The Hen Report: “Who’s gonna match my freak?”

[00:00:15] Mariann Sullivan: We're doing a totally new thing. Do you know where that line comes from? And now for something completely different. It's from the old Monty Python shows. We should totally have a Monty Python marathon. That would be so much. Well, anyway, I digress Yeah, we're doing we're doing a different kind of

[00:00:28] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. All right. So here's what happened. So in case you haven't been paying attention, listener, we've been doing this for going on 15 years and we've never missed a week. Although admittedly, there was a point in time where we did some like kind of best ofs. So you could argue that. We were still putting a show up, but it wasn't all new content at that point.

[00:00:52] Mariann Sullivan: But we always, it was just annoying anyway, because we ended up doing intros, which ended up being just as much work as an episode. We were trying to take a vacation, but, and you know, we've done it through the highs and lows. We dated, we got married, we got divorced. We...

[00:01:07] Jasmin Singer: My grandma died and my grandma used to be a regular guest and then she passed away. And I remember recording at her assisted living facility like during her last few days. Do you remember that? Like in the corner with our little microphone?

[00:01:19] Mariann Sullivan: I do, I, I sure do. And, um, and we've been through many animals, uh, Rose in particular, like Rose started with us and until a few years ago, she... she was an important element, though she didn't actually... she was my beloved pitbull. And many others, yeah. It's been a ride, but we're not quitting, sounds like we're quitting, sounds like we're done.

[00:01:41] Jasmin Singer: The other day, my grandma would have been 100. It would have been her 100th birthday. Which, I just wanted to mention that. Happy birthday, Grandma. Uh, so, for the last, I don't know, year and a half, we have been actively talking about, like, Do we want to change up the way we do Our Hen House?

Because if you listen to the first episode, it's actually kind of the same as it is now, more or less. Like, we used to do, uh, we used to call each other Honey a lot more often, but other than...

[00:02:10] Mariann Sullivan: That was before the divorce.

[00:02:11] Jasmin Singer: Right. Other than that, honey... remember someone wrote to us once and said it was exploitative that we said honey because it's an animal product.

[00:02:20] Mariann Sullivan: I've blocked that one out, yeah.

[00:02:22] Jasmin Singer: I'm not even gonna discuss that. I'm just gonna keep going. But we did used to do reviews and we used to interview two people, but for the most part, it's sort of the same. I mean, rising anxieties, I don't think always existed, but it's been there for a long time.

[00:02:40] Mariann Sullivan: No, for a really long time.

[00:02:41] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, so we're actually still figuring out how we want to change things.

We are also having some issues with funding because some of the foundations that support Our Hen House are moving in the effective altruism direction. And so I guess there's a chance we'll have to produce fewer episodes depending on how things shake out. But we're working really, really hard right now to fundraise.

That was not a ask, by the way. I'm just kind of updating you. But then there's also like you and me, we've interviewed literally thousands of people and sometimes we just have covered. certain subjects so much that even though there's always another way of covering something, there's...

[00:03:27] Mariann Sullivan: There's always new people doing new things, but sometimes I do feel like we lose the focus because our focus has always been, and I want it to continue to be, encouraging people, the grassroots, encouraging the grassroots, whatever you mean by the grassroots, which means that everybody who isn't like necessarily working in the movement, so we care about people who are working in the movement, but encouraging everybody to find ways to do something, uh, to change the world for animals. And, you know, some of the interviews we do, I think focus on that, and I don't think they all need to. I mean, some of them are inspirational in various ways. Some of them are just examples of people doing cool things that most other people are not going to be doing, but that is like why we started it.

Cause we knew that top down organizations are absolutely crucial and, and what they're doing is absolutely necessary, but we are not going to change the way the world functions without everybody getting on board.

[00:04:22] Jasmin Singer: A hundred percent. A thousand billion percent. And so we decided to play around with, well, a few things. I mean, number one, we're going to be playing around with how we do the podcast and just see like what's working, what's not. Many of you like to email us when something doesn't work. So thanks. Uh, but no, it's fine, I like hearing from you no matter what, usually.

No, I don't. I got a really nice email recently that I have to reply to from a listener. So if you wrote to me and you were talking about Berlin, just know I got your email and I am sorry that it's been like six weeks and I still haven't replied, but I will, I promise. But in any case, we decided to play around with occasionally, uh, kind of expanding tots.

That's top of the show. That's what we call top of the show. What, what happens before the interview, expanding it to have many more subjects and then not having a guest all the time. So that was

[00:05:19] Mariann Sullivan: Cause I, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of times they don't always have guests. And I just thought, well, we can do that too.

[00:05:27] Jasmin Singer: I'm not sure we connect the dots totally with why we're changing that part up. I think like, number one, it's, it's less work on Vicki's end, although Vicki is now editing the podcasts too, so that's more work on Vicki's end. So sorry, Vicki. But, but the second reason is because I think we need to keep things interesting for us too.

And when things are new and different for us, they are new and different for the listener. So, So we're just playing along, there's many, many reasons why we're switching things up a little bit. But, don't worry, we'll still be interviewing guests, just maybe not every single week.

[00:06:00] Mariann Sullivan: And actually, now that we've announced that, we actually do have a guest.

[00:06:03] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, our first episode that's guest free has a guest. Uh, so we...

[00:06:08] Mariann Sullivan: It's a different kind of, it's a short interview about a very specific topic.

[00:06:12] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, and it's my friend, Alex, who I completely adore. And, she and her partners are talking about the vegan meetup that they started and specifically the one that was last week because there were so many reasons why we thought that that was interesting. Should we actually go to that right now? Do this out of order, because I feel like I'm introducing Alex right now.

What do you think? Okay. So Alex is, uh, our introduction is Alex is a, I'm making this up, a writer. Uh, she moved

[00:06:46] Mariann Sullivan: She is a, you're not totally making it up. That

[00:06:48] Jasmin Singer: No, no, no. She is a writer. That

[00:06:50] Mariann Sullivan: You're doing it off the

[00:06:51] Jasmin Singer: I'm doing it off the cuff. She's a neuroscientist. No, I'm kidding. That, that part is a joke. So Alex is just like one of my favorite vegans and she happens to live here in Rochester.

[00:07:02] Mariann Sullivan: And she's an amazing, she's just an amazing cook.

[00:07:04] Jasmin Singer: Really, truly, the whole family there. Amazing cooks. So here, here's our chat with Alex. Welcome to Our Hen House, Alex.

[00:07:16] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Why, thank you.

[00:07:17] Jasmin Singer: It sounds very official. I don't actually usually say hello that way to you.

[00:07:22] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yes, that's not how we typically interact. Usually there's a lot of like, um, weird noises and hugging.

[00:07:28] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, lots of them. And some of the noises are my back cracking because your husband is my fake chiropractor. But by fake, I mean like he's a good hugger and he like lifts me up a little bit, and it always gives me a little adjustment.

[00:07:42] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yeah, I hired him for that.

[00:07:44] Mariann Sullivan: Vegan food ladies, vegan food.

[00:07:46] Jasmin Singer: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Um, so Alex is

[00:07:49] Mariann Sullivan: My job in this whole episode is to, like, try to keep us vaguely, vaguely on track.

[00:07:55] Jasmin Singer: Vaguely.

[00:07:55] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I think that was a very wise assignment.

[00:07:57] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, yeah, you have a few other assignments too. Uh, make sure, for example, I don't start cooking while Alex is talking. That could be one of your other assignments, Mariann.

[00:08:06] Mariann Sullivan: Because you're always starting to cook, like, uh, getting you to cook is like pulling teeth.

[00:08:12] Jasmin Singer: So, okay, Alex, you recently, you and Alyssa and Ahmad, your spouses, recently started a vegan meetup group, right? Like here in Rochester.

[00:08:25] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: That's right, we did.

[00:08:26] Jasmin Singer: So the last time I went to a meetup, I think was like 2006. Are they making a resurgence?

[00:08:34] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: So, I can't speak to that, but I can say that a lot of people, I expected that when we formed the meetup, we would need to, like, market it. So we posted it in, you know, the local vegan Facebook groups and things like that. And, yet most of the people who have shown up either knew us directly, or found us on the meetup platform. And I would say it's a very multi generational group. So I think that's a maybe?

[00:09:02] Jasmin Singer: Okay, okay, I can deal with a maybe. And I didn't mean that in a, like, a pejorative way, by the way. Like, I mean, I think it's super cool, a little retro, and I'm wondering, as someone who's come from a big city, as have you, like we both moved here from big cities. Do you think like a smaller city like Rochester has more enthusiasm over a vegan foodie group than like say New York City or Los Angeles or San Diego?

[00:09:31] Mariann Sullivan: Can I just insert here, like, Jasmin, I think we're basing this whole conversation on your completely uninformed opinion that people don't do meet ups anymore.

