The Hen Report: “The Disneyland of Packing Plants” | Cultivated Salmon, Vegan Menopause, Activist Arrests

[00:00:13] Mariann Sullivan: I moved my camera. Does everybody notice I looked completely different?

[00:00:17] Jasmin Singer: Well, I have noticed that Lulu dog is now frequently in the picture doing her very slow old laps.

[00:00:24] Mariann Sullivan: My cat Fox also is like, it's because I change things. I think they're very, very curious and a little disturbed and upset, as they get, and they need to explore everything and yeah. And Lulu's nails click.

[00:00:38] Jasmin Singer: That's

[00:00:39] Mariann Sullivan: you know, welcome to my world. Click,

[00:00:41] Jasmin Singer: It's not. It's

[00:00:42] Mariann Sullivan: click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click,

[00:00:43] Jasmin Singer: to your world.

[00:00:44] Mariann Sullivan: click, click, click, click, click.

That's my world.

[00:00:45] Jasmin Singer: Stop. This is boring for our listeners who are not our viewers. So I saw, you know, I see you when you make faces at me now.

[00:00:53] Mariann Sullivan: I do. That's why I make them.

[00:00:55] Jasmin Singer: So we have three separate podcasts now, Rising Anxiety comes out on Tuesday. The Hen Report, which is this, comes out on Thursday and the long form interviews comes out on Fridays. We are as I just mentioned on YouTube, so please hit subscribe and like, alright, so I have had. I, you know, I'm tired of saying I'm busy 'cause everyone's busy all the time and I'm clearly addicted to being busy. But I had my monthly show Environmental Connections, which I do on WXXI, which is our NPR station here, was this past week.

And I just wanted to briefly mention it because I loved both episodes and even though they weren't explicitly about animals, it did come up and I wanted to

[00:01:38] Mariann Sullivan: All right. They were both about interesting topics, environmental topics, but not specifically about animals.

[00:01:44] Jasmin Singer: Except it did come up. So one of the episodes was about mushrooms and its role in climate healing and the possibilities and the ways that mushrooms are vulnerable. And then the other episode was about electric cars and why more people aren't driving them. And so I used to really tiptoe around this like Lulu is tiptoeing right now. But I now am just like, I'm gonna bring it up whenever possible.

[00:02:09] Mariann Sullivan: Good.

[00:02:10] Jasmin Singer: and

[00:02:10] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, NPR is like, is like disappearing anyway, so you might as well.

[00:02:13] Jasmin Singer: Oh, that's so sad. There is a

[00:02:15] Mariann Sullivan: No, there's a big lawsuit.

[00:02:17] Jasmin Singer: There is a current big problem right now. There's a lot of efforts to eliminate public media funding, and it's reached like an unprecedented level. If you are able to contact your legislators to voice your concerns about that and stand in favor of public media. I think that would be fantastic.

[00:02:36] Mariann Sullivan: Mention Jasmin when you do it.

[00:02:38] Jasmin Singer: Don't, just don't, don't say that. That's ridiculous. That'll make the measure fail. I mean, pass.

[00:02:45] Mariann Sullivan: I'm being silly, but actually that is really important to me, and I'm sure to many of our listeners.

[00:02:50] Jasmin Singer: Without the federal funding, a lot of member stations,

[00:02:53] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, yeah,

[00:02:55] Jasmin Singer: Well all member stations could lose the

[00:02:56] Mariann Sullivan: yeah.

[00:02:57] Jasmin Singer: to

[00:02:57] Mariann Sullivan: No, it's, it's not just WXXI in Rochester. It's everybody.

[00:03:02] Jasmin Singer: Local journalism community programming, It's bad.

[00:03:06] Mariann Sullivan: All right. Let's move on to stuff that people are actually tuning in for.

[00:03:10] Jasmin Singer: I did have in my mushroom episode one of the scientists who was on, you know, at one point I brought up that I was, I was a longtime vegan because we had the CEO of the mushroom based meat, quote unquote meat company Prime Roots on. And so I mentioned I was a long time vegan and so did one of the scientists, which

[00:03:31] Mariann Sullivan: I'd love it when that happens. You didn't know that they were vegan.

