:17:05,740 --> 00:17:07,839
I wanna make it really easy for people
447
00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:10,079
to do this in their cities.
448
00:17:10,819 --> 00:17:14,920
I mean, even down to where the letter
449
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:17,480
that you write that you send to restaurants.
450
00:17:17,880 --> 00:17:18,020
Right.
451
00:17:18,740 --> 00:17:22,760
I would think cold calling a restaurant would
452
00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:23,920
be kind of scary.
453
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,700
And saying, hey, how would you like to
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00:17:26,700 --> 00:17:27,380
do this?
455
00:17:27,980 --> 00:17:30,180
I mean, I certainly think there are some
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00:17:30,180 --> 00:17:33,280
very meat centric restaurants in my neighbourhood that
457
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:35,600
might be like buzz off.
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00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:40,840
Although I have convinced restaurants that restaurateurs, local
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00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:42,380
mom and pop restaurants I know in my
460
00:17:42,380 --> 00:17:44,580
area, I've convinced them to add tofu dishes.
461
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:47,720
I've convinced them to add the word vegan
462
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:48,360
options.
463
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,880
So I've done that sort of just off
464
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:55,160
the cuff over the years, being sort of
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00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:56,300
friendly with those people.
466
00:17:56,620 --> 00:17:59,000
But how would you approach?
467
00:17:59,100 --> 00:18:00,740
When you go in there to approach these
468
00:18:00,740 --> 00:18:03,520
restaurants, what would you say in terms of,
469
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:07,440
it seems like kind of scary.
470
00:18:07,620 --> 00:18:08,620
It's like you're cold calling.
471
00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:11,340
Yeah, actually I started out with an email.
472
00:18:11,940 --> 00:18:14,620
I have an email script and I keep
473
00:18:14,620 --> 00:18:17,160
all of my emails that I send out.
474
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,340
So that way, when I put together this
475
00:18:19,340 --> 00:18:21,000
package or if somebody else wants to do
476
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,520
it, I have everything ready to go.
477
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:24,160
This is year one, this is year two,
478
00:18:24,360 --> 00:18:25,340
year three, and so on.
479
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:26,600
So I have all of those.
480
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:28,800
And I even have a phone script because
481
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:30,920
my sister has helped me out the past
482
00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:32,840
couple of years because I don't have time
483
00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,200
to be contacting every restaurant and saying, hey,
484
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:36,080
did you get my email?
485
00:18:36,620 --> 00:18:37,760
This is what's going on.
486
00:18:37,860 --> 00:18:40,100
So I have a phone script as well
487
00:18:40,100 --> 00:18:42,880
that my sister uses to contact the restaurants,
488
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,160
to ask them about participating and making sure
489
00:18:47,160 --> 00:18:49,180
that they receive all the information that they
490
00:18:49,180 --> 00:18:49,420
need.
491
00:18:49,420 --> 00:18:51,420
I mean, we have everything down to phone
492
00:18:51,420 --> 00:18:54,160
scripts for this to make it really easy.
493
00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:57,660
Well, I think this is also a form
494
00:18:57,660 --> 00:18:58,520
of activism.
495
00:18:58,920 --> 00:19:02,140
When you think of animal activism, vegan activism,
496
00:19:02,300 --> 00:19:03,400
you think of protests.
497
00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:05,620
I'll give you an example of one that
498
00:19:05,620 --> 00:19:07,520
we were at very recently.
499
00:19:07,660 --> 00:19:09,740
Dairy and milk means stomach pain.
500
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:12,020
Starbucks coffee is to blame.
501
00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:14,320
Plant-based milk should not cause more.
502
00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:16,660
Starbucks green, we do have more.
503
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,480
The intention of this campaign is to get
504
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,420
them to finally drop the plant-based milk
505
00:19:21,420 --> 00:19:23,640
upcharge, what they have already done in the
506
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,900
United Kingdom, France, Chile, Germany, Japan, and other
507
00:19:27,900 --> 00:19:29,320
major world countries.
508
00:19:29,420 --> 00:19:30,880
They have resisted here in the US so
509
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:31,040
far.
510
00:19:31,140 --> 00:19:32,160
This is their biggest market.
511
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:34,400
They make over, we've estimated they make over.
512
00:19:35,740 --> 00:19:39,100
That protest and others like it were ultimately
513
00:19:39,100 --> 00:19:40,240
successful.
514
00:19:40,700 --> 00:19:44,220
Recently, Starbucks announced they are dropping the vegan
515
00:19:44,220 --> 00:19:46,380
surcharge for plant-based milks.
516
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,120
In Las Vegas, I went into a Starbucks
517
00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:51,540
for the first time in years and no
518
00:19:51,540 --> 00:19:52,180
surcharge.
519
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:53,880
And their coffee's good.
520
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:55,720
So that was a huge victory.
521
00:19:56,220 --> 00:19:58,700
But when you look at activism, the reason
522
00:19:58,700 --> 00:20:00,980
I bring that up is that you think
523
00:20:00,980 --> 00:20:03,480
of things like that, protest marches.
524
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,080
But what you're doing, and JR, maybe you
525
00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:09,820
can address this, is also activism.
526
00:20:10,200 --> 00:20:12,980
But it's activism without any of the controversy.
527
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:14,280
Nobody can fault you.
528
00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:16,120
Nobody can say, why are you doing this?
529
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:18,920
It's a win-win.
530
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:20,600
It's like stealth activism.
531
00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:23,160
Yeah, I mean, that's always been kind of
532
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,100
our whole idea is like finding the soft
533
00:20:26,100 --> 00:20:26,420
sell.
534
00:20:26,860 --> 00:20:30,220
Finding the soft sell, the easy way.
535
00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:32,400
I mean, it doesn't have to be a
536
00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:32,700
struggle.
537
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,040
Heather and I, I mean, we've been vegan
538
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:39,020
for 16 years and we've been really active
539
00:20:39,020 --> 00:20:40,920
in our community since the beginning.
540
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:43,860
Step number one, before you do any of
541
00:20:43,860 --> 00:20:45,680
this, you have to build a community, right?
542
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,560
If there's no community to go to the
543
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:49,400
restaurants, there's not gonna...
544
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,180
So step number one, 16 plus years ago,
545
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,040
Heather had to make a Facebook group, brought
546
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:56,860
people together.
547
00:20:57,120 --> 00:20:58,960
Those people kind of fed in on each
548
00:20:58,960 --> 00:20:59,160
other.
549
00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:01,080
They were saying, hey, here's some recipe ideas.
550
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,220
Here's a restaurant that has this, whatever.
551
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:04,940
They're helping each other out.
552
00:21:05,100 --> 00:21:08,640
But we're constantly out there doing tabling events
553
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:12,760
at Earth Day, explaining how the best way
554
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:14,460
to be green is to be vegan.
555
00:21:14,460 --> 00:21:17,020
We're doing circus protests.
556
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,660
We're out doing tabling events at concerts.
557
00:21:21,020 --> 00:21:23,680
Like we did tabling for Paul McCartney.
558
00:21:24,060 --> 00:21:25,860
Heather's getting ready to do one for Morrissey
559
00:21:26,500 --> 00:21:27,720
coming up here this weekend.
560
00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:31,060
So we're constantly engaged in trying to reach
561
00:21:31,060 --> 00:21:32,420
people where they live.
562
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:35,140
And so yeah, this is just kind of
563
00:21:35,140 --> 00:21:36,000
an extension of that.
564
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:37,480
But yeah, number one thing, you have to
565
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,580
kind of build a network to grow that
566
00:21:39,580 --> 00:21:39,980
out of.
567
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:45,220
So do you have, Heather, a vegan community
568
00:21:45,220 --> 00:21:46,580
in Fort Wayne?
569
00:21:46,860 --> 00:21:49,220
We have a large vegan community in Fort
570
00:21:49,220 --> 00:21:49,420
Wayne.
