 Hello and welcome to episode 31 of Naughty Melt Podcast. This week I'm joined by vegan activist Joey Carbstrong. Joey, thanks so much for coming on the show. No worries, man. Good to see you. It's great to have you here, man. I'm such a big fan of your channel, so it's cool to have you on. For the people who don't know who you are, can you give us a little introduction of who you are and what you do? Yeah, man. Well, my internet name is Joey Carbstrong, Carbs of Vegan predominantly, and my last name is actually Armstrong, so a mashup between Carbs and Armstrong. I've come from a past of gangs, crime, drugs, a very harsh and violent past, and I had an epiphany when I was finally got sober for long enough to see the error of my ways when I was in prison, and part of this sober epiphany was finding veganism and ethical veganism, and then moved into being an outspoken advocate for animal rights, and also a sober lifestyle promoter. I do online counselling. I help people, but my main passion is helping the most persecuted victims on the planet, which are the animals. Yeah, awesome, man. You've had such an interest in life before veganism and after, but how did veganism come into your life? Well, that is a very good question, and I didn't reflect on that until a little bit later on in my journey when people started wanting to know how it all happened. I wasn't really aware of it, but then I come to a realisation that when I was on home detention, I was very, I become, because when you're addicted to drugs, you use the drugs, and what happened is it all come to a halt when I got caught by the cops and I was on home detention, and my drug use sort of slowed down a bit, so I started to eat a lot of food because that become my new comfort, so I was eating a lot of fatty pork chops, bacon, and big, thick Nutella sandwiches, and I was just, I put on a lot of weight fast. I couldn't go to the gym. I was, I got really big stretch marks, and I was about 115 kilograms, so I don't know what that is in pounds, over 200 pounds, and I'm only 170 centimetres tall, so I'm pretty short, so I was pretty obese, and I was unhappy, unhealthy, depressed, and stuff like that. Still in the gangs in that, still not, hadn't learned my lesson when I was on home detention, and I wanted to lose weight. You know, I wanted to start dating this girl, and I knew I was a bit too overweight for that, so I was looking on the internet for the best way to lose weight. I come across low carb, I come across all that as you do, and then I found a guy called Dan McDonald, the life regenerator, who's a raw foodist YouTuber who does the juicing. I don't know if you ever heard of him, but he's got a bit of a persona, and he's like, you know, the raw fruits and vegetables have the life force in them, and you know, whatever he was saying, dude, I was like, well, it started to make a bit of sense, and he was like, you know, the inflammation from eating the dead food, you need to eat the raw living foods, but one thing that really stuck with me, and it wasn't like he taught me something, it was almost like he showed me something I already knew, and that was the fact that when you eat suffering, death, and violence, it manifests as anxiety, fear, violence, death, disease in your body. Now, I don't know if there's any science to back this up, but if you look at people, their fat, their sick, their unhealthy, and their diet reflects that. So I think he planted the seed, and I understood karma. I understood karma because I'd seen it in my day-to-day life. I'd seen people in that criminal world doing bad things, and then their life was a reflection of themselves, and I thought like, you know, we're treating these animals like this. We're cutting them up into pieces. We're putting them in our body. What's going to happen to us? And I thought, yeah, he planted the seed, very important seed in my mind. He opened it up and let me realize the truth that I already knew. When someone tells you the truth like that, it's like something in your heart already knew that. It was like, wow, you know, and it didn't flourish to about six months later when I got, no, around six months later, I got out of prison six or seven months later, and then I was sober, and I made the change. I decided to go vegan. Yeah. And is there been any looking back at all as I was being that you're being vegan, and that's you from now on? You know, when I got out of prison, I had two months of home detention. If anyone doesn't know what home detention is, it's when you've got a bracelet around your ankle and you can't leave the house. It's like, it's like being half, half free and half not. So you're in your house and you just can't leave. So it's pretty, it's pretty tough home day if you do it for a long time. Anyway, when I got out of prison, I did home day again, just a small stint to wait for my parole. And my mom was like saying, my mom was smoking and I was like, in this health kick. And I was like, you know, you shouldn't be smoking mom. It's not good for you. And she said, there's a lot of things people do. People have a lot of vices that they don't get let go of. And it made me sort of reflect on my own vices. Like, wait, she's right. I mean, I've always said I'm going to go vegan. And I haven't. So I banged the next day for blown vegan. That was it. I did a bit of research on the internet first to find out because I was doing weights and I was like, I need protein. How am I going to get protein? Like, and then I found out that you didn't need protein from meat and stuff. And I was like, well, there goes that. That was the only thing sort of holding me back. And then I was like, bang, full blown vegan the next day. And it was actually World Vegan Day. I didn't even know to the, to the, to a year later that it was World Vegan Day. So it was sort of like meant to be in a way like it was pretty cool. But nothing's held me back, man. I stuck to it. And the only thing that would have hold me back is if I've got back on the drugs and, and the alcohol and stopped caring about things that mattered