[00:03:34] Jasmin Singer: And, and now That's starting to happen like almost every episode, I feel like

[00:03:38] Mariann Sullivan: really cool.

[00:03:39] Jasmin Singer: months. Yeah. It's super cool. So if people are interested, we'll link to it. You can watch it on YouTube or you can listen to it on podcasts.

So, hopefully you'll have a chance to, I wanted to, I, I started to run this problem by you and you were like. Let's talk about it on the air instead of just with us two. So I wanna tell you that I have a friend and he is not a friend from animal rights circles, as you will figure out in a moment, but he's very supportive of me and like, we have great vegan food together.

He's cooked vegan food for me. I think he makes a lot of vegan choices in his life. He understands the ethos. He is very, very allergic to cats. and he has two dogs and he decided to get some cats.

[00:04:26] Mariann Sullivan: Why do people do well? I know we have to tell this story, but, why do people do that? Just, just like, I mean, cats are wonderful. I love having cats, but if you're allergic, like, get another dog,

get a goldfish. No, don't get a goldfish unless you rescue them. Don't get any animal unless you rescue them.

[00:04:44] Jasmin Singer: Of course, Moore, takes allergy pills like every,

[00:04:47] Mariann Sullivan: Right. If, if you but face the fact that that's what you have to do if you're gonna get a animal you're allergic to and, and for more, it wasn't really a choice. I mean, you know,

[00:04:58] Jasmin Singer: she, I came with

[00:05:00] Mariann Sullivan: she accumulated a cat and there you were, and.

[00:05:03] Jasmin Singer: yeah. But it's a commitment. But anyway, so this person really wanted a cat, and.

So With a lot of guilt that he told me about, purchased some quote unquote, you know, hypoallergenic or low allergenic. I don't think there's an actual such thing as hypoallergenic a particular breed that

[00:05:24] Mariann Sullivan: a bread catt. All right,

[00:05:25] Jasmin Singer: I had never heard of,

[00:05:26] Mariann Sullivan: idiots.

[00:05:27] Jasmin Singer: uh,

[00:05:27] Mariann Sullivan: Also, I don't like this person.

[00:05:29] Jasmin Singer: okay. Well,

[00:05:30] Mariann Sullivan: I know that's a problem with my activism that I'm very intolerant of people.

[00:05:35] Jasmin Singer: Really, I don't think that our listeners had figured that out. So listen, I really like this guy. Like we connect on a lot of levels. I know that I am A good influence in terms of animal stuff and the vegan stuff. He was really nervous to tell me about it. Now it turns out that the allergies

[00:05:57] Mariann Sullivan: are

[00:05:57] Jasmin Singer: acting up even though he

[00:05:59] Mariann Sullivan: A shock.

[00:06:00] Jasmin Singer: hypoallergenic or low allergenic cats. I struggle a little bit with this because my ability to compartmentalize is sometimes too good and I don't know how much my ability to compartmentalize is a betrayal of myself. I want to stay friends with this person, and if I was not compartmentalizing, if I was not opting into betraying myself on some level,

[00:06:31] Mariann Sullivan: Before we get into like your personality and all of its quirks, what does he wanna do? Or is he just telling you that this is a problem? Or has he proposed that he's gonna do something that you're expected to take a position on?

[00:06:43] Jasmin Singer: It's very clear to me that that is coming.

[00:06:47] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, he hasn't gotten there yet.

[00:06:48] Jasmin Singer: has not said it yet, but he's clearly getting there.

[00:06:51] Mariann Sullivan: What this sounds like to me is the classic setup that we get put in all the time by people who use animals in one way or another, that they want forgiveness.

[00:06:59] Jasmin Singer: either forgiveness or like a pass, like, you know me, you know, I'm really great. Like

[00:07:06] Mariann Sullivan: Well, that's kind of forgiveness.

[00:07:07] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, I guess so, but.

[00:07:09] Mariann Sullivan: Don't get mad at me for this. Permission.

[00:07:12] Jasmin Singer: also permission. I think it's more the latter.