571
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,860
I'm very surprised how large it is and
572
00:21:53,860 --> 00:21:55,340
how much it continues to grow.
573
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:57,660
I think we have about 3000 people alone
574
00:21:57,660 --> 00:22:00,920
just on our Facebook group, which is the
575
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,140
majority of them are in the Fort Wayne
576
00:22:03,140 --> 00:22:06,260
area because I've met everybody that sends a
577
00:22:06,260 --> 00:22:07,800
join request to our group because I do
578
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,380
wanna keep it as local as possible to
579
00:22:10,380 --> 00:22:13,020
kind of fight some of the infighting that
580
00:22:13,020 --> 00:22:13,940
you have on Facebook.
581
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:16,180
And then also because I wanna keep it
582
00:22:16,180 --> 00:22:17,420
local to our community.
583
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,060
I want people to share where they're going
584
00:22:20,060 --> 00:22:23,060
out to eat locally or share things that
585
00:22:23,060 --> 00:22:25,180
they found out at our local stores.
586
00:22:25,740 --> 00:22:27,620
So we have about 3000 people and we
587
00:22:27,620 --> 00:22:31,880
grew that from zero to almost 3000.
588
00:22:32,120 --> 00:22:35,000
Of course, not everybody participates, but it's funny
589
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,440
when I go out to restaurants and people
590
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:38,820
come up to me and they say, oh,
591
00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:40,880
hey, I'm in your group.
592
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,520
And I love being able to meet new
593
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:47,720
people because we have such an amazing community
594
00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:52,020
and a lot of our friends are from
595
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:52,740
this group.
596
00:22:52,900 --> 00:22:54,640
And I know a lot of people in
597
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:56,500
the group, they've made a lot of friendships
598
00:22:56,500 --> 00:22:57,100
out of it.
599
00:22:57,140 --> 00:22:59,740
So it's very supportive to have.
600
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,480
And so it's surprising to have that here
601
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,620
in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in such a small
602
00:23:05,620 --> 00:23:06,160
community.
603
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:08,340
And it's hugely important.
604
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,820
It's hugely important because when we went vegan
605
00:23:11,820 --> 00:23:14,060
16 years ago, we had no idea.
606
00:23:14,300 --> 00:23:15,520
What do you even eat?
607
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,880
Before it was steak, potatoes, and like corn.
608
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:22,200
And now, okay, now is it just potatoes
609
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:22,660
and corn?
610
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:26,800
So when we first went vegan, the first
611
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,520
place we had tofu was at the place
612
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:31,260
that I worked at.
613
00:23:31,340 --> 00:23:34,020
They had a little cafe and the guy
614
00:23:34,020 --> 00:23:35,960
served us a piece of tofu that was
615
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:38,080
like a gelatinous piece of wedge, like a
616
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,940
piece of pie, wobble, wobble, and put some
617
00:23:40,940 --> 00:23:42,260
barbecue sauce on it.
618
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:43,940
And we're like, oh my God, this is
619
00:23:43,940 --> 00:23:44,280
tofu.
620
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:46,920
If it was just that time, we would
621
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:48,360
have never eaten tofu again.
622
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,420
But luckily, right when we went vegan, that
623
00:23:52,420 --> 00:23:55,260
loving cafe opened up and we got to
624
00:23:55,260 --> 00:23:56,260
try tofu there.
625
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,420
But that's where this is, the whole networking
626
00:24:00,420 --> 00:24:03,860
community is great because you can share these
627
00:24:03,860 --> 00:24:06,620
things and get ideas.
628
00:24:07,620 --> 00:24:10,820
Well, I think what I'm hearing is that
629
00:24:10,820 --> 00:24:15,140
you wanna start maybe, because we have people
630
00:24:15,140 --> 00:24:17,300
watching on our streaming network, which is behind
631
00:24:17,300 --> 00:24:17,540
me.
632
00:24:17,700 --> 00:24:22,000
We have people watching and listening on social
633
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,260
media as well as various platforms.
634
00:24:26,620 --> 00:24:28,580
But some people are saying, I don't have
635
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:29,240
any vegans here.
636
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:30,520
I don't know any vegan restaurants.
637
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:33,780
They're feeling isolated, but it doesn't have to
638
00:24:33,780 --> 00:24:34,500
be that way.
639
00:24:35,220 --> 00:24:37,300
The first step I think would be to
640
00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:38,680
create the group.
641
00:24:38,900 --> 00:24:40,520
If you're in a small town or a
642
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,160
small city, and by the way, I looked
643
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:46,600
it up, Fort Wayne is the 83rd most
644
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:48,560
populous city in the United States.
645
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,000
Now that's not a very big city.
646
00:24:51,300 --> 00:24:53,600
It's well under half a million people.
647
00:24:54,940 --> 00:24:57,920
It's under, I think 300,000 people, but
648
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:58,840
you know what?
649
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:01,000
In 300,000 people, you're gonna find some
650
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:01,320
vegans.
651
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:03,840
And it's the same thing in whatever town
652
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:04,400
you're in.
653
00:25:04,860 --> 00:25:07,180
So if you feel, we can't just have
654
00:25:07,180 --> 00:25:11,040
vegans clustered in New York and Los Angeles.
655
00:25:11,500 --> 00:25:11,600
Okay?
656
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:12,100
They're everywhere.
657
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,000
And one of the first things that I
658
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:16,920
do because we do travel a lot, one
659
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:18,000
of the first things that I do is
660
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:19,960
I go on Facebook and I look for
661
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:21,860
a vegan community in the town that we're
662
00:25:21,860 --> 00:25:22,460
going to.
663
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:28,080
And I can always find a vegan community.
664
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,400
And some of them might be small, but
665
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:31,320
they're going to grow.
666
00:25:31,580 --> 00:25:34,160
If you get those clusters of vegans together,
667
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,140
they're going to grow and they're gonna let
668
00:25:36,140 --> 00:25:38,180
other people know that they're there.
669
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,080
So that's one of the first things I
670
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:40,360
do.
671
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,980
Anytime I'm going to a new city, I
672
00:25:42,980 --> 00:25:46,420
join their Facebook group so I can see
673
00:25:46,420 --> 00:25:49,420
what they have going on and get ideas
674
00:25:49,420 --> 00:25:51,320
of where we wanna go out to eat
675
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:52,800
and try new things.
676
00:25:53,060 --> 00:25:55,020
And I like meeting other vegans.
677
00:25:55,020 --> 00:25:57,460
It's a fun thing for me to do
678
00:25:57,460 --> 00:25:58,260
when we're out.
679
00:25:58,580 --> 00:26:00,620
So- Let me jump in and say,
680
00:26:00,740 --> 00:26:03,000
Harolyn Sampson is saying, I'm in a small
681
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,460
town, closer to nature, not enough vegan restaurants
682
00:26:05,460 --> 00:26:06,500
within walking distance.
683
00:26:06,780 --> 00:26:09,200
So I'm pretty much on my own.
684
00:26:09,540 --> 00:26:12,120
What advice would you give her if she
685
00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:14,620
wanted to create a vegan community in her
686
00:26:14,620 --> 00:26:18,120
small town and then ultimately grow it into
687
00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:19,500
a vegan restaurant week?
688
00:26:19,660 --> 00:26:21,900
Or when we say vegan restaurant week, we
689
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:22,980
don't mean vegan restaurants.
690
00:26:23,500 --> 00:26:25,500
There may be some vegan restaurants, but what
691
00:26:25,500 --> 00:26:31,880
we're talking about is restaurants offering vegan options
692
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,100
during this week or this month.
693
00:26:34,140 --> 00:26:36,100
Yeah, I would say, Harolyn, go on Facebook
694
00:26:36,100 --> 00:26:39,780
and create a Facebook group if there isn't
695
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:40,420
already one.