because sobriety was a major part of me going vegan, of having this awareness. Without sobriety, I would have been stuck in that negative mindset and not given a shit about anything, unless it was some negative crap I was involved with. So, yeah. Yeah, definitely, man. And like, how is the reaction from friends and family, because it's such a dramatic change of you being involved with gangs and jail and stuff like that and suddenly I go on vegan. You don't even meet me. How do people react to that? Dude, that is such a good question there. That is so that, you know what, dude, they were freaking out. No joke. My brother sat me down one day and he goes, Joey, like, you got to look at this through our eyes. Like, before we were too scared to be around you, you constantly, you know, got a gun down your pants, you're stressing the whole family out, you're always flipping out violence in gangs. And now you've done a complete 180. You won't even bloody, you won't even hurt a chicken. You don't drink, you don't, you're preaching about sobriety to all of us and, you know, and non-violence and you're eating like raw, raw foods. And, you know, he goes, you got to look at this from our eyes. It's a bit of a, you know, a shot to our systems. You got to like, let us adjust to this, you know what I mean? Because I did a literally a full on 180 in a very short amount of time, very short amount of time. Yeah, definitely, man. And like, and I find that like a lot of people when you go vegan, sometimes you naturally just lose friends from like, when you weren't vegan. People just kind of lose touch and stuff. And you just kind of mature and you move on and stuff like that. But has that been the case for you? Have you still been friends from when you're, if people from when you're younger and stuff, or is that you just slowly can they lose touch since you became vegan and stuff? You're good at this, aren't you, mate? You're asking the good question. I'll tell you right now. Major part of my sobriety was letting go of old friends. Now, I've had friends from when I was 15 years old. Now that will always be my friends. I'll always be there for them if they need me there. But a major part of this, of this transformation, getting sober was letting go of everyone and being by myself. I had to do that. Otherwise, there was no chance for me. And I think a few friends might have been cut at the start. They might have been a little bit hurt by it. But I think now they would understand what I was doing. I had to separate myself and be alone for a while. And especially with being vegan at the same time and having all these realizations happening, I spent a lot of time by myself. I was just riding my bike around. I didn't have a license yet. I was just riding my bike around the city and on new years. New years, I was riding my bike through the city looking at all the drunk people and stuff. Just spent heaps of time by myself going and buying fruits and vegetables and stuff, juicing them, having smoothies and watching the vegan YouTube community online. Checking out what's educating myself day after day about nutrition. Dr. McDougal, Neil Barnard, Colbert Esselstein, the China study, the start solution. Just looking at every single bit of information I could. Gary Ironsky started to educate myself on ethics. Animal ethics come really, really, really easily to me. I mean, I don't know. I just, I put myself in other people's positions. I can just do that. I've seen someone getting hurt and it hurts me. I don't like it. If someone cuts their finger, I can't stand it. And so ethics really resonated with me. So yeah, that's what I did. I stayed by myself. I let go of friends because they're still thick. They still are to this day. They're still thickly in gangs. They're still doing sentences in jail. A lot of them are still using drugs and stuff or drinkers. But there's a few of mine that have pulled themselves out of it and a few that have been inspired by my journey, which is so epic. So epic. So yeah, I do still to stay in touch, but you're right. It's a major part of, and a hard part, of going off on your own feet. It takes courage. It takes courage. Yeah, it does. When you think back of, if you were to go back of where you were before and you see yourself now, what do you think would go through your mind? Could you ever picture yourself like years ago? Could you ever picture yourself being this vegan activist, being this compassionate person? And does that come to mind if you were to think back? I'll tell you right now. I always knew oppression was wrong. I always understood it. I've always idolised people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King. These are the people I chose to do my projects on at school. They stood up against the civil rights movement and I memorised the first verse of Martin Luther's speech where he's like, and just how Gandhi overthrew the British Empire just one man. Just one man and he created this movement that overthrew the British Empire and got freedom in India. Like that stuff. People like Tupac Shakur, where he was sort of in the gangster scene, but he understood oppression too. He understood black history and he was speaking out against, and in the end he wanted peace. He was obviously torn between war and peace, but that song changes, which I use in all my videos. He's like, we've got to change the way we live, we've got to change the way we eat, and we have to change the way we treat each other. And that's just the vegan message if I've ever heard one. So back then, even when I was stuck in the crimes and violence and gangs and that, I think there was a side of me that underneath all that, that was, it was just waiting to come out. Just waiting for the right environment for that inner me to come out and say, look, let's start to stand up for those that need it. Yeah, man, that's awesome. And I really appreciate you going like being open and talking about that, man. Kenny, just moving to food now. I know obviously you said you'd lost weight and you've discussed that in your different