[00:09:39] Jasmin Singer: 1000 percent true. Absolutely. Yeah, that's true.

[00:09:43] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: It seems like there are definitely, I think that meetups are very popular for niche interests. And I, as an observer, would say that I think Rochester is probably getting enthusiastic about that. But I think maybe it's not because it's a small city or anything else, but because I feel like a lot of people just are moving here. So there's a lot of people, I mean, that for us was a big motivation, coming to a place where, you know, we do have a community, but not necessarily around veganism or around our like niche interests. And, we just wanted to meet other people who were interested in similar things. And so, I think as like a city of transplants, maybe, maybe yes.

[00:10:23] Jasmin Singer: I mean, you've got me. I just am putting that out there, but you guys are like real...

[00:10:28] Mariann Sullivan: Jasmin, I, I thought you were banned from this meet up because you refused to cook?

[00:10:31] Jasmin Singer: No, okay.

[00:10:32] Mariann Sullivan: That was the story I heard!

[00:10:34] Jasmin Singer: Not Banned. Not banned. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. But I am definitely not a foodie, which I think a lot of people associate, like, vegans with foodies, and some are and some aren't. I would imagine more vegans are foodies than, like, your average bear.

[00:10:49] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: That's funny because I feel the opposite.

[00:10:51] Jasmin Singer: Wow. Really?

Tell me why.

[00:10:54] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I feel like, part of the reason that we wanted this kind of foodie community is because we, we do know a lot of vegans, but they're not necessarily foodies, or there's just a lot of like, dietary stuff, gluten free or no sugar, like all of these different things that we tend to engage in as vegans, because we know a lot about the food that we eat.

And so I think that we, you know, just we do that automatically. And we're comfortable with elimination. And then, the foodies that we do know, I feel like are like, oh, if it doesn't have cow's cheese in it, I'm really just not interested. And so I didn't necessarily, I feel like we wanted like a creative outlet for like hosting and our like insane degree of foodieism that I feel like, like, the kids now say, like, who's going to match my freak? Like, who's going to match my freak with, like, vegan foodie-ism, you know?

[00:11:43] Jasmin Singer: We might have to make that the episode title. I've never heard that before. Okay, so the first one you did, you've done two so far, and the first one you did was like kind of just your, your general potluck, bring a dish you like. I brought soda because of the aforementioned cooking issues. And so tell our listeners about the one that you had last week.

[00:12:06] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yeah, so what we're doing is every other month we're doing a cookbook club, which is what we did last month. And then the rest of the months will just be sort of more general. Like, maybe there's a theme. So that was a picnic and we're going to do a barbecue. But this particular one that we did last month was Korean Vegan by, um, Joanne Lee Molinaro. And, it's a really gorgeous cookbook. My mom had gotten it for my partner, Alyssa, a while back, I think for Christmas, maybe a year and a half ago. And we hadn't touched a single recipe out of it. And so we were really looking for a way to dig into it. And so, yeah, so we decided that we would establish a cookbook club element to the meetup.

And, yeah, that was what that last, this last one was.

[00:12:48] Mariann Sullivan: It is kind of an interesting that you chose that cookbook because Jasmin and I were just expressing on the podcast that that cookbook is nice to look at, but it's way too hard for us.

And then we got yelled at by Michael Dorff, who listens to the podcast, and who is a great cook. And he's like, it's not that hard.

[00:13:05] Jasmin Singer: That totally...

[00:13:05] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: it is. Yeah, it's all comparative, right?

[00:13:08] Jasmin Singer: I don't know. I,

[00:13:09] Mariann Sullivan: The key to it is to have the ingredients because it has a lot of unusual ingredients, at least unusual for us.

[00:13:14] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Absolutely. Yeah, that was a huge takeaway for us and something that we're now working on as we think about how we're going to do the future cookbook clubs because definitely it's, it's ingredient heavy, on things that most people would just not already have stocked in their kitchen. So, so yeah, a hundred percent agree.

[00:13:30] Jasmin Singer: Like what, like what are some of ingredients?

[00:13:33] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Gochugaru, and like this, um, it's like Semparo soy sauce, just all of these like very specific things. And then the way that Joanne wrote the book is also such that like she has recipes for ingredients that go into other recipes, like fish sauce. and Kim Chi. So yeah, it's not inherently complicated.

Like the techniques are not necessarily difficult, although we did make 120 dumplings and that wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. Um, but, but there are just a lot of steps and a lot of ingredients involved. It's definitely time consuming and to counter that narrative, yes, that's true.

And there, there's also a Brussels sprout salad and chocolate cupcakes. Like not everything is that complicated, but you know, we.

[00:14:19] Mariann Sullivan: Brussels sprout salad sounds a little complicated to me, I'm not gonna lie.

[00:14:24] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Okay, there's our baseline.

[00:14:26] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. I mean, I, cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes are very easy for me to eat. Not so much bake, but I have baked a cupcake or two in my day and I'm pretty good at it. I just would, I much prefer the eating part of it. So what were some of the dishes that you all made?

[00:14:43] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: So, the aforementioned 120 dumplings were,

[00:14:47] Mariann Sullivan: Can you just go into, you know, a little bit more about the dumplings?

[00:14:51] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: were phenomenal. The dumplings had vegetables, kimchi, we used pum fu, pumpkin seed tofu, and so forth.

Um, and we bought these like cute little dumpling wrappers and we watched, Joanne has a video on her Korean vegan YouTube page about different folding methods. And so we just sat down and we just folded our little hearts out of the dumplings and there's different cooking methods.

So we had extras and we ended up making a dumpling salad, which is like pasta salad, but with dumplings, which was phenomenal. And we made a bunch of dumplings. So that was one of the things. We made like a cold sesame noodle dish. We made persimmon chocolate cupcakes that were amazing and really stuck around for a long time. So yeah, those were

[00:15:36] Mariann Sullivan: Jasmin, are you allergic to persimmons?

[00:15:37] Jasmin Singer: I, you know, I was, and then I ate one and I didn't die. so I think I, I, you know, I also thought I was allergic to codeine because my mother told me I was, and for the first like, 40 years of my life or something, like doctors had to give me whatever you can, you know, the other thing that if you're sensitive to codeine, you can't have.

And then one day I had it and I didn't die and I asked her about it and she was like, yeah, you just had a really upset stomach when you were a baby and you had, first of all, why was I taking codeine as a baby?

[00:16:08] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: She needed to be in bed.

[00:16:10] Mariann Sullivan: Good point, yeah.

[00:16:12] Jasmin Singer: Second, but also, although we have to admit that explains a lot, right? But, second of all, everyone gets an upset stomach with Codeine, or like, not

[00:16:21] Mariann Sullivan: All right, as the digression police, can I just, like, enter in

[00:16:25] Jasmin Singer: all right, so persimmons, so tell me about, like, what, what some of the other people brought that were particular standout stars.

[00:16:34] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Well, the Brussels sprout salad was very good, not to diminish the effort put into the Brussels sprout salad. There was a mother in law's eclair cake that was brought.

Um, that was phenomenal, not Korean by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that's where the mother in law title comes in.

[00:16:52] Mariann Sullivan: So this cookbook actually has dishes that

[00:16:54] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yeah, yeah, there's some non Korean and some

[00:16:56] Mariann Sullivan: I didn't realize

[00:16:57] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: kind of recipes that are just based on her, like, own life and relationships, I think, so yeah.

[00:17:02] Mariann Sullivan: How do you account for the fact of the, I mean, it's a great cookbook, obviously, but it, it really took off like virtually no other vegan cookbook has. Do you have ideas for why that is?

[00:17:12] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I think that Joanne is just an amazing storyteller, like, I, we've watched her YouTube channel long before the cookbook existed. I think that's one reason. It's also beautifully photographed. And I wonder if it has to do with, like cuisine that has a lot of inherently vegan food rather than necessarily super meat heavy.

So it's not like a vegan cookbook necessarily, because so many of the recipes would just inherently be vegan already.

[00:17:41] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Also, I think the Korean culture, like food, music, all of it suddenly took the world by storm. And I think this was part of that. There were just so many Korean things going on. And also there's the fact that Korean food is just insanely good.

[00:17:55] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: So good. So good. Although I would have, if I had it to do over again, warned people about how spicy everything was gonna be. There were a couple of non spicy lovers, and we're like, okay, well, there's cupcakes.

[00:18:07] Jasmin Singer: I got to interview Joanne for VegNews and she obviously had like a massive following before this cookbook came out, partly because she incorporates her own personal stories and they're like, somehow while she's telling a story, she's like making a dish. And can, am I allowed to talk about what we want Ahmaud to do?

Sort of in... okay, so Ahmaud, is an incredible cook, as are you, as is Alyssa. Like seriously, you guys need to befriend these people. We call them the A's for good reason, but we want, we want Ahmad. I want Ahmad to be an, like an internet sensation. And I want it to be just like the Palestinian vegan, kind of the same vibe, like as Korean

[00:18:50] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: 100%, I so agree, but the funny thing about that is, like, just next time you're around, ask Ahmad if he wants to go out for, like, falafel, and he will tell you no. Like, we never have Palestinian food in our house.