696
00:26:41,420 --> 00:26:42,280
Search for it first.
697
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:43,440
And if there isn't, create it.
698
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,340
So it's My Town Vegan Group or like
699
00:26:48,340 --> 00:26:51,040
ours is Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group.
700
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:52,720
Create that.
701
00:26:53,060 --> 00:26:54,200
And you'll be surprised.
702
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,080
You may start seeing people because they're searching
703
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:57,680
for one.
704
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,640
You may start seeing people popping up.
705
00:27:01,060 --> 00:27:02,880
Or what I did, because I wanted to
706
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,840
grow it faster, I threw a few dollars
707
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,880
at it and advertised my group because I
708
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,320
wanted to find where are those vegans?
709
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,660
Like we did, we felt alone.
710
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:13,840
We didn't know how to vegan.
711
00:27:15,140 --> 00:27:17,660
So I wanted to find other people.
712
00:27:17,860 --> 00:27:19,340
And so I threw a few dollars here
713
00:27:19,340 --> 00:27:22,540
and there at the group to promote it
714
00:27:22,540 --> 00:27:24,940
on Facebook and Facebook started sharing it with
715
00:27:24,940 --> 00:27:28,020
other people who were interested in veganism around
716
00:27:28,020 --> 00:27:28,960
my city.
717
00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:32,540
And we started finding other people and then
718
00:27:32,540 --> 00:27:34,840
getting together and going out to eat together
719
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:35,960
at different restaurants.
720
00:27:36,220 --> 00:27:38,480
I would call up different restaurants and say,
721
00:27:38,580 --> 00:27:39,900
hey, we have a group coming.
722
00:27:40,120 --> 00:27:41,600
Would you make us something vegan?
723
00:27:41,700 --> 00:27:43,180
If they didn't already have anything on the
724
00:27:43,180 --> 00:27:45,660
menu, we would do vegan dinner clubs.
725
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,180
We would get together and have meetups.
726
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:51,520
We've done vegan restaurant clubs where we, or
727
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,720
I'm sorry, vegan cookbook clubs, where we picked
728
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,980
one vegan cookbook and everybody made a different
729
00:27:56,980 --> 00:27:59,760
dish and we got together and ate them.
730
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,800
So just kind of slowly building that community.
731
00:28:03,020 --> 00:28:04,460
And when we first started, it was me
732
00:28:04,460 --> 00:28:04,980
and my husband.
733
00:28:04,980 --> 00:28:07,440
And I think we had another couple and
734
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,520
then it grew to another person, another person.
735
00:28:10,820 --> 00:28:13,480
And now when we have get togethers, they're
736
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:14,340
pretty nice.
737
00:28:15,340 --> 00:28:17,920
Yeah, so Amy Jean Davis, who's a wonderful
738
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,460
activist here in Los Angeles says, I am
739
00:28:20,460 --> 00:28:22,080
from Northwest Indiana.
740
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:24,520
The vegan options slash restaurants have been progressing
741
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,220
really well in that area.
742
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,680
Talk about that because I think there is
743
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,200
a sense that people who are not vegan
744
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:35,900
like to portray us as some sort of
745
00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:39,960
elitist hipsters only living in Brooklyn or Venice.
746
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:41,680
And that's not the case.
747
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,320
In fact, just having come back from Las
748
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,640
Vegas where there's an extraordinary array of incredible
749
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,320
vegan restaurants, it blew my mind.
750
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,500
I started to say to myself, you know
751
00:28:54,500 --> 00:28:54,860
what?
752
00:28:55,360 --> 00:29:00,160
Maybe what's happening is America's going vegan town
753
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:00,700
by town.
754
00:29:02,580 --> 00:29:04,920
Would you like to address that, Heather?
755
00:29:05,980 --> 00:29:11,080
Yeah, I think people are creating these little
756
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:14,040
pockets of veganism in their communities.
757
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,340
And when we travel, it's fun to be
758
00:29:17,340 --> 00:29:22,240
able to go out and see what communities
759
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:23,220
people are building.
760
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,000
We go to a lot of veg fests
761
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,100
with one of our jobs that we do.
762
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:29,800
And it's just kind of nice to see
763
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,240
these little pockets of veganism popping up here
764
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:32,580
and there.
765
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:34,640
And when I go to LA or when
766
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,500
I go to New York, it's fun to
767
00:29:37,500 --> 00:29:39,140
go out to all of those vegan restaurants.
768
00:29:39,260 --> 00:29:40,700
You have a lot of choices, but in
769
00:29:40,700 --> 00:29:43,980
these smaller towns, you don't have as many
770
00:29:43,980 --> 00:29:46,480
choices as you do in the bigger cities.
771
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:48,720
I mean, we're three hours from Chicago.
772
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,480
And Northwest Indiana, I'm in your Facebook group,
773
00:29:52,940 --> 00:29:53,860
so hello to you.
774
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,800
And they do, I've watched their vegan community
775
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:58,800
growing as well.
776
00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:00,580
I mean, I think- And it didn't
777
00:30:00,580 --> 00:30:01,980
just- Go ahead.
778
00:30:02,300 --> 00:30:04,200
Yeah, and it didn't just start, we didn't
779
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,200
just magically get there.
780
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:09,160
Yeah, at the beginning, it really was just
781
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,960
getting together and having meetups and doing potlucks
782
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,680
and getting together.
783
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,720
I mean, you got to start somewhere.
784
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,020
And I think that that was so key
785
00:30:20,020 --> 00:30:23,340
here is just those getting together, especially if
786
00:30:23,340 --> 00:30:25,600
you're from a very small town that doesn't
787
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,640
have very many restaurants at all, you really
788
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:29,600
got to lean into each other and you
789
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,240
have to share recipes and you have to
790
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:32,840
get together and you have to support each
791
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:33,140
other.
792
00:30:33,860 --> 00:30:36,260
Because yeah, you do feel isolated and especially
793
00:30:36,260 --> 00:30:39,140
anymore with the whole world and everybody kind
794
00:30:39,140 --> 00:30:40,340
of feels like they're in their own little
795
00:30:40,340 --> 00:30:40,700
corner.
796
00:30:41,100 --> 00:30:43,780
And this is where Facebook can really help
797
00:30:43,780 --> 00:30:46,940
out and that you can build that community
798
00:30:46,940 --> 00:30:47,260
there.
799
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,020
I mean, I think this is super important
800
00:30:50,020 --> 00:30:55,900
because it's a way to weave veganism across
801
00:30:55,900 --> 00:30:58,940
the United States and make an entire web.
802
00:30:59,460 --> 00:31:01,300
Look, I am a huge fan of the
803
00:31:01,300 --> 00:31:02,200
Happy Cow app.
804
00:31:02,300 --> 00:31:03,880
I urge everyone to get it.
805
00:31:04,220 --> 00:31:06,520
I have used it from Texas to Vienna
806
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:08,180
and all points in between.
807
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:10,840
And it shows when you, wherever you are,
808
00:31:11,060 --> 00:31:12,920
you go in and it shows you a
809
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,960
vegan restaurant closest to you or vegan restaurants.
810
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,500
It also shows you non-vegan restaurants with
811
00:31:18,500 --> 00:31:19,220
vegan options.
812
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:23,560
And that has been an incredibly powerful app
813
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,780
that has been a game changer.
814
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,940
I almost see this as an app that
815
00:31:29,940 --> 00:31:34,320
could be developed to connect people.
816
00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:36,840
I actually tried to start something like this
817
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:38,960
but it didn't quite take off.
818
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,040
The reason being, it was the idea was
819
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,780
to create like vegans next door, just like
820
00:31:44,780 --> 00:31:46,280
you have next door that I go on
821
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,240
all the time, trying to tell people coyotes
822
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,640
aren't the enemy, you know, and helping people
823
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:54,480
when their dogs are lost in the neighbourhood.