[00:07:15] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:07:16] Jasmin Singer: like, that's one problem, but even if I abstain completely from that, which I have done in the past with other people, I, I remember having another friend who, like a few years ago, was in a similar position and every time he brought it up, I didn't reply. I just abstained from engaging about it at all. And so he kind of was like, coming in harder and harder, and I just was like, look, I don't think we should discuss this

[00:07:41] Mariann Sullivan: All right, let's get back to the, to the matter at hand.

[00:07:43] Jasmin Singer: Okay. So I just wanna know, like, if it was you, I feel like you'd be like, all right, well, I guess this person's not my friend anymore, but I, I don't know if

[00:07:53] Mariann Sullivan: I sound, I sound horrible. I mean, that's not good activism, really. I mean, what's the good activist? I think that giving, just not being silent about it, is not great activism.

[00:08:04] Jasmin Singer: Mm,

[00:08:05] Mariann Sullivan: If you can come up with a way to state your position. Try to like do an intervention that actually helps the cat. Is it one cat or two cats?

[00:08:13] Jasmin Singer: it's two cats?

[00:08:14] Mariann Sullivan: Two cats. It helps the cats out, like, you know, a suggestion that actually works and you know, not, I don't think you have to end the relationship. Like certainly you don't have to end the relationship, but I don't think it's good to end relationships. But I also don't think it's good to just be silent.

I mean, I think there's that fear like you're silent because you think, well, the person will end the relationship if I tell them what I really think. And I think that's the piece that you should examine, because I think that we should speak our minds and you know, hopefully in a way that preserves the relationship.

But most of all, that comes up with a good solution for the cats, which I don't know what it is. I mean, there's no good solution. These cats should not have been purchased in the first place. But at least, at least that these cats end up in a situation that's, you know. Not horrible. And that you don't give the person a pass, even just through silence.

[00:09:04] Jasmin Singer: well, I think that's half of it, but honestly, I think another part of it is. Like, how deep does one want their friendship to be with someone?

[00:09:12] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Well, I think that that's not something that's just up to you. I mean, if you're honest and they say, well, I hate you now, you're mean. You know, that's their decision. You can't,

[00:09:22] Jasmin Singer: about the part that's my decision though. Like what would you do in that scenario? Would you...

[00:09:28] Mariann Sullivan: I don't have friends.

[00:09:31] Jasmin Singer: Okay, well, that's not true true at all.

[00:09:34] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, I would probably be silent. It's not like I'm courageous here. Well, it depend, it would depend on so many things that, like, it depends on the relationship. If the relationship doesn't mean a lot to me, in some ways that makes it easier to state your mind.

I mean, I think I would state my mind. I would try to do it gently. I'm not sure I would succeed. But you know, maybe I'm giving myself more credit than I deserve. Until you're in the situation, it's hard to know what you would do. But I try to be a good activist, but I am, you know, I'm not, you talk about me being like outspoken.

I can be very timid. It annoys me.

[00:10:07] Jasmin Singer: You can, except for I think that lately you are in a, I

have absolutely no more fucks to

[00:10:14] Mariann Sullivan: age, age makes a difference with that. Yeah.

[00:10:16] Jasmin Singer: you know, Q

[00:10:17] Mariann Sullivan: What are they gonna do to me? Yeah.

[00:10:19] Jasmin Singer: Like I don't have to get into it. It's like A-I-K-N-I-K-N. Wait, that's not how you spell it. If you know IYK. I'm dyslexic. I-Y-K-I-Y-K. if you know, you know, that's like hashtag I-I-Y-K-I-I.

[00:10:36] Mariann Sullivan: Which is, if you know, if you know.

[00:10:39] Jasmin Singer: Right. Okay. I-Y-K-Y-K.

[00:10:42] Mariann Sullivan: that took a while to, to resolve. '

[00:10:46] Jasmin Singer: cause I'm a, it's 'cause I'm a Gen Xer

[00:10:48] Mariann Sullivan: Anyway,

[00:10:49] Jasmin Singer: millennial right now,

[00:10:50] Mariann Sullivan: let's move on 'cause there's so much, there's really a lot of stuff going on this week and we will be looking forward to hearing what you decide to do. You know, like just because you state your mind doesn't mean that anything good is gonna happen here.

I think you stated your mind before this

[00:11:07] Jasmin Singer: yeah.