[00:19:02] Jasmin Singer: That is really funny. Well, I have someone in my life who probably would not want to be named here, so I won't name her, but let's say that her partner is Korean and her partner, like, will not pick up this book because I think that there's just something like a little too close to home about it or something.

I don't actually really know why, but I think that It's just, it sort of reminds me of the same, the same thing. I don't, if I, I'm trying to think, do I have an atheist cookbook? No, I don't.

There, there is, there's a market for atheist cook, we need to write an atheist cookbook.

[00:19:36] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yeah, I wonder what it would be, but I'm interested in digging into that.

[00:19:39] Jasmin Singer: It would be fun.

[00:19:39] Mariann Sullivan: What the hell does atheism have to do with what you eat? I mean, I assume it was meant to be ridiculous, but I'm just pointing out for those who, who, uh, don't understand that we all understand that's ridiculous.

[00:19:48] Jasmin Singer: I do have a Jewish vegan cookbook. It's really good. It's called the Low Fat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook.

It's all vegan.

[00:19:54] Mariann Sullivan: Super healthy and a lot of the recipes are really delicious and it's easy. It's more, it's more my speed.

[00:20:00] Jasmin Singer: Well, me too, actually, I can, we put in a request for that being one of the cookbooks?

[00:20:06] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: 100% So at the last one, we, at Korean Vegan, we voted on the next cookbook. So we brought out a few that we had laying around in here. I have notes about what they are. One is Teff Love.

[00:20:19] Jasmin Singer: Oh yeah, we have that one. We have that book.

[00:20:21] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Is also beautiful, but not as like photographic heavy. Um, oh, here it is. Teff Love by yeah, Kittee Burns. And then vegan fast food is going to be another one, which again is like, not as complicated and wild, although it can be, I mean, if you want to make your own chicken substitute, I guess.

[00:20:37] Mariann Sullivan: If you ever want to come shopping over here at my house for vegan cookbooks, I have 10 million of them. I don't actually cook, but I do have many, many

[00:20:46] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: They all feel so appreciated and loved. Yes, let's put them to work.

[00:20:50] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, you're welcome to them. All right, can we just talk a little bit about the activism element too? I'm sorry, Jasmin.

[00:20:55] Jasmin Singer: I drop my cookbooks off at the like little libraries. And so that's a good

[00:21:00] Mariann Sullivan: I can't, my, you know my problem with books, it's not just cookbooks. I, I buy them, I don't read them, and I can't bear to part with them.

[00:21:06] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. But

[00:21:08] Mariann Sullivan: I know it's a problem.

[00:21:09] Jasmin Singer: that was an entree, so to speak, to the activism component. But Mariann, what exactly was your question for Alex?

[00:21:15] Mariann Sullivan: Well, I'm just, you know, since people who are listening frequently like to be active in positive ways around animals and veganism. I'm just wondering whether you felt it was an experience that did help people, get people, I mean, everybody's already vegan, so you're not trying to turn people vegan, but still creating that community around it.

Do you think it's a positive way? And do you have ways also of maybe bringing in people who maybe aren't experienced vegans and you can help keep them on the, on the right track?

[00:21:44] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Absolutely. Actually, in fact, we explicitly included in the description for the group, that it was not a requirement that people be vegan, that only bring vegan food. And so, yeah, I think that that was how we sort of added the edge of activism and living our values through this, is it's not just the selfish act of wanting to bring people around and entertain them and, and have an expression for something that we love to do, but also that I think that a hundred percent good food helps people understand that veganism is a possibly something that they could really do. And as a matter of fact, we've had a lot of people in our lives that have been veg curious. My mother in law, Alyssa's mom, has just started identifying as a vegetarian and she already does not do dairy for the most part.

[00:22:30] Jasmin Singer: Woohoo! that's so exciting! I didn't

[00:22:32] Mariann Sullivan: That's

[00:22:33] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: And I think that has been years and years and years of chipping away at her, showing her every little documentary and introducing her to every little vegan pastry and, you know, beginning to feel like there's really nothing that she's sacrificing and that she only, has a lot to gain in terms of her health and longevity and the compassion and way that she can align herself with her values in her diet.

And so, so yeah, I actually, several of the people are vegetarian, not vegan. There are some spouses that are not vegetarian that have a vegan spouse that are coming along with their spouse. So I definitely think that that has an impact and that we're able to show people, again, that it's, that it's not, it's really not a personal sacrifice unless you're obsessed with steak, which makes me question what's going on there, but

[00:23:19] Mariann Sullivan: love that. I love that you were including non vegans. I think that's the key. And by, by, you know, setting out the cookbook specifically, you kind of make it a little less, I mean, even though I find it a daunting cookbook, if people are able to cook, it makes it a little less daunting to be, if you're not vegan and you haven't tried that many dishes, to be working with a specific cookbook, I think makes it all that easier.

[00:23:40] Jasmin Singer: So as we start, as we start to wrap up, I, I just want to know, oh, I'm sorry, you were about to reply to Mariann. Go

[00:23:46] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: was just going to say that the other cool thing about that is that they're starting to now introduce vegan ingredients into their kitchen. So because they cook vegan for the cookbook, now maybe they're buying soy curls or, you know, different things that are so second nature to us. and they're like, Oh gosh, this is really good.

Or geez, I have an entire bag of soy curls. I might as well use them up. And I feel like that has to have a positive impact in the way that they

[00:24:09] Jasmin Singer: I totally, totally, I think,

[00:24:12] Mariann Sullivan: You know, this doesn't have anything to do with the activism part, but I was thinking before when you were talking about ingredients and the problem with this cookbook, problem, I'm not sure it's the right word. Is it involves so many Korean ingredients. Like we have absolutely no problem. We do not even have to go online though going online, of course, is a matter of like ordering it and it comes the next day, but we have in Rochester, like huge stores that have unbelievable varieties of international ingredients. And I'm sure if it's true here, it's true everywhere. We're, we've become just a much more multicultural society with food more than anything.

Cause nobody gives up their food when they come here. So I don't think the ingredients problem is even a problem.

[00:24:50] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: There are two things about the ingredients that I think are notable. Number one is that we're asked, I want to keep this accessible and financial accessibility is part of that. And so we,

[00:24:59] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, the cost is an

[00:25:01] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: yeah, to get out and buy a lot of new things. So one of the things that we're thinking about for Teff Love, because it's similar that you need specific ingredients is to put together a day where people can come over and do their spice blends, like we'll order the spices and then everybody can contribute to the cost of that.

And we're not, We're not consuming much more than what we need to. Um, so we're trying to think about how to do that logistically. The other cool thing, about the ingredients is that, yeah, it was an opportunity to, like, support local small businesses, specifically, like, in this case, the Pan Asian grocery stores. And we had wonderful, very adorable experiences doing that and interacting with the proprietors of the stores. So, it's like a challenge, but it's also a really cool element of the experience. Yeah,

[00:25:42] Jasmin Singer: I love that so much. You know, Mariann, we have a, uh, like Mariann and I get together with a small group of people in Rochester who work in the animal protection movement. And they're like, we get together once a month and you know, it's a small but mighty group. And at one time it was the same day as your vegan meetup.

And I wonder what the difference is. Like, I wonder thematically what conversations are happening in each place. Like we were basically talking about the world ending at our last animal rights one, but you guys probably have a little bit more of a like a happy thing going on or something like that. I don't know.

What do you think the difference would be?

[00:26:21] Mariann Sullivan: And, and your food was probably better, cause I, I buy food for a potluck,

[00:26:25] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. We got like, we got like hummus and baby carrots.

[00:26:28] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. They were good.

[00:26:29] Jasmin Singer: They were good.

[00:26:30] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: That's a that's a vegan potluck. So to be honest, one of the challenges that we're having is that we're like forming little isolated groups in each section of the table. And so we're like, do we make everybody play musical chairs? Like, is that too prescriptive? So

I can't speak to the conversations that everybody else are having. But I don't feel like I've talked a great deal about veganism with people around this table.

We're talking about food. We're talking about the cookbook, certainly. And I guess from that extent, like to that extent, we're talking about veganism, but we've talked about a lot of political issues. We've talked about a lot of spiritual issues.

We've just gotten to know one another. And, you know, really for us, the focus is, is community building, and developing a network of like, like minded people. And I feel like we're doing that in a really cool way. And again, I think I mentioned early on, like we have a very intersexual, intersexual, oops, intersexual

[00:27:24] Mariann Sullivan: Oh,this became so much more interesting.