824
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:55,660
It's a neighbourhood thing.
825
00:31:55,740 --> 00:31:57,860
So it's either zip code or maybe even
826
00:31:57,860 --> 00:32:00,200
smaller than zip code but I don't know
827
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,940
where anybody lives as a result of that.
828
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:03,380
But wouldn't it be great to have an
829
00:32:03,380 --> 00:32:07,040
app where we could identify how many vegans
830
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,120
we have in either a zip code or
831
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:11,780
in a sub-zip code and then bring
832
00:32:11,780 --> 00:32:12,540
them together.
833
00:32:13,100 --> 00:32:16,360
Personally, I have found half a dozen vegans
834
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:17,920
that live right in my neighbourhood that I
835
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:20,320
never knew were there.
836
00:32:20,660 --> 00:32:22,860
And it was just accidental.
837
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,680
It shouldn't have to be accidental, Heather.
838
00:32:25,820 --> 00:32:28,740
There should be a mechanism to allow vegans
839
00:32:28,740 --> 00:32:31,700
in their community to connect.
840
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:32,560
Right.
841
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:34,520
I love the idea.
842
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,000
And I remember when you were talking about
843
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:38,380
the idea of that app and I always
844
00:32:38,380 --> 00:32:42,840
love the idea of getting other vegans together
845
00:32:43,780 --> 00:32:45,660
in one giant community.
846
00:32:45,860 --> 00:32:49,020
But the problem with that is we're segregating
847
00:32:49,020 --> 00:32:51,140
ourselves from the rest of the world.
848
00:32:51,340 --> 00:32:54,400
And we want to normalise veganism.
849
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,340
And if we're over here on this other
850
00:32:56,340 --> 00:33:00,520
app, we're not over here on Facebook or
851
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:05,480
Instagram or Blue Sky or wherever sharing veganism.
852
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,520
We're kind of hiding ourselves away from them.
853
00:33:08,660 --> 00:33:10,360
Now, on the other hand, it would be
854
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,080
nice to not see all the meat images
855
00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:16,940
and images of people hunting or fishing.
856
00:33:17,580 --> 00:33:19,320
That's always hard as a vegan.
857
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:20,900
So, you know, both ways.
858
00:33:21,060 --> 00:33:23,100
But I think the problem with creating an
859
00:33:23,100 --> 00:33:29,140
app is it starts out so small that
860
00:33:29,140 --> 00:33:30,960
people are like, well, there's not enough people
861
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:31,580
on here.
862
00:33:31,980 --> 00:33:34,160
And I have all of my community over
863
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:34,500
there.
864
00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:37,160
But I think we'll eventually have to figure
865
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:38,260
out some way.
866
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,020
And I think Facebook groups is a great
867
00:33:40,020 --> 00:33:42,320
way because we have here locally, we have
868
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,180
Fort Wayne Vegans and Vegetarians Group, but then
869
00:33:45,180 --> 00:33:47,400
we have Vegan Indiana, which brings our whole
870
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:48,160
state together.
871
00:33:48,500 --> 00:33:51,320
And that's one of my next ones as
872
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:53,020
well is I want to do a Vegan
873
00:33:53,020 --> 00:33:57,460
Indiana Restaurant Week where it's all of Indiana
874
00:33:57,460 --> 00:34:01,280
that's coming together and doing this, not just
875
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:01,700
Fort Wayne.
876
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:03,280
Well, I'll be honest.
877
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,540
I'll be honest, like this is all blue
878
00:34:07,540 --> 00:34:07,860
sky.
879
00:34:07,940 --> 00:34:10,020
I think this is all brand new thinking
880
00:34:10,020 --> 00:34:12,620
for me because really, and we did this
881
00:34:12,620 --> 00:34:15,020
because we wanted to have great food, you
882
00:34:15,020 --> 00:34:16,239
know, here in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
883
00:34:16,380 --> 00:34:17,980
So this was a little bit of a
884
00:34:17,980 --> 00:34:21,400
selfish enterprise for us to first get in
885
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,840
there, get the restaurants to be okay with
886
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,340
making, you know, vegan food, putting it on
887
00:34:26,340 --> 00:34:27,460
their menus on the regular.
888
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,760
Yeah, I think we should branch out.
889
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,280
I think it seems like a logical conclusion.
890
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:34,719
I've never thought about it before.
891
00:34:35,139 --> 00:34:37,719
Well, I just think what you've created with
892
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,960
Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vegan Restaurant, first week and
893
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:47,659
then you graduated to month is really a
894
00:34:47,659 --> 00:34:52,760
template for what could happen across the United
895
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,800
States in many different towns.
896
00:34:55,380 --> 00:34:58,080
And I think that's super exciting.
897
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,740
And the whole idea is to present what
898
00:35:01,740 --> 00:35:04,400
you've done and then have other people get
899
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,260
it in their mind, like, ooh, I'd love
900
00:35:06,260 --> 00:35:06,840
to do it.
901
00:35:07,180 --> 00:35:09,040
I would love to do it in Marina
902
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:10,240
Del Ray, absolutely.
903
00:35:10,620 --> 00:35:13,180
And I've had problems with, there's a hotel,
904
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:17,040
shall go unnamed, that had just opened and
905
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:18,340
had no vegan options.
906
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:20,340
And then to make it worse, they were
907
00:35:20,340 --> 00:35:22,740
serving octopus.
908
00:35:23,460 --> 00:35:26,440
And what I did was I did a
909
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,560
petition to say, you need to have vegan
910
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,200
options because it happens to be on land
911
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:34,080
owned by the county.
912
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:36,320
There's a lot of land owned by the
913
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:37,620
county in Marina Del Ray.
914
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:39,700
And I said, you have an obligation.
915
00:35:40,020 --> 00:35:42,020
But see, that was the activist in me
916
00:35:42,020 --> 00:35:44,800
immediately with the petitions and the thinking about
917
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:51,260
protests, whereas perhaps your approach of creating a
918
00:35:51,260 --> 00:35:53,580
vegan restaurant week and a vegan restaurant month
919
00:35:53,580 --> 00:35:56,000
and showing them that it can be good
920
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,520
business is the answer.
921
00:35:57,640 --> 00:35:59,760
Now, let me ask you this question, because
922
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:01,760
I think we've all had the experience of
923
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,500
being at either a hotel or a restaurant
924
00:36:04,500 --> 00:36:05,680
that's not vegan.
925
00:36:06,260 --> 00:36:09,360
And then the entree that they put together
926
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,500
that's vegan is, I don't wanna use curse
927
00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:14,560
words, but not good, not good.
928
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:18,180
I've had situations where it was drenched in
929
00:36:18,180 --> 00:36:19,960
you could tell some kind of a lard
930
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,660
that they didn't realise they were cooking and
931
00:36:22,660 --> 00:36:23,780
it was inedible to me.
932
00:36:24,860 --> 00:36:27,760
So how do you train the non-vegan
933
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:31,080
restaurants to create vegan food that A, is
934
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:31,340
vegan?
935
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:32,360
Do you have to educate them?
936
00:36:32,380 --> 00:36:35,260
Because sometimes people don't know honey isn't vegan.
937
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,720
There's certain things that they don't realise are,
938
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:42,740
I mean, it's a process, not an event.
939
00:36:42,820 --> 00:36:44,040
What do you do to educate them?
940
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,120
Right, and a lot of times people think,
941
00:36:46,240 --> 00:36:47,260
oh, it's gluten free.
942
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,200
You can eat that, it's gluten free.
943
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,860
Or I've had family members when we first
944
00:36:51,860 --> 00:36:54,040
went vegan, oh, it's organic, you can eat
945
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:54,360
that.
946
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,520
And we're like, no, it's still A, because
947
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,120
even if they're organic, they're still coming out
948
00:36:59,120 --> 00:36:59,660
of a chicken.
949
00:37:00,180 --> 00:37:01,700
So we're not going to eat it.