[00:11:08] Mariann Sullivan: bozo got the cats. Like why do people have to have cats if they're allergic to cats? It's just like people just think animals are there for them to like entertain themselves. It's just ridiculous. Get a cat for the cat's sake, it will make you so much happier if you rescue an animal.

You, every time you look at that animal for the rest of their life, you have that wonderful feeling. I, I'm a wonderful person. I rescued this animal. Don't people want that feeling?

[00:11:34] Jasmin Singer: I think that you're, you're really hitting the nail on the head here though, because this is the difference between like the, the vegan mentality and the non-vegan mentality. Like in a nutshell, which is that,

[00:11:44] Mariann Sullivan: Are we there for them or are they there for us?

[00:11:47] Jasmin Singer: There you go. There you go.

[00:11:49] Mariann Sullivan: My other point is that when you adopt the mentality that we are there for them, it brings you more joy.

[00:11:55] Jasmin Singer: I agree. I completely agree. But I think that that's not just like a thing, it's not like a boom, it's like a, it's an evolution

[00:12:05] Mariann Sullivan: . Obviously not,

[00:12:06] Jasmin Singer: for most

[00:12:07] Mariann Sullivan: All right, let's move on. 'cause we have so much to talk about this week.

[00:12:10] Jasmin Singer: This is a groundbreaking moment in food history. Wild Types cultivated salmon is now officially on the menu in the US so that makes it the first cultivated fish to reach restaurant plates. Where you ask? I'll give you one guess. Portland, Oregon,

[00:12:31] Mariann Sullivan: That's where they're starting. But this is gonna spread. I mean, that's just where they're starting and then they're expanding to four restaurants across the country through 2025. This is an article from the Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation. I am so excited about this.

I haven't seen it getting that much attention, but yes, going on the menu! Sushi grade seafood. It's not like I miss this stuff, but I really miss, uh, like living in a world where I don't know that animals are being destroyed and tortured all the time. But the thing I'm really excited about, I don't think this is a first time cultivated protein has been on the menu, but this does seem to be like it says it's the first cultivated fish for sale in the world. Yeah. Fish is a really, really big menu item. And you know there was that cultivated chicken that was on the menu for a while in New York, but I'm not sure it ever actually got on a menu.

Anyway, this is exciting and one of the reasons it's exciting is that, as you know, if you listen to the podcast all the time, which I hope you do, one of my hobby horses is, um.

[00:13:38] Jasmin Singer: Not, not a vegan turn of phrase.

[00:13:40] Mariann Sullivan: Well, it's a hobby horse. Doesn't that mean that it's wooden? I don't know. Anyway, getting to the point and not going off the point, which I know can be challenging.

[00:13:50] Jasmin Singer: That reminds me of the time. Just kidding. Go ahead.

[00:13:54] Mariann Sullivan: All right, so the story of the fishes and the loaves. If you're Christian, you probably know this story even if you're not Christian, Jasmin, you sort of have heard this story. It's not like I know this stuff really well.

and I'm not saying I'm religious. I am not taking a position as to, you know, preaching to Christians or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that there is this story. It's a beautiful story. I think it's when Christ gave the sermon on the Mount and he had this huge crowd of people, like huge crowd of people, and of course they were very poor.

And they were very hungry 'cause that was his following and they had no food to feed them. And of course, you know who's gonna pay attention to a great speech no matter how great the speech is, if, if they're all hungry. And so there was this little, somebody had a couple of loaves of bread and somebody you know, a few dead fish and he told his people to feed them to the crowd and it fed everybody and everybody was full. Famous story, famous Miracle.

And I just think that's what this is about. It's taking the cells of, I guess, dead fish. But I don't think most, cell-based protein has to come from dead animals. It just has to come from animals. and I'm not saying that's irrelevant, but I'm just saying like whether they were dead or not is taking just a few cells and turning it into food that will feed millions of people.

And this was foretold by Jesus Christ. Why is this not big news?

[00:15:15] Jasmin Singer: So are you saying that Jesus was basically predicting

[00:15:22] Mariann Sullivan: Well, I'm not, because I'm not a religious person, so I don't necessarily think that this, I think this story is a beautiful story, but I think of it more as myth than reality. But I understand other people think of as reality. I don't think we all have to agree on everything, and I think whether you think of it as a mythical story or, or something that really happened, it still fits really well in a beautiful way. It's like it's fulfilling a prophecy.