[00:27:26] Jasmin Singer: sign me up, just

[00:27:28] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Now Jazz is there, intersectional, multigenerational group. And it doesn't feel like people are not vibing because of that, like people are not breaking into like particular groups based on their, you know, age or anything else. and so it's cool. It's really cool. It's in that way it is like a true representation of, like a diverse community and I love that.

[00:27:50] Jasmin Singer: Alright, as we start to wind up, I want to ask you three more things. One is, how can people follow you online? I mean, are you okay telling us your Instagram? Is there a place where people can learn more about the food?

[00:28:03] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: So I would love to say that there was, and maybe now that you've mentioned that, we will create one. You can find us on Meetup if you're local, certainly, um, we're the vegan foodies of Rochester on the Meetup platform. If anybody would like more information about forming a meetup locally, definitely people could email me.

I would love to hear from people and share whatever I've learned. And I would really love any input or advice from anybody who has done something similar and anything that they've learned since we're, you know, relatively new at this. So if anybody wanted to reach out to me for that, that would also be great.

[00:28:36] Jasmin Singer: What's your email? Do you want to say?

thank you? Yeah, Yeah,so probably the easiest one would be Alyssa's. It's abrookeGay@gmail.com, A-B-R-O-O-K-E-G-A y@gmail.com. Um, at one point, Alyssa and I did have a little vegan Instagram, and it exists, so you can find us there, but don't expect to be impressed. Um, it's called Living Plant Forward.

Okay. A Brooke Gay could literally be any of the three of you.

[00:29:04] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I,

know, I know. Really, she should have to like sacrifice that email address to our family and then create.

[00:29:09] Jasmin Singer: agree. I totally agree. All right, my last

[00:29:12] Mariann Sullivan: You have not only announced her, her email address to everybody listening to this all over the world, but now you want to take it away.

[00:29:19] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Yeah, yeah, we're actually also stealing from her. I wonder, I didn't get permission to do that, so I wonder how she'll feel about that. When I was coming on, she was like, do you want to mention that we're a throuple on like a national podcast?

[00:29:28] Jasmin Singer: Oh,

[00:29:29] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: like...

[00:29:29] Jasmin Singer: it's,

[00:29:29] Mariann Sullivan: International!

[00:29:31] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: International, podcast, so

[00:29:34] Jasmin Singer: You know what,

[00:29:34] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: We're like the intersectional.

[00:29:38] Jasmin Singer: Two more, two more easy questions. One is, why did Mariann say I'm banned from it? Cause I'm not, right? I'm not, right?

[00:29:46] Mariann Sullivan: Well, I didn't mean permanently, just from the last

[00:29:48] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: We just had a, you know, an interesting conversation about what the expectations were for attendeeship and that's all.

[00:29:57] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, if I wanted to come, Alex would've Figured out a way for me to go. I didn't want to be like the, the kind of glummer oner who was

going with

[00:30:07] Mariann Sullivan: you had no, you had no right to go

[00:30:09] Jasmin Singer: my Ollie's soda. Can I just say that the soda I brought was fancy ass soda? Like it was,

[00:30:16] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: soda. The soda was excellent. I take no issue with soda, first of all, and second of all, I believe you had multiple offers from attendees to pretend cook for you.

[00:30:25] Jasmin Singer: Oh, you heard about that? Yeah. Two people have offered to make something that I could claim credit for.

[00:30:34] Mariann Sullivan: My god, that's pathetic. That's just sad.

[00:30:36] Jasmin Singer: good. All right. so my final question for you, Alex, and you know, this is definitely not something I told you we were going to discuss, but I just thought of it. As a, Human being. Do you have hope? Like, is hope part of your worldview?

[00:30:51] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I mean, this week is a bad time to ask considering what the Supreme Court is doing and the debate, etc, etc. Yes, I have a lot of hope and I choose to center myself in that and live with that. And also, yes, I'm scared all the time.

[00:31:09] Jasmin Singer: Okay, I like that answer.

I, I like the word choose in that answer.

Alex, I love you. I'm, I can't imagine Rochester or veganism or the world without The A's.

So,

[00:31:23] Mariann Sullivan: someday, someday Jasmin will actually cook something in a cookbook and you can immediately throw together a potluck and um, around that cookbook

[00:31:31] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I really do. I think this could be a rediscovery of her kitchen, you know, self.

[00:31:36] Mariann Sullivan: She used to cook all the time. She did. We never asked you how many people did How big a crowd was it? I mean, you have a pretty big house, so it's not like for people, you know, I know people who live in Manhattan are thinking, well, I couldn't possibly do

[00:31:49] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I definitely think that you have to limit the group to the size of your space and what you feel like is manageable.

The first one we had outside and we had 18 people and that felt very manageable. Um, and the second one we had to do inside because of weather. So we limited that to 12 people and I would say that was probably our max. Um, but that's also kind of in order to facilitate good conversation and feel like you have time with everybody. I think it would be hard to do a lot more than that.

[00:32:13] Mariann Sullivan: Okay. I'm glad I asked. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:32:15] Jasmin Singer: Well, thank you for coming on to Our Hen House and discussing this with us. It was actually very enlightening.

And I'm gonna, you know, tonight when I pour myself a bowl of cereal and cut up a banana, I'm gonna open Korean Vegan and think of you.

[00:32:29] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: Wow. I'm so impressed and I'm going to unban you officially.

[00:32:33] Jasmin Singer: Yay!

[00:32:34] Mariann Sullivan: No, she has to bring something she cooks. I want the rules to be kept!

[00:32:39] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: The rules have to be kept. Reciprocity is everything.

[00:32:42] Jasmin Singer: Alright, I'll call Pearl and ask her to make me something. Bye, Alex.

[00:32:46] Alexandra Brooke-Gay: I love I you. Thanks for having me, guys. Bye, Mariann.

[00:32:50] Jasmin Singer: ​Oh, that was fun. That was different. I liked that. What did you think?

[00:32:57] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I mean, I'm excited about it. I think it's amazing activism. I really do. I love the way they're doing it. And, and, you know, like, Foodies. Foodies love to food and they don't have to be vegan and it's just a great way to both support people who are vegan and, you know, encourage them if they're at all wavering, but also, like she said, introducing new people.

So I mean, not to view everything, I know I'm always like, well, is it good for the movement? Well, is it good for the animals? I know I get a little dark

[00:33:29] Jasmin Singer: No, you don't. What are you talking

[00:33:31] Mariann Sullivan: but I thought that was like, I loved that.

That's what it's all about, folks. That is what it's all about.

[00:33:37] Jasmin Singer: 1000%. So you, speaking of introducing us to different concepts and people, you introduced me to some people by way of pop culture this past week. I don't know if people have heard, but there is a show on the television machine called Bridgerton. I am joking. Obviously it's wildly popular and I haven't watched it.

Well, I've tried, but I

[00:34:01] Mariann Sullivan: You ha you usually hate anything historical.

[00:34:05] Jasmin Singer: I'm not really into a lot of period stuff. I really enjoy Gentleman Jack because queerness usually overrides period in terms of my,

[00:34:13] Mariann Sullivan: It sounds like you're talking about menstruation.

[00:34:17] Jasmin Singer: uh, no, I'm not. But I wonder if I'm perimenopausal. Am I, am I too young to be perimenopausal?

[00:34:23] Mariann Sullivan: Digressing, digressing.

[00:34:25] Jasmin Singer: All right. So, uh, in any case, Bridgerton is something that I have not previously really enjoyed just because it's not my, my favorite thing to watch. I don't have a lot of time to watch something. So if I'm going to watch something, I want to love it.

But we, we heard that there is a vegan element to the latest season. And so I was like, okay, queerness will override period. So will veganism. I will watch it regardless. And in fact, that's what happened in the latest season of Bridgerton. So I was going to just watch those episodes, but I watched, I like absorbed in my pores the episodes for the whole season.

Like, I can't explain how much I loved this season.

[00:35:09] Mariann Sullivan: thought you were different than everybody else, but, uh, you're

[00:35:12] Jasmin Singer: No, I'm not.

[00:35:13] Mariann Sullivan: You like a romance novel as much as the next gal.

[00:35:16] Jasmin Singer: if it's gay. I don't like straight romances, honestly.

[00:35:20] Mariann Sullivan: this episode of Bridgerton was not gay.

[00:35:22] Jasmin Singer: If you squint your eyes and cock your head, you could pretend it is. But

[00:35:26] Mariann Sullivan: Uh, not really. You're just like so full of it. You like romances. Like, I don't know, like, uh, I find romances to be, I've always enjoyed them. They're always like, they always feel like a guilty pleasure. Like there's something wrong with enjoying them. But there's just something, there's just such a safe place.