950
00:37:02,340 --> 00:37:05,800
But I mean, just letting people know, going
951
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,080
into a restaurant and saying, hey, do you
952
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:09,100
have any vegan options?
953
00:37:09,100 --> 00:37:12,300
Or looking at their menu and creating your
954
00:37:12,300 --> 00:37:13,600
own options out of it.
955
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:14,900
You can always go in and get a
956
00:37:14,900 --> 00:37:15,560
baked potato.
957
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,040
Just leave off the butter, get vegetables, ask
958
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:20,120
if they're cooked in butter.
959
00:37:20,700 --> 00:37:23,020
So just starting to educate your restaurants that
960
00:37:23,020 --> 00:37:24,320
way and the servers.
961
00:37:24,660 --> 00:37:29,400
And it is kind of like hard sometimes
962
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:33,540
because not everybody is interested in feeding vegans.
963
00:37:33,700 --> 00:37:36,420
But I mean, it's almost 2025.
964
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:38,660
Like if you don't have a vegan option
965
00:37:38,660 --> 00:37:42,020
on your menu currently, you're behind the time.
966
00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:46,200
Let me ask you, what were some of
967
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,660
the objections for those who, because we have
968
00:37:49,660 --> 00:37:51,980
to be prepared if we do this for
969
00:37:51,980 --> 00:37:55,120
some pushback, not everybody's going to say, yes,
970
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:55,960
I'm going to do this.
971
00:37:56,060 --> 00:37:56,500
I'm going to devote.
972
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:58,160
They may feel they have to go out
973
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,800
and buy different products that they might have
974
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,060
to spend some time and money educating their
975
00:38:03,060 --> 00:38:03,460
chefs.
976
00:38:03,700 --> 00:38:05,380
What were some of the pushbacks you got
977
00:38:05,380 --> 00:38:06,240
from the restaurants?
978
00:38:06,540 --> 00:38:08,660
And again, I want to applaud all the
979
00:38:08,660 --> 00:38:10,600
restaurants that took part in this, but what
980
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:11,620
were some of the pushbacks?
981
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:13,140
How many restaurants said no?
982
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:14,900
And how did you respond to that?
983
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:17,420
Well, we have a lot of restaurants in
984
00:38:17,420 --> 00:38:20,680
Fort Wayne and we have 15 of them
985
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,140
that participated this year.
986
00:38:23,260 --> 00:38:26,060
So not everybody's going to participate and that's
987
00:38:26,060 --> 00:38:26,440
fine.
988
00:38:26,540 --> 00:38:28,960
Even the, like our all vegan restaurant doesn't
989
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:30,120
participate and that's fine.
990
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:31,740
It's not for everybody.
991
00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:35,600
Some places don't have the manpower to get
992
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,740
as busy as the restaurants do, but just
993
00:38:38,740 --> 00:38:41,320
educating them on what vegan is and looking
994
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:44,840
at their current menu and helping them create
995
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,020
vegan options out of that.
996
00:38:47,140 --> 00:38:50,080
Or if they're wanting to try something new,
997
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,740
just letting them know what's vegan, what they
998
00:38:53,740 --> 00:38:57,060
can't have in that.
999
00:38:58,620 --> 00:39:00,320
But I mean, what did they say to
1000
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:01,400
you when you approached them?
1001
00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:03,620
Did everybody just say, yeah, absolutely.
1002
00:39:03,720 --> 00:39:05,920
Or what was the dialogue so people could
1003
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:06,480
be prepared?
1004
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:08,680
Yeah, so we live in the Midwest.
1005
00:39:09,060 --> 00:39:11,100
So there's such a thing as Midwest nice,
1006
00:39:11,180 --> 00:39:13,040
where even if people don't like you, they're
1007
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:14,920
going to be friendly.
1008
00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:16,980
And so sometimes they would just simply say,
1009
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:18,860
no, we're not going to participate.
1010
00:39:19,060 --> 00:39:21,340
Some people would just not return phone calls
1011
00:39:21,340 --> 00:39:24,420
or emails or talk to me.
1012
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:28,260
But for the most part, I think a
1013
00:39:28,260 --> 00:39:30,460
lot of restaurants that I reached out to
1014
00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:33,100
were excited to participate and they would ask
1015
00:39:33,100 --> 00:39:34,500
me questions about it.
1016
00:39:35,020 --> 00:39:36,800
Otherwise they would just say, no, we're not
1017
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:38,880
interested in doing it at this time.
1018
00:39:39,660 --> 00:39:41,440
Most people are gonna at least be nice
1019
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:42,480
to your face.
1020
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,800
They're not going to yell at you when
1021
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:46,640
you go into their restaurant.
1022
00:39:47,780 --> 00:39:51,660
I feel like approaches everything, because we're not
1023
00:39:51,660 --> 00:39:53,480
going and demanding anything from anybody.
1024
00:39:54,620 --> 00:39:57,460
Heather, I mean, before Vegan Restaurant Week was
1025
00:39:57,460 --> 00:39:59,760
even a thing, we were engaging with these
1026
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,320
restaurants on a very nice way saying, hey,
1027
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:08,080
you could get more people coming in if
1028
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:09,040
you did this.
1029
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:13,020
And Heather was consulting with restaurants years ago
1030
00:40:13,020 --> 00:40:15,200
before we ever started doing it.
1031
00:40:15,460 --> 00:40:17,920
But it was always out of an engagement
1032
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,220
of, hey, here's something that might be good
1033
00:40:21,220 --> 00:40:21,880
for you.
1034
00:40:22,100 --> 00:40:24,580
You have to kind of position the whole
1035
00:40:24,580 --> 00:40:26,020
thing, what's in it for them.
1036
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,400
So instead of being like, we demand that
1037
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:30,320
you do this for us.
1038
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:31,060
Does that make sense?
1039
00:40:31,980 --> 00:40:34,540
Absolutely, it makes perfect sense.
1040
00:40:34,940 --> 00:40:37,200
Yeah, I had restaurants reach out to me
1041
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:40,620
who we had gone to their restaurants before
1042
00:40:40,620 --> 00:40:43,900
and they wanted to know, okay, what can
1043
00:40:43,900 --> 00:40:46,060
I label vegan on my menu?
1044
00:40:46,260 --> 00:40:48,320
And they brought out their book of recipes
1045
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:49,680
and I would go through their book of
1046
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:51,720
recipes and mark it if it was vegan,
1047
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,220
if it was vegetarian or nothing at all,
1048
00:40:55,260 --> 00:40:57,180
or to let them know, if you just
1049
00:40:57,180 --> 00:41:00,100
switch this one little ingredient, it would be
1050
00:41:00,100 --> 00:41:01,700
vegan and everybody can eat it.
1051
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:03,640
You'll get more business that way.
1052
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:08,040
So I did start there with restaurants and
1053
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,800
just kind of building those relationships, being nice
1054
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,520
is free and it goes a long way
1055
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,840
when you're talking to these restaurants who you
1056
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,300
want to go and dine at and you
1057
00:41:18,300 --> 00:41:19,780
want to participate in things.
1058
00:41:20,580 --> 00:41:23,320
Starting to build a community of restaurants as
1059
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:26,360
well as your community of vegans is I
1060
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:27,300
guess your first step.
1061
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,260
Wow, well, I think this is so exciting
1062
00:41:30,260 --> 00:41:33,760
and I really hope that it inspires others.
1063
00:41:33,900 --> 00:41:36,620
It's inspired me, but I'll tell you, it's
1064
00:41:36,620 --> 00:41:39,140
a little scary because I don't like rejection
1065
00:41:39,140 --> 00:41:40,400
and the idea that I'm going to go
1066
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:42,120
into some of these places and get rejected,
1067
00:41:42,940 --> 00:41:44,920
but I like your approach.