[00:15:52] Jasmin Singer: It is pretty cool. I agree. I think it's definitely something

[00:15:56] Mariann Sullivan: I wanna try it though. I'm not going to Portland, I mean, Portland's across the country. It would be a long trip. I just hope it comes to somewhere near here and it's not like I'm dying. You know, I love vegan food and I'm perfectly happy eating it for the rest of my life. But I wanna try it just for the halibut.

Ha ha.

[00:16:11] Jasmin Singer: would, I would do

[00:16:12] Mariann Sullivan: Did you get it for the halibut?

[00:16:13] Jasmin Singer: God, that was funny. I, I would do it with other things, but I just, even when I ate animals, I always hated fish like the taste. I,

[00:16:23] Mariann Sullivan: Oh yeah. I didn't hate it anymore than anything else.

[00:16:25] jasmin-singer-_2_06-04-2025_115006: Our next thing that we're discussing,

[00:16:27] Jasmin Singer: was,

almost too bizarre to be

[00:16:29] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, it is too bizarre to be true. This is from the wonderful people at Free From Harm. It's actually just a reel, you know, they go to like industry events and legislative events and bring up inconvenient things like the animals. And they do unbelievable activism, We of course recently had Robert Grillo on the podcast and they do amazing work. If you haven't listened to that interview, you gotta listen to it, but you also have to check out, it's just a reel off of Facebook. So I kind of like wrote down what this guy said. He's the CEO of Superior Farms, which is a lamb slaughterhouse, charming. and he was at this. This meeting an ag industry meeting, and he proposed that Superior Farms slaughterhouses should become the Disneyland of packing plants. Packing plants is what they call slaughterhouses. You know, meat it, it always has the word plant in it, which I always think is ironic.

They call it all sorts of different things. They just never call 'em slaughterhouses. Alright, so this is his rationale. Uh, quote. I mean, heck, you know, you know, kids play games that heads blow up. People's heads explode blood and guts all over the place, all over the screen. Why not come and see the real thing?

I mean, seriously, we could make more profits by tours. He is suggesting that they charge people for these tours, like 20 bucks, I think he suggested, and then give them some lamb shank when they, when they leave, so we can make more profits by tours than we could with our own hands, probably. I don't know. I think it's a good idea, but the reality is that we have to open up.

Was he making a joke? Like the audience was laughing? Was he making a joke? And if it was a joke, what was the joke? That this is so outrageous that it would be funny?

I don't think that's what he was saying. I kind of think he thought it would be a good idea. He understood that other people would think it was outrageous, but he actually thought it was a good idea.

And I think these people are very, very like really deeply mentally ill. I really do. Like who would say that? That we should bring kids to see blood and guts and lambs being slaughtered? Like this is sick stuff.

[00:18:32] Jasmin Singer: Honestly, that story is I don't know if it's hard to believe, like, I kind of think it's easy to believe because of that aforementioned mentality that we were talking about before about like, if you're looking at it from the people's perspective, like from the perspective of whether animals are entertainment.

We already know that slaughterhouses are places of enormous suffering for animals and enormous trauma for workers.

[00:18:53] Mariann Sullivan: they're also, you know, very entertaining.

[00:18:55] Jasmin Singer: making them tourist attractions isn't just morally bankrupt, but it's a way to, you know, keep people desensitized and keep the industry's violence, you know, out in the open, but stripped of its tragedy and, and I think that, the laughing that you were just talking about, that's just rising anxieties in my opinion.

It's, it's crazy. Wow. That story is totally bananas. Alright, what else do we have?

[00:19:24] Mariann Sullivan: It really highlights the incredible stuff that Free From Harm uncovers that more people have to hear about.

[00:19:31] Jasmin Singer: Well, more people also have to hear about this story, which is a real gut punch because five activists from Direct Action Everywhere, DXE were arrested for rescuing two sick baby goats from a California dairy. After months of investigating a so-called certified humane facility, that's also. Surprising the nation's leading goat milk producer, and by surprising, I mean, not even remotely surprising. So what they found was a sight of, of suffering, of horrible, horrible suffering. Goats piled up mothers with infected utters. This is not news to our listeners. tell me about why you pulled this story out to chat about.