Like you enter into that world knowing that it's going to come out all right in the end. You don't, there's no surprises there. You know it's going to work out. And yet it builds all the tension. And I don't usually like, you know, personalities and humans and, and all of that stuff. And it's all human intrigue and, and, but, You know, a romance novel, it is, if it's, if it's well done,

[00:36:06] Jasmin Singer: So, do you feel

[00:36:07] Mariann Sullivan: And you know, there is like, Bridgerton is interesting, aside from the vegan character, which was, you know, there weren't vegans then. Uh,

[00:36:16] Jasmin Singer: and they didn't

[00:36:17] Mariann Sullivan: changes hist, it changes history in, in, you know, in these very complicated ways. Which I have kind of mixed feelings about. I mean, I think it's lovely to see an interracial society in, um, you know, in history.

And how it works and, and how it's a, you know, it's a great way to be. I get a little worried that kids watching it, like, will think that's how it was, and will wonder, well, what's the whole racism thing? Um, I think it could be confusing. I just hope people kind of understand that it is a, they fixed a lot of history, in making it.

But then I was thinking, you know, like, the greatest romance novels of them all, I think, um, are Jane Austen and they were fake too. Like, it's not like, you know, all, all of the money that they were making in, in those novels, you know, all came from the slave trade. All the fact that they lived those elegant lives.

And there were the people who were like, you know, uh, the rich people that were, you know, the goal of the, of the, um, of the, The young women, the virtuous young women who ended up getting married to them. And they're, you know, they're brilliant. I love those novels. but there's no doubt that, that they were all based on a, on nonsense.

[00:37:30] Jasmin Singer: Right. I

[00:37:31] Mariann Sullivan: the world, it was like a superficial view of the world of just looking at this one little tiny piece of it. So I guess that's how, but so the fact that Bridgerton is all made up in some ways isn't really different from a lot of romance novels. So that was a very long winded way to get back to the question of, all right, I don't know whether there were any vegans back then and they didn't call him vegan, but he was like a really interesting character.

He was somebody that all the girls were after. And, and, he was really interested in nature and he was an explorer. And I don't want to give, I guess I've given away his character, but he's not a crucial character. And, and they just made a point of mentioning several times that he didn't need, he didn't eat animals.

[00:38:12] Jasmin Singer: They said he only eats vegetables and you see him putting vegetables and you see him kind of looking at these taxidermy deer and expressing empathy with them. And I, and so there are these women who are discussing the possibility of, you know, hooking up with him. They didn't say it like that. And they were talking about the fact that he loves animals and One of the women was like, well, I love animals.

And the other one said, you know, not, not like this. And, and, and someone said, I wrote this down. Concern is one thing. Fixation is another. And I was like, well, that just, how many times have people said that about us behind our back?

[00:38:52] Mariann Sullivan: totally. Totally. Like, like, they, they think it's cute. They think it's sweet, though, you know, that in some way, but you know, until it until it starts to enter their consciousness about what we're really saying, and, and then they decide we're crazy.

[00:39:05] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, totally. I actually remember that when, so Marisa Miller Wolfson was my vegan maker 20 years ago, and I remember being in the car with someone and it was like an An older man who was in my family and I was vegetarian then long, long time vegetarian. And I was thinking about going vegan. There was a very small period between my meeting Marisa and my going vegan.

Like she was very effective at veganizing me. And I said to him, you know, I have this friend who's vegan. And my relative actually said those words, like, well, that's so radical. And, and, you know, that they basically said concern is one thing, fixation is another.

And so I'm kind of wondering who the vegan is on the writing crew for Bridgerton, because it seems to me that someone knows what they're talking about there.

[00:39:59] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, I mean, it was. It wasn't everything, but it is the most popular show probably that there is and it's a very, I wouldn't say he was a sympathetic character. He seemed a little odd, but he was certainly not a negative character, um, or an unattractive character. And, you know, even though that comment was in there, I think that comment probably, you know, made some people feel better, but

[00:40:24] Jasmin Singer: Right.

[00:40:24] Mariann Sullivan: know, like It was

[00:40:25] Jasmin Singer: was positive. It

[00:40:26] Mariann Sullivan: it was totally positive.

[00:40:28] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. And by the way, this season really focused, this season focused on Penelope. And I would say that it was a real underdog story. And that's why I loved

[00:40:38] Mariann Sullivan: Like all romance novels are underdog stories. It's always the girl who's, who's not, you know, quite as fabulous or rich or, or is a little too smart,

[00:40:48] Jasmin Singer: yeah. Or, or a little too, too something. Yeah. Well, do you, do you think that this is why you like cartoons, like children's cartoons, because you kind of understand the template of them and everything is going to come out okay?

[00:41:00] Mariann Sullivan: That's probably one of the reasons. Yeah. I don't like a sad ending. I still haven't seen Old Yeller and I do not intend to for the rest of my life. That was popular when I was a

[00:41:08] Jasmin Singer: old yeller. That's funny.

[00:41:10] Mariann Sullivan: The dog dies.

Sorry.

[00:41:12] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. I think that there's a website that tells you if the

[00:41:16] Mariann Sullivan: I refuse to see

[00:41:17] Jasmin Singer: There is, there's a website that tells you if the dog dies before in a movie.

[00:41:21] Mariann Sullivan: Well, they didn't, surprisingly enough, they didn't have websites when I was, Six or whatever it was that Old Yeller came

[00:41:27] Jasmin Singer: I mean, same, samesies, but, uh, yeah. Okay, so, let's move on. I want you to know I'm drinking a soda, and I am so nervous that I am burping into the mic, because that's something that I've never actually done in, in the history of Our Hen House. So like, why, why start now? Plus it would be embarrassing to give that note to Vicki, like remove my belches.

But speaking of, and this, I'm being completely honest right now. Like I've, I've been spending the last 17 minutes worried that I'm burping out loud, but let's talk, let's talk about, let's, let's talk about burping. Let's talk

[00:42:03] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, actually, I mean, we, we are trying to cover a few different topics. In our, this nascent chitchat episode. And one of the most pop culture, and I think Bridgerton points that out, but we wanna, I wanna make sure that we, we talk about climate, because it's so depressing, and, um, we're trying to fit it in between the cheerier things.

But this has to do with this article about Denmark. Danish livestock farmers to be taxed for cow and pig made greenhouse gases. Now, this is a, called a flatulence tax. And I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, it's obviously a good thing. And the taxation minister wants to slash Denmark's greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent by 2030, which is really a good thing.

I don't know whether we have until 2030, but I'll try not to get too dark. And this is great. This is the first country that has imposed this kind of tax. It was done with it through a deal with the livestock industry, and it doesn't seem like a lot of money to me. It's 300 kroner, which is 40 euros, and euros, like I think, are a little more than a dollar, but I haven't checked any time recently, for a ton, well, a tonne, that's an English tonne, so it's less than a US ton, I think, of carbon dioxide. I mean, it just seems like pretty reasonable and, you know, it's focused on cows. It's just like every kind of welfarist measure. Welfarist measures have to do with like making these tiny improvements to the care that animals are given or the lack of, you know, A little more care than they were being given.

And this is like a kind of welfare improvement for, for climate change. It's like, right, they're taxing this little amount, which is good. Anything that raises the price of dead animals is, is a good thing, but like, this isn't enough. I mean, and then they have this picture of these cows grazing, like.

People, aside from anything to do with the welfare of these animals, which is of course a huge issue, just stop eating this shit,

[00:44:06] Jasmin Singer: Exactly. I was, well, I mean, that's what my thought was when I was looking at it. I, this tax, you

[00:44:13] Mariann Sullivan: It gives people the idea that now it's okay.

[00:44:16] Jasmin Singer: And it'll make them think that it that whatever they do is okay It's kind of like people who are flying in planes and and buying into the carbon offset programs without looking at whether there's any legitimacy to them and most of them are total bullshit. Every now and then there is one that's like, you know that does something good, from a welfarist perspective.

[00:44:38] Mariann Sullivan: And if, if, I mean, I do think that if you do a welfare improvement, either for the climate or for the animals, and it significantly, or at least noticeably, raises the price of, of animal products, I do think that, you know, I don't think that's a bad thing, but it's just not enough. And this is just not that much money.

[00:44:58] Jasmin Singer: I just don't understand. I wish sometimes that measures like this could just be, if I could wave a magic wand, it seems like it would make a lot more sense to shift toward plant based farming all together. And I, the tax might encourage more people to, I don't know. I mean, I guess it could be a good thing.

It could make some

[00:45:20] Mariann Sullivan: Well, if it raises the price

[00:45:21] Jasmin Singer: it puts it in their head. It makes it so that it's, it's not so much cognitive dissonance, you know?

[00:45:27] Mariann Sullivan: think this does like, it's even worse than animal welfare measures in a way, because I think this really does give people the idea that now it's okay. Whereas with animal welfare measures, I don't think people are really worried about what's happening to animals. Like they're just braindead about it. And so I don't think that it really makes much of any difference, whether you improve their welfare with people's decision to buy more of their dead meat. So, so I don't think it really has any negative to like welfare measures for animals because they don't seem to care about animals at all anyway, whereas they do care about climate or at least some of them.