1068
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,800
Your approach is, hey, this is, oh, first
1069
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:50,820
of all, it just occurred to me, once,
1070
00:41:51,140 --> 00:41:53,080
do you say, hey, this one signed up,
1071
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,100
this one signed up, this one signed up,
1072
00:41:55,180 --> 00:41:57,820
you should sign up because if not, you're
1073
00:41:57,820 --> 00:41:59,060
going to be kind of out of it.
1074
00:41:59,140 --> 00:42:03,360
Like, is there that competition that- You
1075
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:05,920
know, there really hasn't been.
1076
00:42:06,300 --> 00:42:08,040
I'm trying to think back of when we
1077
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:11,700
did our first one six years ago, I
1078
00:42:11,700 --> 00:42:13,520
think it was just kind of, we had
1079
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:15,800
another all vegan restaurant at the time that
1080
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,180
participated in a few small places and then
1081
00:42:19,180 --> 00:42:21,220
from there, people heard about it on the
1082
00:42:21,220 --> 00:42:24,500
news or different things and they said, oh,
1083
00:42:24,580 --> 00:42:25,780
hey, I want to be a part of
1084
00:42:25,780 --> 00:42:25,960
that.
1085
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,080
And we just started looking at the different
1086
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,700
restaurants that we thought would be a good
1087
00:42:30,700 --> 00:42:32,580
fit for Vegan Month that would do something
1088
00:42:32,580 --> 00:42:35,980
really, really good, especially local restaurants.
1089
00:42:35,980 --> 00:42:38,040
If you reach out to local restaurants, they're
1090
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:39,560
able to do a lot more than if
1091
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:40,720
it's a national chain.
1092
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:43,620
National chains have to go through corporate, they're
1093
00:42:43,620 --> 00:42:46,340
not going to be interested in trying to
1094
00:42:46,340 --> 00:42:49,880
change things for us, but the local restaurants
1095
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,760
want the business and they want to keep
1096
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,020
their community happy.
1097
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,220
So a lot of times they'll go out
1098
00:42:58,220 --> 00:42:59,720
of the way, even when we go into
1099
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:02,660
dine, we'll ask for, hey, you don't have
1100
00:43:02,660 --> 00:43:05,080
really anything on the menu, would you mind
1101
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,080
making us this using the ingredients that you
1102
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:09,480
have that are actually vegan?
1103
00:43:10,100 --> 00:43:11,520
And they're always, a lot of them are
1104
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:12,940
always happy to do that.
1105
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,560
So starting with those restaurants that are local
1106
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:19,380
and that can do scratch foods is going
1107
00:43:19,380 --> 00:43:22,040
to be the ones to focus on first.
1108
00:43:22,460 --> 00:43:24,220
I absolutely agree with you.
1109
00:43:24,260 --> 00:43:27,080
Mom and Pop, smaller restaurants that are not
1110
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,080
part of big chains, forget the big chains,
1111
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:32,060
like that hotel that was serving octopus, that's
1112
00:43:32,060 --> 00:43:33,860
a major brand, one of the biggest in
1113
00:43:33,860 --> 00:43:34,320
the world.
1114
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,280
That's going to be very hard to get
1115
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,420
in there with corporate and make that change.
1116
00:43:39,740 --> 00:43:41,220
We've got a lot of comments coming in.
1117
00:43:41,380 --> 00:43:43,860
Amy Jean Davis says, we're doing the same
1118
00:43:43,860 --> 00:43:46,020
menu adjustment campaign with Plant Based Treaty.
1119
00:43:46,540 --> 00:43:48,300
Paige Parsons Roach and I were out yesterday
1120
00:43:48,300 --> 00:43:50,320
going to cafes and everyone we spoke to
1121
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:52,080
was very nice.
1122
00:43:52,500 --> 00:43:56,700
So yes, menu adjustment, I like that phrase.
1123
00:43:57,040 --> 00:43:59,400
I think that there's a tendency and I
1124
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,040
suffer from it of all of nothingness.
1125
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,120
Like I want everybody to go vegan tomorrow.
1126
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,360
The idea of adding a vegan option may
1127
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,500
seem like a small thing, but if all
1128
00:44:14,500 --> 00:44:19,700
of that put together is cumulative and I
1129
00:44:19,700 --> 00:44:22,760
really have a new attitude toward what's happening
1130
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,320
with veganism in the United States, I think
1131
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:26,240
that it's morphing.
1132
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,460
I think it did start out where it
1133
00:44:29,460 --> 00:44:33,500
was kind of like this Californication type, you
1134
00:44:33,500 --> 00:44:34,720
know, hipster thing.
1135
00:44:34,820 --> 00:44:36,240
And then we realised, well, a lot of
1136
00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:37,760
people are alienated by that.
1137
00:44:38,420 --> 00:44:40,720
They may not, they think it's expensive.
1138
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,080
They try to make this, the meat industry
1139
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,780
tries to make that veganism is more expensive
1140
00:44:46,780 --> 00:44:48,560
when we all know it's cheaper.
1141
00:44:48,820 --> 00:44:50,660
You could buy a sack of brown rice,
1142
00:44:50,820 --> 00:44:53,060
a sack of dried beans and a sack
1143
00:44:53,060 --> 00:44:54,920
of potatoes and live for two months.
1144
00:44:55,260 --> 00:44:57,920
And so we all know it's cheaper, but
1145
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:03,280
the word out there that the advertiser-based
1146
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,340
media tries to push is that it's vegan
1147
00:45:06,340 --> 00:45:07,020
and elitist.
1148
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,560
Now I see a change happening.
1149
00:45:09,780 --> 00:45:14,080
I see that it's going mainstream in these
1150
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:14,880
smaller towns.
1151
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,060
And I was, again, blown away by the
1152
00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:20,400
vegan options in Las Vegas.
1153
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:22,900
Not that that's such a small town, but
1154
00:45:22,900 --> 00:45:26,140
it was just, it was shocking.
1155
00:45:26,140 --> 00:45:29,380
I mean, and we talked to a couple
1156
00:45:29,380 --> 00:45:31,300
who came all the way from Florida, who
1157
00:45:31,300 --> 00:45:33,760
run a sanctuary, who fly all the way
1158
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:35,820
to Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to
1159
00:45:35,820 --> 00:45:39,060
go to this vegan Asian restaurant that makes
1160
00:45:39,060 --> 00:45:43,240
vegan sushi, vegan dim sum, and traditional Chinese
1161
00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:43,980
dishes.
1162
00:45:44,180 --> 00:45:46,700
And the food was so good, I brought
1163
00:45:46,700 --> 00:45:48,780
the leftovers home and had it for lunch
1164
00:45:48,780 --> 00:45:52,100
yesterday because it was absolutely delicious.
1165
00:45:52,100 --> 00:45:55,540
And I'm thinking, we need you to open
1166
00:45:55,540 --> 00:45:56,980
a restaurant in LA like that.
1167
00:45:57,060 --> 00:45:58,500
I was trying to convince all these people.
1168
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,240
But it made me think that, when you
1169
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:03,260
try to push something down and you try
1170
00:46:03,260 --> 00:46:06,120
to suppress something, which let's face it, the
1171
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,160
meat industry is, there's an article in the
1172
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,780
Guardian that says basically they have a war
1173
00:46:10,780 --> 00:46:14,380
room in Colorado where they send out all
1174
00:46:14,380 --> 00:46:17,540
this negative stuff about ultra processed and never
1175
00:46:17,540 --> 00:46:21,200
mentioning that processed meat is officially cancer causing,
1176
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:22,940
according to the World Health Organisation.
1177
00:46:23,460 --> 00:46:25,560
So we have to push back.
1178
00:46:26,140 --> 00:46:30,620
And so I see that it's coming, the
1179
00:46:30,620 --> 00:46:32,680
vegan movement is sort of like, okay, you're
1180
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:33,960
gonna try to push it down here, it's
1181
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:34,740
gonna pop up here.