[00:20:13] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, be, I, I mean, I don't think there's been an action from DXE like this lately that it resulted in arrests. The reason I found this particular report on this story, and it's the only one I found, it's not like I picked this out of the many reports. This is from a Fox outlet in Kings County, California, and I think that the reason it's so interesting, and really hopeful in a way is that all of the information that you just gave about what happened here

[00:20:39] Jasmin Singer: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:40] Mariann Sullivan: from the news outlet. It was like unbelievably good coverage. I don't know, maybe the coverage will shift, but everything that you just said about how they violate the certified humane standards and they had been reporting them before and other stuff.

Cattles and dogs were seen interacting with dead piles. A veterinarian concluded, there was a systemic management issue. They cited to the law prohibiting unnecessary cruelty to animals all from

[00:21:09] Jasmin Singer: Wow.

[00:21:11] Mariann Sullivan: Uh, it's extraordinary coverage.

[00:21:13] Jasmin Singer: need to.

[00:21:14] Mariann Sullivan: maybe that will shift as the industry and the county gets its act together decides on its messaging here.

But right now, really, really amazing work.

[00:21:27] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:21:28] Mariann Sullivan: We'll have to see what happens with these people. Of course, they're now at risk of going to prison.

[00:21:32] Jasmin Singer: Ugh. Gosh.

[00:21:34] Mariann Sullivan: They quoted one of the activists and a California attorney involved in the action. Like it's really unbelievable.

[00:21:41] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:21:42] Mariann Sullivan: Great reporting

[00:21:43] Jasmin Singer: there's this revealing and troubling expose from Wired. It turns out that the Animal Agricultural Alliance, which is a powerful lobbying group for Big Ag, has been funneling intelligence on animal rights activists directly to the FBI effectively treating peaceful protest and animal rescue as terrorism.

[00:22:06] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, well this isn't really new news, but there's a lot of new evidence, really a lot of new evidence. This is reporting from Wired. I hope it gets picked up by many outlets. 'cause this is pretty deep reporting. The name of the article is How the Farm Industry Spied on Animal Rights Activists and Pushed the FBI to Treat Them as Bio Terrorists. And you know, a lot of people listening probably are saying, well, yeah, you know, we know that, but the world out there doesn't know it. And now there's a really lot of evidence on it. I'm just gonna start by, it's a long article, but I'm gonna read the, the intro beginning of it.

Hundreds of emails and internal documents reviewed by Wired reveal top lobbyists and representatives of America's agricultural industry led a persistent and often covert campaign to surveil, discredit, and suppress animal rights organizations for nearly a decade while relying on corporate spies to infiltrate meetings and functionally serve as an informant for the FBI. The documents mostly obtained through public records requests by the nonprofit Property of the People detail a secretive and long running collaboration between the FBI's weapons of mass destruction directorate,

[00:23:14] Jasmin Singer: Hmm.

[00:23:14] Mariann Sullivan: Weapons of mass destruction. Just think about that for a second.

[00:23:19] Jasmin Singer: Wow.

[00:23:19] Mariann Sullivan: scope today includes Palestinian rights activists and the recent wave of arson targeting Teslas and the Animal Agricultural Alliance, a nonprofit trade group representing the interests of US farmers, ranchers, veterinarians, and others across America's food supply chain.

Since at least 2018 documents show the AAA has been supplying federal agents with intelligence on the activities of animal rights groups such as Direct Action Everywhere with records of emails and meetings reflecting the industry's broader mission to convince authorities that activists are the preeminent bio-terrorism threat to the United States.

And it goes on from there. It talks a lot about the case against Zoe Rosenberg, which you're of course familiar with from our recent interview with her, and also talks about how the, I mean, this is a huge, project with lots and lots of evidence, but I, I think at least from this article, one of the things that we can glean from it, is their big goal here, their overwhelming goal is to try to tie bird flu and other diseases like Newcastle, that their animals are suffering from, which they have caused, which they have been the reason it has developed and is putting the entire human population at risk, they're trying to blame it all on activists, and that's their goal. And you know, so far they're not succeeding. Uhhuh, let's hope that we stick with that. Loads of information in this article that I really suggest. And I just wanna mention, not that I'm not, not that e, either of these interviews were about this specifically, but way back in 2016 on the 18th episode of the Animal Law Podcast. I interviewed Ryan Shapiro and Jeffrey Light about FOIA. And of course, one of the ways that they got,

a lot of this information is from the Freedom of Information Act, which they had started working with way back then, and it has tightened up since then.