And so I think this really might put people's minds at ease. I don't know. Uh, enough of that. I feel like I'm separating. Uh, I don't like to treat good news with contempt.

[00:46:11] Jasmin Singer: Right.

[00:46:12] Mariann Sullivan: wouldn't say I have contempt for this, but jeez people, we're gonna lose the fucking planet!

[00:46:17] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on. This is unfortunately not, not moving on to happy news because the vegan world lost someone that

[00:46:27] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, yeah,

[00:46:29] Jasmin Singer: quite the mover and shaker and, and change maker. Dr. John McDougal passed away at the age of 77, on June 22nd. And, you know, he was such an icon, you know, so many people went vegan because of his early work and I was surprised to learn when I was looking at the information about him that was published by a lot of vegan publications that he had a stroke at age 18.

[00:47:02] Mariann Sullivan: I know that's

[00:47:03] Jasmin Singer: And that's what led him to pursue a career in healthcare and advocate for veganism. And he wrote a bunch of books. I mean, I still like regularly run into people, you know, usually older people, but who went vegan ultimately because of his work, including like the McDougal plan, which was a New York times bestseller.

And, he started the McDougal program in California in

[00:47:28] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I think, I think the program's going to continue as his kids are doing it. Um, yeah, I feel the same way. I, I never really followed McDougal because I was more like on the Furman side and though they're very, very similar, they were very different in this fundamental way about starch.

[00:47:44] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:47:45] Mariann Sullivan: I'm, sure it's a great, great diet and, you know, I, I wonder whether, Obviously he was, he was not a well person his whole life.

So the fact that he became so healthy in spite of a terrible stroke when he was 18, uh, is probably attributable to his diet. But you know, like, I feel like some people in this world, I don't know whether he was that way, like feel defeated unless we live till we're 140, you know, um, and 77 wouldn't be long enough, but, um, Uh, I think that's crazy.

God knows where he would have, what his life would have been like or how shortened it would have been if he hadn't, uh, adopted this huge,

[00:48:22] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:48:22] Mariann Sullivan: way of living. And, and then he, he spent his life trying to like pass it on to other people. A real hero.

[00:48:28] Jasmin Singer: Really, truly a hero. So I know that we chatted with Alex before and it's funny because some of my closest friends in Rochester also moved out here from California, which is I moved out here from Los Angeles by way of New York City, where I most, I was in New York City for nearly 20 years and then, West Hollywood.

And so I, I'm bringing that up because I've been missing Los Angeles recently. And I was, I was so happy to learn about my former city and what they recently did. Because the city of West Hollywood, where I lived, and by the way, it's in Los Angeles County, but it is its own city. It is

[00:49:09] Mariann Sullivan: Nobody, nobody who doesn't live in California understands Los Angeles geography whatsoever. So don't even

[00:49:16] Jasmin Singer: I know, but we have a lot of listeners in California, so I'm just saying, anyway, West Hollywood is really small and it has implemented some very big, you know, regulations. And recently it implemented a policy to serve plant based food by default at all city organized events and meetings. So animal products are still available, but only by request, and it's called the Plant Based Food Policy for City Sponsored Events.

And I know that the mayor, the vice mayor, Chelsea Lee Byers, worked with Mercy for Animals on this, as well as the Center for Biological Diversity and Greener by Default. So like,

[00:49:59] Mariann Sullivan: But I think it was mostly an

[00:50:01] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it was mostly

[00:50:02] Mariann Sullivan: So good for them.

[00:50:03] Jasmin Singer: And I mean, I remember, and I don't have this information in front of me right now, but as I recall, West Hollywood was one of the first places to ban the sale of fur and to ban selling dogs and cats and to ban declawing cats, if I'm not mistaken.

That is West Hollywood. And, and some people, I remember when the fur thing happened, they're like, who's wearing fur in West Hollywood? Well, it's not always the point though, right? I mean, certainly someone has fur. It gets cold in January at night.

But, aside from that, it's paving the way and it's normalizing this and it's, it's giving you like language that you can use for your own city's resolutions and, and policies. And I, I'm just, this is good news. This is really good news.

[00:50:50] Mariann Sullivan: It's interesting, you know, like New York City, where you also lived, is really a leader in, in vegan advocacy too, like the fact that hospitals are serving vegan meals, they're promoting it in, in the schools, and West Hollywood, where you lived, is now a leader in vegan advocacy. Do you think you get credit for, for all of this?

[00:51:08] Jasmin Singer: I heard that Rochester, New York is one of the best small cities for veganism.

[00:51:15] Mariann Sullivan: You know, you can't believe how many people actually think that now, because you wrote that article for VegNews.

[00:51:22] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I did. And

[00:51:24] Mariann Sullivan: It's actually not that great for veganism.

[00:51:26] Jasmin Singer: it's pretty, I mean, it's, you could

[00:51:28] Mariann Sullivan: Has one really great restaurant.

[00:51:30] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, it's the best restaurant, but there are also some other really great

[00:51:33] Mariann Sullivan: No, there's, yeah, there are other, there are other good places. It's not, it's not a vegan desert by any means. I'm not sure, like, it, it really beats out a lot of other small cities, cause loads of places have great vegan food now.

[00:51:46] Jasmin Singer: Totally. Totally. All right. So let's move on to talking about this New York Times opinion piece that

[00:51:55] Mariann Sullivan: Alright, this is, that was the vegan activism part of the program. Should I

[00:51:58] Jasmin Singer: I don't know. I, I, I, I mean, I, I,

[00:52:00] Mariann Sullivan: activism, now it's like animal activism.

[00:52:03] Jasmin Singer: That we were just dividing it up for internal purposes and not like announcing when we're changing to the next

[00:52:09] Mariann Sullivan: I don't know. I like a guide when I'm listening to something.

[00:52:13] Jasmin Singer: Okay, go ahead. Why don't you tell us about this since we're now in the animal activism section of Our Hen House.

[00:52:19] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I'm not, this isn't animal activism. It's like, maybe this is a rising anxiety. I don't know. Maybe I classified everything wrong. Anyway, this is an Instagram post from the New York Times, the New York Times opinion page. And, this is the quote from one Peter Coy, and it has like a bunch of, just quotes, all of which start with don't tell.

Don't tell me how the movie ends. Don't tell me if I have the gene for that disease. Don't tell me my startup is likely to fail. Don't tell me if my spouse cheated on me. Don't tell me how they slaughter veal calves. And I think this is really true. This is how people think. And I would just like to discuss how furious it makes me that all of these have different motivations.

Don't tell me how the movie ends. Obviously you can't enjoy the movie. I mean, you don't enjoy the movie if you know how it ends. Don't tell me if I have the gene for that disease. Why should I worry the rest of my life if it's in my genes? Like, uh, I just don't want to have to worry about it. Don't tell me my startup is likely to fail.

Don't rain on my parade. Obviously, like, I, I want to be hopeful. I, that would be a horrible thing to tell somebody. Don't tell me if my spouse cheated on me. Okay, I don't want a divorce and I don't really care. Let him, let him do, or her, do, do what they want. Don't tell me how they slaughter veal calves.

Totally different motivation. Totally, to allow yourself to do something immoral. Don't tell me that this is the truth because I, I want to continue to behave immorally. Like putting those all together is just sleazy. I think

[00:53:52] Jasmin Singer: Totally sleazy. And I mean, it just says so much.

[00:53:57] Mariann Sullivan: says so much. Don't tell me. If you don't tell me, I can feel better about the suffering of somebody else that I am causing.

[00:54:09] Jasmin Singer: I don't even really know where to go from there. I just, I think that it's just, wait, let me just say one quick thing.

[00:54:17] Mariann Sullivan: I just wanted to vent about it. We don't have to,

[00:54:19] Jasmin Singer: yeah, but I just want to add one quick thing, which is that it fundamentally, goes to the point that people just refuse to accept the fact that there are individuals who are harmed in the making of their meal. And I mean, you, I know last week we talked about your sub stack about veganism and how we kind of have to like, not really pay attention to the fact that people who we're having conversations with aren't vegan, but we, it allows us to keep our distance from them, or it kind of demands that we keep our distance from them.

You can only get so close. But more and more recently, I guess because there's a lot of social justice in the zeitgeist right now in various capacities, like with the presidential election coming up, this is all kind of swelling. A lot of the social justice issues going on today. And so I pay close attention to that stuff.

I mean, I work for an NPR member station, yada, yada. It's always on my mind. I am flummoxed by the fact that, like, these people who care so deeply about social justice issues are eating a hamburger. And I know that I'm saying the most obvious thing in the entire world, but it's an ebb and a flow for me, and right now, it's seriously, it's seriously going through my head a lot.

[00:55:40] Mariann Sullivan: I'm coming, like, this comes right back to the great Carol Adams and the absent referent. It's like all of these. All of these things in this list and for the people who you know, you're working with who who are casually eating their, their hamburger. All, all the, the movie ends, gene for the, they all have, are about me.