1182
00:46:34,900 --> 00:46:36,280
What's your thought on that, JR?
1183
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,420
Well, I think it's all about normalising the
1184
00:46:40,420 --> 00:46:40,740
whole thing.
1185
00:46:41,380 --> 00:46:43,500
Heather and I have been involved with that
1186
00:46:43,500 --> 00:46:46,700
for years, whether it's, Heather gives cooking demos,
1187
00:46:47,720 --> 00:46:49,640
Heather does tabling events.
1188
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,440
And I wanna also stress, one of the
1189
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:56,260
cool things that these restaurants get is publicity
1190
00:46:56,260 --> 00:46:57,040
out the wazoo.
1191
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:59,620
I mean, like Heather is doing, she's done
1192
00:46:59,620 --> 00:47:03,440
like maybe three TV interviews.
1193
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,880
She's done, you've got a newspaper and whatever.
1194
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,540
So that's huge for them.
1195
00:47:13,660 --> 00:47:15,400
So they're getting their name out there and
1196
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:16,700
people are curious.
1197
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:19,980
So yeah, I think it's all about-
1198
00:47:19,980 --> 00:47:21,980
This is a list of, we're putting up
1199
00:47:21,980 --> 00:47:24,200
a list of all the restaurants that participated
1200
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:25,860
and kudos to you.
1201
00:47:26,140 --> 00:47:26,820
You're right.
1202
00:47:27,260 --> 00:47:29,580
So that's the other piece of the puzzle
1203
00:47:29,580 --> 00:47:31,240
that we have to explain to people, Heather.
1204
00:47:31,500 --> 00:47:33,640
It's not just, oh, you go up to
1205
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,040
these restaurants, you've issued a news release, which
1206
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,660
I've read, which names all these restaurants, they're
1207
00:47:38,660 --> 00:47:39,780
named on the website.
1208
00:47:40,220 --> 00:47:43,740
And you're also doing TV interviews where you're
1209
00:47:43,740 --> 00:47:46,780
saying, hey, look at these great restaurants that
1210
00:47:46,780 --> 00:47:47,540
are participating.
1211
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:49,760
So you're providing them free advertising.
1212
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,480
Right, well, the restaurants do pay a little
1213
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:56,560
bit of money to be in this because
1214
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,060
we do have a lot going on behind
1215
00:47:59,060 --> 00:48:01,020
the scenes that we have to pay for.
1216
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,880
So the restaurants do pay, but they don't
1217
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,480
pay a lot to be included.
1218
00:48:06,620 --> 00:48:08,400
They pay enough to help pay the bills.
1219
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,780
So it's not quite free, but they're getting
1220
00:48:12,780 --> 00:48:14,000
publicity all month.
1221
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,080
I own a marketing agency.
1222
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,540
You can't get the type of publicity that
1223
00:48:18,540 --> 00:48:22,320
these restaurants are getting for even one day
1224
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:25,240
on what they pay to be included in
1225
00:48:25,240 --> 00:48:25,520
this.
1226
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:27,960
So yeah, veganism is popping up.
1227
00:48:28,100 --> 00:48:29,380
To go back to what you said, I
1228
00:48:29,380 --> 00:48:32,680
mean, veganism, I see it popping up in
1229
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:33,480
different cities.
1230
00:48:33,620 --> 00:48:35,240
I mean, we go up to Michigan and
1231
00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:38,720
small towns there, there's Detroit, there's Ann Arbour,
1232
00:48:38,860 --> 00:48:41,720
Traverse City, have all these little pockets of
1233
00:48:41,720 --> 00:48:43,040
veganism around there.
1234
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:47,200
We go to upstate New York and Rochester
1235
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:49,780
and different places, and there's little pockets of
1236
00:48:49,780 --> 00:48:50,320
veganism.
1237
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,880
And it's so fun to know that we're
1238
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:54,600
out there.
1239
00:48:54,860 --> 00:48:56,680
We're not just in the big cities.
1240
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,200
Anywhere you go in the US or even
1241
00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,520
outside of the US, there's vegans everywhere, and
1242
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,080
you just are hiding.
1243
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:06,280
We're hiding everywhere.
1244
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:09,100
You just don't, yeah, you just don't know
1245
00:49:09,100 --> 00:49:09,280
it.
1246
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:14,080
So it's a lot of work.
1247
00:49:14,240 --> 00:49:17,140
Don't let me lie and say it's not
1248
00:49:17,140 --> 00:49:17,900
a lot of work.
1249
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:19,720
I put a lot of work into this
1250
00:49:19,720 --> 00:49:22,540
leading up to it, but I think the
1251
00:49:22,540 --> 00:49:25,560
benefits for the vegan community and the benefits
1252
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,840
for the restaurant and the benefits for the
1253
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,160
animals outweigh like all of the work that's
1254
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:31,940
put into it.
1255
00:49:31,980 --> 00:49:33,960
And it is kind of a streamlined process
1256
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:35,880
that I've done the past six years.
1257
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:37,500
That makes it a lot easier.
1258
00:49:37,500 --> 00:49:37,940
It's a labour of love.
1259
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:40,120
It's a labour of love.
1260
00:49:40,300 --> 00:49:40,740
I do love it.
1261
00:49:40,900 --> 00:49:43,600
And there's no doubt that, I mean, the
1262
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:47,060
other restaurants that don't participate, the first year,
1263
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,380
maybe it's a little harder, but they see
1264
00:49:49,380 --> 00:49:49,640
that.
1265
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:51,680
The other restaurants that don't participate, they see
1266
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:53,820
that coverage and they're like, ooh, I kind
1267
00:49:53,820 --> 00:49:54,940
of missed the boat on this one.
1268
00:49:55,360 --> 00:49:56,940
And I'll tell you what, if they see
1269
00:49:56,940 --> 00:49:59,420
it two years and they weren't participating and
1270
00:49:59,420 --> 00:50:01,060
they see that coverage, they're like, man, I
1271
00:50:01,060 --> 00:50:03,840
am, so number three, they're definitely on board.
1272
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:06,980
So yeah, it's a labour of love.
1273
00:50:06,980 --> 00:50:08,340
I know Heather puts in a lot of
1274
00:50:08,340 --> 00:50:09,700
time into this.
1275
00:50:10,660 --> 00:50:12,880
I just get my picture taken, so.
1276
00:50:13,340 --> 00:50:15,620
Well, speaking of that, this conversation has been
1277
00:50:15,620 --> 00:50:17,880
so much fun and it's gone by so
1278
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,600
quickly, I forgot to play, but I'm going
1279
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:21,820
to play it right now.
1280
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,360
What you do when you're not doing vegan
1281
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,160
restaurant week or vegan restaurant month.
1282
00:50:27,820 --> 00:50:28,500
Oh, right, right.
1283
00:50:28,580 --> 00:50:29,380
Long live the king.
1284
00:50:29,460 --> 00:50:31,820
But what if, say, Jailhouse Rock had been
1285
00:50:31,820 --> 00:50:33,440
written by a vegan instead?
1286
00:50:35,380 --> 00:50:37,600
When a vegan throws a party, you can
1287
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:39,360
bet your tail, all the chips on the
1288
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:40,620
plate will all be made of kale.
1289
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:42,620
The salad and the smoothie will be kale
1290
00:50:42,620 --> 00:50:44,700
as well, cause every single vegan loves the
1291
00:50:44,700 --> 00:50:45,480
kale, kale, kale.
1292
00:50:45,660 --> 00:50:48,820
Let's rock with the lettuce, let's rock.
1293
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:52,880
Every vegan living on your block will be
1294
00:50:52,880 --> 00:50:54,480
munching on the kale nonstop.
1295
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:03,420
I'm kale-less.
1296
00:51:04,060 --> 00:51:05,440
Kale-less parsley.