It's really harder to get information than it was then. And also my relatively recent interview on the Animal Law Podcast, episode 1 0 1 with Will Lowrey of Animal Partisan, who has also been working on this issue and the name of that episode was the case of the FBI at the meat conference.

This is a long-term project and they have a lot of power and I think it's terrifying.

[00:25:29] Jasmin Singer: you've been on top of it for a long time.

[00:25:31] Mariann Sullivan: Well, I'm not taking credit for that exactly. But yeah, we've been dipping into it. It's, been an issue for a long time and it's gotten immeasurably worse. And thank God, I mean, Ryan Shapiro is the person from that organization that is doing this basically and has uncovered all of this information and this is an enormous, enormous amount of work. They've also tried to tie PETA into it. They just trying to tie everybody into this idea that it's animal rights activists who are the cause of all of these diseases that they're spreading. This is evil, evil stuff.

[00:26:02] Jasmin Singer: I remember in Wicked when they started to do that with, Elphaba and make her the evil one. She was just the one rescuing animals, you know, wicked. The, the movie and the, the musical that's about animal rights and animal liberation.

[00:26:18] Mariann Sullivan: disease. You just meant,

[00:26:19] Jasmin Singer: No.

[00:26:20] Mariann Sullivan: trying to tie in the act,

[00:26:21] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:26:22] Mariann Sullivan: to blame the activists for, uh,

[00:26:24] Jasmin Singer: Yeah.

[00:26:24] Mariann Sullivan: going wrong.

[00:26:25] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, exactly. Alright, well before we end, let's go to a headline that's making a lot of people in the vegan community smile and for good reason. there is a new study that was published in the Journal Menopause, and I, just wanna say that the person who sent this to us, our friend, is a gynecologist, which I find lovely to just another little layer to this story. So this new study in menopause found that a low fat vegan diet, even when including, plant-based burgers and other processed foods can slash severe hot flashes by 92% for menopausal women

[00:27:06] Mariann Sullivan: flashes, if that's what you

[00:27:08] Jasmin Singer: slash flashes.

And the study also,

[00:27:12] Mariann Sullivan: 92%.

[00:27:13] Jasmin Singer: yeah, the study also saw participants losing an average of. Eight pounds over 12 weeks. And what's, what I think is striking here is that the benefits didn't depend on the cleanliness of the diet. Whether women were eating tofu and kale or beyond, burgers didn't matter as much as whether the foods were animal free.

So the researchers are speculating that plant-based eating helps reduce levels of. Advanced glycation end products or AGEs which can disrupt hormones and inflammation in the body. And I know that for so many women navigating the hot mess of menopause, this is a hopeful and accessible solution. And I'm just curious, Mariann, what was your experience with menopause as a vegan?

[00:28:03] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, well, I mean, the menopause was actually a long time ago, but, yeah, one hot flesh and I'm kind of glad I had the one so I could experience what it was like because it was awful. It really was. I have the greatest sympathy for women going through this 'cause it was like somebody had installed a furnace inside me and turned it on, but it was once and it never happened again.

And other than that, I didn't have any symptoms at all. Uh, you know, I was very fortunate. But apparently not just fortunate, I was both fortunate and vegan.

[00:28:30] Jasmin Singer: That's great. There's this hilarious, though, heartbreaking in a way, video that's kind of gone viral about this woman. Who is at I, you know, it looks like some kind of a local sports event. Like it looks like it's like little league or something. And she's in the, bleachers and her friend is recording her.

This woman was, bald, I think that she had alopecia or something. And, she was having a hot flash and there was literal steam rising off her head and like, she was laughing. Okay. Like she was also like. What the actual, like, why is this happening again? But she was having a hot flash and because of the temperature difference with like outside, there was steam coming off of her head.