Like the implications are for me. And in that last one, don't tell me how they slaughter veal calves. The implications aren't for you, honey. It's not for you. It's not like whether this will make you feel bad or not. It's about the veal calf, but the veal calf just doesn't exist in their mind.

[00:56:17] Jasmin Singer: I want to be friends with the guy on Bridgerton. All right, let's move on to this Bryant research piece.

[00:56:26] Mariann Sullivan: All right. This is my favorite.

[00:56:27] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. You love

[00:56:28] Mariann Sullivan: Well, all right. I interviewed Chris Bryant a few weeks ago now from Bryant Research, which is a market research firm in the UK. And they, they, you know, focus on animal activism. All right, this is how this starts. It starts with a pullout quote. There seems to be a role for both loud and quiet activism.

Loud activism plays an important role in moving people from the pre contemplation stage to the contemplation stage. With quiet activism, then helping to move people from the contemplation stage to the preparation stage. I love this. I think this is totally what we've always said at Our Hen House, well not, we didn't say it quite that well.

But the whole idea that there are different niches for different people and they, they fulfill different roles. It's not like loud activism by which they mean protests and, that sort of thing, criticizing people and very confrontational kind of, uh, activism is important, like that's important.

It's not the only thing there is. Now they, they identify quiet activism, the examples they give as giving to charity and volunteering. I think, of course, that there's so much more to that. I think every episode that we've ever done of Our Hen House has examples of quiet activism. There's just a million ways to be an activist that, you know, doesn't, if you're not a confrontational person, and if that doesn't work for you, there's still so many things that you can do.

And there are so many more people who are willing to do that. Are willing to like, get the bullhorn and go out and protest. And their point, isn't that one is better than the other or that the quiet activism is better, their just point is that these are fulfilling different roles.

I love this. They've also done research on it. They, they point out that with quiet research, there's a low risk of backlash. You're going to get much more backlash with loud activism. Um, and, uh, here's another pullout quote. Some refer to classic psychology research and worry that loud activism could create a backlash effect.

However, we argue that loud activism is necessary to further the movement and the hesitancy to use it is a result of an incomplete understanding of how cognitive dissonance operates in this context. You know, and the point is, is that a lot of people will give credit to the quiet activists if they actually do change and won't, you know, will not... the loud activists put their backs up, make them upset, like, and they don't like them, but they start them on that road.

But then the quiet activists doing things more, more gently, more informational, less confrontationally, carry that through. Once their attention has been grabbed. I don't know.

Like, I don't feel like I'm explaining it as well as it would be for people, I think people have to read it. It's on bryantresearch. co. uk.

[00:59:16] Jasmin Singer: We will link to it in the show notes, but I think a perfect example of this is Alex, who we just had online, like a minute ago.

[00:59:24] Mariann Sullivan: Like I said, every single, every single episode of Our Hen House kind of

[00:59:28] Jasmin Singer: Well, and what I, what I found particularly enlightening is how these two approaches complement

[00:59:33] Mariann Sullivan: Exactly.

[00:59:34] Jasmin Singer: loud activism might initially provoke thought and even defensiveness, but it plants a seed, and then later when someone encounters a quiet activist, they might be more receptive because they've already been exposed to the harsh truths.

So it's a, it's a bit like good cop, bad cop, you know,

[00:59:49] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, totally. That's a good way of putting it. And I just think that some people, certainly not everybody, but some people in the movement spend way too much of their energy saying, my way is the highway. This is the way you do it. This is what has to happen. And it's going to take a lot of different approaches, even when you're trying to talk to one single human being.

And if that was all we were doing, just trying to talk one person into something. Like, both approaches kind of are part of their process of giving up that cognitive dissonance, giving up that unwillingness to think about it, and then opening your ears to hearing the people who are telling you the useful information.

And, it's all necessary.

[01:00:29] Jasmin Singer: all necessary. And I bet there were a whole lot of quiet and loud activists who were part of the campaign that resulted into this big news from down under.

[01:00:40] Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah, this really is big news. and, I don't know exactly how, how it's going to work, but we all know that one of the most, Well, on the huge long list of absolutely horrifying things we do to animals, there is the fact that in Australia, they raise all of these sheep, turn them into sweaters, turn their fur, their hair into sweaters, and then ship them off to the Middle East or other places to be killed.

And it's a brutal, brutal, time on these ships. And it's just one of the great scandals. So the great Sue Coe, actually. did a whole book. I would say she'd write a whole book because it's both writing and her, her beautiful and horrifying pictures, but, um, about this. And this has been a huge issue for a long time.

And apparently the Australian legislature has just voted to end live sheep export, which has never been necessary. You know, it's probably the cheapest way to do it. And also, you know, it has a lot to do with halal slaughter because sheep are eaten more in the Middle East than in other places.

But, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable that this is a real landmark, cause this is fight has been going on for a long, long time. I don't know exactly. I know it's not an instant fix, like it's going to get phased in. I don't know all the terms, but this is big news.

[01:01:54] Jasmin Singer: It's huge. I mean, I'm so excited by it. And like, I want people listening to this who, if you're running or driving or whatever you're doing, like, really take this in. I think it's so important to our psyches to take in good news and good information. This is really a really good thing, so, I love it.

Something I'm terrified of is our next segment, because I've gotten into trouble with our listeners for being here in the room, so to speak, when you've been doing Rising Anxieties, like people are like, don't ever have Jasmin there again when you're doing Rising Anxieties.

[01:02:30] Mariann Sullivan: No, it was, it was said more nicely than that. It was more like, Jasmin is too nice to do rising

[01:02:36] Jasmin Singer: I'm not nice,

[01:02:37] Mariann Sullivan: have to be mean and snarky, like Mariann.

[01:02:39] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, exactly. I do not think I am a nice, I wouldn't describe myself as nice.

[01:02:46] Mariann Sullivan: No, you're kind of nice. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. It has to be said.

[01:02:52] Jasmin Singer: Fuck you.

[01:02:53] Mariann Sullivan: You know that it was hard for you to say.

[01:02:55] Jasmin Singer: It was. I feel so bad right now. I'm sorry. I was just kidding. I'll bake you a cupcake from Alex's foodie group that I take from their table. Okay, let's move on.

So rising anxieties. We don't know where to put this segment. We don't know if it should be a separate segment on these episodes or if I should just

[01:03:17] Mariann Sullivan: Well, we don't know, we don't have any idea what we're doing.

[01:03:19] Jasmin Singer: So why don't, why don't we just keep plodding along. You do it. I'll just sit here.

[01:03:24] Mariann Sullivan: I will, well, I have one that can just be read. It's one that a listener sent in and I'm not even sure it's exactly rising anxieties, but it's good. You can just

[01:03:33] Jasmin Singer: I

[01:03:33] Mariann Sullivan: but let's, we'll get to that at the end. The first one I want to talk about, I'm going to do the song. Anxieties are rising.

Do you think I should quit that? Is it getting really

[01:03:45] Jasmin Singer: Uh, I think it's getting old, but I also don't think you should quit it because it's

[01:03:50] Mariann Sullivan: Like me.

[01:03:54] Jasmin Singer: Wow, no, I like it. I like it.

Keep keep it.

[01:03:58] Mariann Sullivan: Anyway, this is from Scientific American, which we don't often get. And this is actually, the story itself is not bad. It's reporting on other people's anxieties rising. So that's a pretty good source. No, fake meat wasn't found to cause heart disease, as some headlines suggest. Really nice that they put this in there.

This is by Lori youmshajekian and the subtitle is, a recent study found that eating ultra processed plant based foods was linked to heart attack and stroke risk, but the devil is in the details. Wait till you hear this one. It's unbelievable. I saw these, these headlines and I'm constantly like, did they, when did they invent the term ultra processed?

Like I never heard of it until like maybe six months ago,

[01:04:44] Jasmin Singer: Also, the word ultra, like, it's, it doesn't make sense. It's like saying something is so unique, it's either processed or it's not. It's not ultra processed. Yeah.

[01:04:54] Mariann Sullivan: All right. It starts out by saying recent headlines denounced plant based fake meat, such as vegetarian sausages and textured vegetable protein, as unhealthy, and claim that their consumption is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. But a closer look at the study underpinning these claims suggests a more nuanced story.

Well, no shit. So the plant based foods that they actually were examining to compare to other kinds of foods include things like chocolate covered biscuits, frozen pizza and sodas. And, and according to this study, these foods are linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular related illnesses.

Well, no shit. They're not talking about veggie burgers. They're not even talking about like, Beyond Sausages. They're talking about cookies, pizza, and sodas. All mixed in. And, you know, and then a little bit of like, you know, Beyond Burgers. And, and that's what, that was their study. They fed, you know, a group of people these things, and they had links to poor health outcomes.