1297
00:51:06,140 --> 00:51:07,020
Thank you very much.
1298
00:51:10,340 --> 00:51:11,220
It's ridiculous.
1299
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:13,900
I love it.
1300
00:51:14,340 --> 00:51:16,120
And I will say you have a whole
1301
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:18,300
bunch of others, but I did check and
1302
00:51:18,300 --> 00:51:20,540
Jailhouse Rock is public domain.
1303
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:22,720
That's why I played that one.
1304
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:23,660
Oh, is that right?
1305
00:51:23,720 --> 00:51:24,360
Okay, okay.
1306
00:51:24,780 --> 00:51:26,220
You've got plenty of others.
1307
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:27,480
Super fun.
1308
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:31,340
Another example of how veganism is a joyous,
1309
00:51:31,580 --> 00:51:35,860
fun, very fun adventure, no sacrifice involved.
1310
00:51:36,100 --> 00:51:37,840
And that's what I think is the final
1311
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:38,140
thing.
1312
00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:39,620
We've only got a couple of minutes left,
1313
00:51:39,700 --> 00:51:43,780
is that this whole vegan restaurant month, vegan
1314
00:51:43,780 --> 00:51:49,440
restaurant week shows that it's fun, that our
1315
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:51,860
lifestyle is a blast.
1316
00:51:52,180 --> 00:51:56,040
And frankly, I have to control myself not
1317
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,680
to just make it a social club because
1318
00:51:57,680 --> 00:51:59,780
I could go somewhere every night to a
1319
00:51:59,780 --> 00:52:02,860
different potluck or a different restaurant or a
1320
00:52:02,860 --> 00:52:05,660
different meetup or a different party or a
1321
00:52:05,660 --> 00:52:06,740
different veg fest.
1322
00:52:09,300 --> 00:52:12,840
Your programme of vegan restaurant month needs to
1323
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:13,820
go coast to coast.
1324
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:16,460
I personally want to get involved to help
1325
00:52:16,460 --> 00:52:16,780
this.
1326
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:21,080
I think it should maybe become a 5013
1327
00:52:21,080 --> 00:52:25,400
nonprofit project where you get funding to do
1328
00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:25,960
all this.
1329
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:31,480
And so that we enable people all around
1330
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:35,800
the United States and beyond, Canada, Europe, Latin
1331
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:40,500
America, everywhere, the entire world could be creating
1332
00:52:40,500 --> 00:52:44,020
their vegan restaurant weeks and months in their
1333
00:52:44,020 --> 00:52:47,640
towns because you've provided a very specific template
1334
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:49,100
almost like a franchise.
1335
00:52:49,540 --> 00:52:53,140
So final thoughts, Heather, what do you say
1336
00:52:53,140 --> 00:52:53,460
to that?
1337
00:52:53,460 --> 00:52:55,900
Yep, I think Jane, you're definitely right.
1338
00:52:55,980 --> 00:52:59,180
And I've procrastinated long enough and I think
1339
00:52:59,180 --> 00:53:00,780
you've just kind of given me the push
1340
00:53:00,780 --> 00:53:03,680
that I need to put together my package
1341
00:53:04,460 --> 00:53:07,080
of everything that we do for vegan restaurant
1342
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:08,680
week or vegan restaurant month.
1343
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:10,580
I mean, I don't think many places can
1344
00:53:10,580 --> 00:53:13,280
jump straight to a vegan month starting at
1345
00:53:13,280 --> 00:53:15,720
a vegan restaurant week, even with two restaurants
1346
00:53:15,720 --> 00:53:17,160
is good.
1347
00:53:17,340 --> 00:53:19,140
So yeah, I think that's kind of given
1348
00:53:19,140 --> 00:53:20,620
me the push that I need to put
1349
00:53:20,620 --> 00:53:24,500
everything together and touch base with other vegan
1350
00:53:24,500 --> 00:53:27,240
communities and other towns to say, hey, let's
1351
00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:28,600
get this started in your town.
1352
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,320
And a final thought from JR. You said
1353
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:35,300
something really interesting.
1354
00:53:35,460 --> 00:53:38,640
You said, you feel like you should make
1355
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:39,500
it a social club.
1356
00:53:39,640 --> 00:53:41,700
And I think that that's where it's gotta
1357
00:53:41,700 --> 00:53:42,380
start, right?
1358
00:53:42,700 --> 00:53:44,400
It's gotta start as a social club and
1359
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:47,480
it's gotta start as a network and people
1360
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:48,680
leaning into one another.
1361
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,740
I mean, the things that we do, everything
1362
00:53:50,740 --> 00:53:53,120
that we do, whether it's the tabling, whether
1363
00:53:53,120 --> 00:53:56,020
it's the vegan restaurant month, whether it's Heather's
1364
00:53:56,020 --> 00:53:58,080
doing the cooking classes, we do all of
1365
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,380
these things out of love and because it's
1366
00:54:01,380 --> 00:54:02,300
a fun thing to do.
1367
00:54:02,620 --> 00:54:03,920
And we wouldn't do any of this if
1368
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:04,620
it wasn't fun.
1369
00:54:04,740 --> 00:54:09,540
I mean, it's great to be there fighting
1370
00:54:09,540 --> 00:54:11,700
for the animals, but I wanna be a
1371
00:54:11,700 --> 00:54:12,420
happy warrior.
1372
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,320
So that's where it's gotta start, I think.
1373
00:54:14,780 --> 00:54:17,320
Wow, well, please reach out to Plant Based
1374
00:54:17,320 --> 00:54:20,880
Treaty for possible collaboration, says Amy Jean Davis,
1375
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,640
who's a very well-known activist and who
1376
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:28,060
does so much for animals, people and the
1377
00:54:28,060 --> 00:54:28,480
planet.
1378
00:54:28,700 --> 00:54:31,860
So yes, I think that Plant Based Treaty,
1379
00:54:32,060 --> 00:54:36,100
which tries to turn institutions, cities and restaurants,
1380
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,440
plant-based and individuals would be a great
1381
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:39,040
collaborator.
1382
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:41,280
And somebody else said, put them on the
1383
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:41,620
team.
1384
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:42,540
Well, guess what?
1385
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,560
Full disclosure, they're already on the team.
1386
00:54:45,020 --> 00:54:47,640
Heather Dahman is on our board on the
1387
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:52,000
Unchained TV, Jane Unchained News Network, 501C3 nonprofit
1388
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:52,600
board.
1389
00:54:52,820 --> 00:54:56,140
And she is also our technical director.
1390
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,820
And a lot of what happens on our
1391
00:54:59,820 --> 00:55:02,560
streaming network would not be able to happen
1392
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,360
without Heather.
1393
00:55:04,580 --> 00:55:06,780
So with that, I am going to urge
1394
00:55:06,780 --> 00:55:12,700
everybody, yes, make a vegan restaurant week in
1395
00:55:12,700 --> 00:55:13,260
your town.
1396
00:55:13,260 --> 00:55:16,780
And also, I think you should download Unchained
1397
00:55:16,780 --> 00:55:17,120
TV.
1398
00:55:17,380 --> 00:55:19,320
So it's a vegan Netflix.
1399
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:21,520
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
1400
00:55:21,540 --> 00:55:22,800
I love Unchained TV.
1401
00:55:23,020 --> 00:55:25,760
Unchained, Unchained TV, your life will change.
1402
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:26,920
It's just that easy.
1403
00:55:27,300 --> 00:55:29,760
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
1404
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:30,240
everybody.
1405
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:32,720
Unchained TV changed my life.
1406
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,800
Unchained TV is crushing it.
1407
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:37,480
I love Unchained TV.
1408
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:39,480
Unchained TV is my go-to.
1409
00:55:39,780 --> 00:55:41,580
Unchained TV, who knew?
1410
00:55:42,380 --> 00:55:44,000
Unchained TV, yeah.