[00:29:14] Mariann Sullivan: pretty

[00:29:15] Jasmin Singer: I know, right? Okay. But I mean, that's good. She needs, she should go vegan. Well, for so many reasons. Okay, we are just about done, but I wanna give a shout out to our interview that's coming out tomorrow because we had a panel discussion with three different awesome activists who are working in the grassroots world.

So they, they shared ideas for effective grassroots animal rights work. And these folks are James Hattersly of We the Free. Carrie LeBlanc of Compassion Works International and Steven Rouk of Connect for Animals. I see you wrote this out phonetically for me. Thank you.

[00:29:59] Mariann Sullivan: Right, because ' 'cause '

[00:30:01] Jasmin Singer: cause I had a problem. Yeah. So, contrary to what the industry would like you to believe, the grassroots in the movement is anything but dead.

And this was a great conversation. So listen up. Be inspired to change the world for animals with us. and this was available by the way. We did have, a, a selection of our flock live with us in the virtual recording studio, and we like to do that as a perk for our flock. Why don't you talk about our upcoming Flock Friday.

[00:30:30] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, this Friday we will be recording and this will be released next week. We're recording it this Friday, but not releasing it this Friday. Our interview with, with Internet star, Natalie Fulton. If you're not watching Natalie on YouTube or wherever else, I guess Instagram as well. I watch her on YouTube.

You have to because she's so good.

[00:30:50] Jasmin Singer: She's great.

[00:30:51] Mariann Sullivan: really, really compelling. I love her activism. I'm really excited about this.

[00:30:55] Jasmin Singer: I am too. I am too. We got an email recently from someone who we previously inter interviewed who we greatly enjoyed. We still talk about that interview. Nicole, how do you pronounce her last name? You didn't write this out for me.

[00:31:10] Mariann Sullivan: think if I recall it, it was Schonemann

[00:31:12] Jasmin Singer: Nicole Schonemann

[00:31:13] Mariann Sullivan: But I think she meant said the actual way you pronounce it as Schonemann,

[00:31:16] Jasmin Singer: Okay.

[00:31:17] Mariann Sullivan: know, I'm sure she answers to either.

[00:31:20] Jasmin Singer: Why don't you tell us about.

[00:31:22] Mariann Sullivan: was on episode 772. You might have caught it, and if you did, you already know about the Goat Conspiracy Sanctuary, which in my mind is the best name for a sanctuary that anybody has ever come up with. It's a former goat dairy farm that has been quote unquote, transfarmed into this farmed animal sanctuary.

It's in Bloomington, Indiana. They have 110 goats. They have a lot of chickens as well. And if you happen to be looking for a new gig, they're looking for an executive director. And of course you would have to be in Bloomington, which I'm not saying is a bad thing, but not everybody is, you know, looking to move. Unless you already live in Bloomington, which I understand is kind of a, you know, like. Like it, it's a huge university town. It's where the main campus is for Indiana University. Okay, the primary responsibilities include education and outreach, administration, fundraising, recruitment of hourly staff, interns and volunteers, animal care.

They have a farm manager to do animal care, but you, you know, you have to kind of understand it and it sounds like an amazing sanctuary. I'll just read you their mission statement 'cause it's quite moving. We care for previously farmed animals and provide care and a space where they can live out their own full meaningful lives.

We connect people with farmed animals so that they can develop deeper empathy and compassion for farmed animals.

[00:32:38] Jasmin Singer: Love it.

[00:32:39] Mariann Sullivan: statement is, we envision a world where animals are not exploited for human conception, fashion, or entertainment, where animals are protected and can live out full, meaningful and natural lives.

And where humans appreciate animals simply for being who they are. And if that sounds like something you would like to be a part of and you're looking for a new gig, for more information, you can go to thegoatconspiracy.com/work-at-gc

[00:33:04] Jasmin Singer: We will also include it in the show notes for those of you who didn't catch that well, thank you all so much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to Our Hen House on your favorite pod catcher as well as on YouTube, and we would love it if you liked this episode. Actually, we would love it if you loved this episode on YouTube, but if you hit like, we would be really happy.

And don't forget that you can follow us on all of the socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Blue Sky @OurHenHouse Until next time, thanks for changing the world for animals.