Unbelievable. I mean, just insane. They do describe what they now mean by ultra processed. They undergo an industrial transformation that significantly alters the original ingredients. Does that include like cooking? I don't know. I don't think it does. They mentioned instant noodles and store bought cookies, also cereal, canned soup, like loads and loads of stuff.

But the only time I ever see this word ultra process is to refer to like Beyond Burgers. Or maybe Impossible Burgers. Like I never see it anywhere else. It's unbelievable. It's, they're so full of it.

[01:06:36] Jasmin Singer: I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna add to that story. That's bad!

[01:06:41] Mariann Sullivan: Good Jasmin. That was compelling. Compelling commentary.

[01:06:45] Jasmin Singer: I just was trying to be judgmental.

[01:06:47] Mariann Sullivan: You succeeded.

[01:06:48] Jasmin Singer: Go on.

[01:06:49] Mariann Sullivan: All right. Our next story is sent to us from a listener named Goose. Um,

[01:06:53] Jasmin Singer: Is that really their name? I love it! Goose! Mariann, I forgot to tell you, when I was going to Target the other day, there were this long line of geese crossing, it was like the highway. It wasn't like the main highway, but it's a highway ish road and there was like a big goose and then I swear to God, like 30 little baby geese, like going so slowly in a straight line.

It's so cute. And

[01:07:20] Mariann Sullivan: Aww.

[01:07:21] Jasmin Singer: like, people were stopped and they might as well have turned off their engines because it was taking forever. I just, I think I need a goose tattoo, but not of our

[01:07:31] Mariann Sullivan: That's the kind of thing that people see and they're like, Oh my God, I love animals so much. I don't even mind that I'm stopped here. Like, this is so great. Oh, I'm such an animal lover.

[01:07:43] Jasmin Singer: Okay, but back to Goose.

[01:07:45] Mariann Sullivan: Alright.

[01:07:46] Jasmin Singer: Goose sent us this.

[01:07:47] Mariann Sullivan: Sent this, uh, this is, from the Countryside Alliance, which, you know, is, it's in the UK, and it's like farmers, seems to, like, be a lot of animal based farmers. I don't know whether, it's probably not just that, but that's what I read about. Why we must combat veganism by stealth. All right, so apparently they learned that pork sausages served at NHS hospitals will be blended with fake meat by the end of the year in a bid to tackle climate change.

It might also be that the NHS would like to save their patients lives, but it says it's climate change. If it weren't for the headlines, however, patients wouldn't be informed of this change. For one thing, I'm kind of wondering, like, like, are patients informed of the ingredients of all the other dishes that they receive at hospitals?

Because whenever I've been at a hospital, which thankfully did not include being admitted, when the meal arrives, it's just doesn't arrive with a list of ingredients. You know, I, I do think that people should be told what they're eating, I guess, but it would be kind of weird if they picked this one product to give you the ingredients of, but this gave them an opening to talk about veganism by stealth, which they feel has triggered this much needed debate about the way in which public bodies are taking it upon themselves to alter our diets, regardless of whether we give our consent.

Now, I wish that was happening here, but apparently they think it's happening in the UK. They call this nanny statism. He's uncomfortable with anyone telling him what he should or shouldn't be eating, let alone by those I rely on as a taxpayer to provide a very specific public service.

[01:09:21] Jasmin Singer: Oh my God.

[01:09:23] Mariann Sullivan: He just wants to make his decisions for himself, you know, that the idea that a care home, for example, would deprive an elderly loved one of a decent beef roast dinner in favor of mandated tofu makes me incredibly uneasy.

And children, children being deprived of nutrient dense meat based lunches. Like, this is just, ah, unbelievable. Unbelievable. So ridiculous. And, you know, Could you take into account that the people that are promoting this are the people who make money off of selling these products?

No, it's just like they pretend like they're just like, just fine people standing up for the things the way they always have been. He doesn't have any objection to plant based food companies coming up with products.

[01:10:07] Jasmin Singer: Mm hmm. Mm

[01:10:09] Mariann Sullivan: That's nice of him.

[01:10:11] Jasmin Singer: That's ridiculous. It's just, I'm counteracting it with the West Hollywood story in my head right now where like, it's plant based by default because the mandated tofu, actually mandated tofu would be such a good band name. I want it. The, the Number one song could be anxieties are rising, from Mandated Tofu.

[01:10:33] Mariann Sullivan: Have I spoken to you about digression

[01:10:36] Jasmin Singer: A little bit. All right.

[01:10:38] Mariann Sullivan: All right.

The second issue that he has with it is the rationale behind why public bodies feel the need to virtue signal. It's a source of huge irritation that many public bodies lazily copy and paste lines warning of the negative environmental impact of global livestock farming without bothering to consult farming groups based in this country.

Yeah, right, we should be taking the word of the people who make the money off of these products in order to decide whether it's bad. And of course, his whole point is that apparently British cows do not produce a lot of methane. Well, that doesn't seem very likely. All right, now I'm finished with it.

Now we have the moment for you to do a Rising Anxieties.

[01:11:18] Jasmin Singer: Read it with me? Like, let's just alternate.

[01:11:21] Mariann Sullivan: No, it's yours.

[01:11:22] Jasmin Singer: No, read the comments. We'll bat back and forth on it. Please. I insist. All right. So we got this message from listener Chris Gleisner on Facebook and their comments sent to the Criminal Podcast folks regarding their recent episode called The Devil Spread, which is about

[01:11:39] Mariann Sullivan: So this was this, this listener of our podcast, Chris, who was also listening to something called The Criminal Podcast and wrote in to them.

And, Chris sent those comments to us for us to look at.

[01:11:51] Jasmin Singer: Well, because they were doing this whole episode on margarine, which is kind of funny, and apparently they did not think to cover how terrible dairy based butter is at the same time. And anyway, so Chris apparently enlightened them, which, you know, I'm

[01:12:07] Mariann Sullivan: No, no, the thing that Chris enlightened them about was the fact that they were talking about how raising livestock is great for poor people around the world. That was one of their points that, that is, yeah, that's what it says right.

[01:12:18] Jasmin Singer: Okay, that's right, it's in front of me. I actually read words for a living, like, cold read words for a living. You would be surprised to learn. Anyway, this is why I can't do Rising Anxieties! I don't know, I'm just, like, missing some, some edge or something, but anyway, this, let's read this. So, these are, these are the comments that Chris wrote to this

[01:12:41] Mariann Sullivan: Yes, to

[01:12:42] Jasmin Singer: Okay. Okay. Hi. I wanted to comment on the concept that raising livestock is benefiting the world's poorest people. Alright, I'll read it. I can only comment from personal experience in North Central Cambodia, but what I have found on my many visits over the years is that the poorest people in this rural area cannot afford to raise animals for food.

The owners of all the cows are the richest people in the area, while some middle class families may have a pig or two. The poorest people may have a couple of chickens, but not usually. Sometimes the poorest people are taking care of pigs for wealthier people to fatten up, and they get very little reward for doing so.

When I've asked why more families don't have little veggie gardens at their home, I've been told that it's because they can't afford to buy the wood to build strong fences to keep the cows out. And away from eating all their veggies, since the rich people's cows basically roam the village eating everything.

The poorest people have no power to do anything about it, as corruption is rife and the richest people control everything. Snap, snap, snap, snap. I added that part. This is a little microcosm of what I am sure happens globally where the world's poorest people live. They cannot afford to feed food to animals that they could eat, and they definitely don't own the land needed to raise cows, not to mention those who get enough money to venture into raising a few cows don't normally eat those cows, they sell them to pay the debts that they have from buying the cows in the first place.

Snap, snap, snap, snap. I guess I don't have to say snap when I'm snapping. It's a vicious cycle of exploitation. This but the poor people argument drives me absolutely crazy. Grrr. Anyway, just a rant. It's something a lot of people in developed countries just don't understand.

[01:14:23] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I found this, I found this really enlightening and probably something that I didn't understand when you hear like, like of Heifer International and all these, like, promotion of poor people just moving ahead and getting, you know, an animal, this makes it so much more clear that you're not actually helping the poorest people.

When that happens, and that's not how the world works. And it certainly looks like exactly the way the world works in every other context that, that, yeah, the rich get richer and, and take more advantage of the people who are the most desperate. And part of that is animal agriculture. Aside from any of the problems with what is happening to the animals. So I found this very enlightening, so I really wanted to add it to Rising Anxieties this week.

[01:15:08] Jasmin Singer: Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did. And, before we go, before we end this podcast, I feel like I was remiss in not talking about my big giant news of the week, which is that I have bangs. I cut bangs. Say something. You have nothing to say about my big, giant change?

[01:15:30] Mariann Sullivan: I, I don't have anything to add there. I think you kind of covered the topic.

[01:15:36] Jasmin Singer: Well on that note, I guess we could end the episode.

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