videos that you have. How much has your diet changed from when you first went vegan until now? Oh, wow. I've gone on a roller coaster of different ways to be vegan. I mean, like, so from the start, from the start, I went full raw vegan. All right, fully raw vegan. And I was eating a lot of nuts because I seen there's a raw vegan bodybuilding. He's got to eat this amount of almonds. This is the amount of almonds you need to eat. I was putting like, so I was like, I had no idea about like, when you're eating raw food, let's just say you have like a bunch of bananas and you have a massive salad with nuts all in it. Never ever eat a full watermelon because that watermelon, I woke up at like three in the morning once and I was still on Home D and I was like, Mum, I'm dying. Something's happened to me, my stomach. Oh my God, it was the worst pain I've ever felt. I rang my Home D officer, just had to leave, go to the hospital because it was like an emergency. I thought I was going to die because of the food defining thing. I had no idea. No idea. Anyway, so I was full raw vegan and then I found freely on that on the internet and I was looking at their raw food lifestyle. I was doing that for a little while. To be honest, I don't think I did it correctly. I was just force feeding myself, eating past satiation, put on a few, a bit away and then I started to go a little bit more whole foods-y, more whole foods while I was brick laying and boxing and that dropped a lot of weight doing that. So nowadays, well, I went through another whole foods really ultra clean but nowadays I just try to keep it half healthy and whatever is vegan. Just make sure that you're predominantly vegan and if you want to eat healthy to feel better than do it. Yeah, do it for yourself but I personally will only probably start promoting just vegan. Just make sure it's vegan. I think these sub-genres of diet choices within under the vegan umbrella, as you say. I think it's really irrelevant, man. It's irrelevant. Whatever works for you, some people, some things work for others that don't work for some. So just make sure it's vegan. That's what I would say now but yeah, I've tried it all. Yeah, that was actually going to be one of my next questions is to get your thoughts on vegan junk food because I see people on YouTube and stuff and they're all saying that we need to be a shining example with our foods and highlighting kind of whole foods. Do you think that should be the case or just doesn't matter at any day? Just be vegan. Upon reflection, because let's just say I want to do whole foods and I'm going ultra clean because I want to feel a certain way, look a certain way. I don't know if that is the best way to promote veganism because veganism is nothing to do with health. I mean, you can't be a health vegan. You're not going to wear a leather jacket for health. I mean, it's nothing to do with health really. I mean, there's health benefits. Don't get me wrong, health is a big argument if you want to use that. Personally, I think how easy veganism can be is a really good way to promote it. If you want vegan burgers, vegan hot dogs, vegan ice cream, I think if you're promoting whole foods, I think you have to emphasize to people you have to really make a point that this is what I'm doing at the moment. But if you want to do this, check this out. Film your mates burgers, film your mates donuts and stuff and say this is what you can do. But this is what I'm choosing to do right now. If you can't adhere to a strictly whole foods, no oil, low fat, diet, no sugar, no oil, no salt. If you can't adhere to that, don't fall back into eating dairy, eggs, meat, cheese because you want to go out with burgers with your friends because that's what can happen. And I've seen it with people trying to do a full raw diet, fully raw diet. If they fail at fully raw, they'll go back to eating cheese and meat because they're just so starving. So I think in the big scheme of things, it's better to show how easy veganism can be. And if you are doing promoting a fully strict whole foods diet on your channel, just make sure that you show how that you can fall back on vegan junk food. I mean, yeah. Yeah, exactly. 100% agree. At the end of the day, just be vegan. I think we can kind of get wrapped up in the vegan health argument a lot of the time. But at the end of the day, veganism is not to exploit animals, not to eat them. So 100% agree. You've obviously kept the weight off since you've lost it, you've managed to keep the weight off. Do you follow a certain fitness regime or anything like that? And do you have any advice for people who are trying to lose weight and how to keep it off? I would say to people that exercise is fantastic for mental health. It was a major, major part of me saying so. But if I didn't exercise, I would have been back on the drugs, probably, you know, like I needed to exercise. I was training when I was in prison. All I did was kept to myself and I trained morning and night every day. Every day I was out there, even on a Sunday running laps of the oval, doing burpees, doing sit ups and doing weights every single day. When I got out riding my bike everywhere, boxing for a year, every four times a week, boxing, riding my bike on my off days, keeping my head filled with endorphin, filled with endorphin, because I was used to getting the endorphin rush from drugs. So major part of having a healthy mental state, especially if you're coming from the lifestyle I was in. And just generally, if you have low, you know, low mood, you're prone to anxiety, depression, things like that exercise is fantastic for. Now, when it comes to weight loss, not so much, not so much exercise is not that important for weight loss. In my eyes, I don't think it is. I think it's more for health, mental health, physical health, strength, things like that. But if you're looking, you know, if you're really overweight, you want to lose a lot of weight, steer towards the whole foods diet, like, you know, you might only need to eat 60, 70% whole foods, you know, like just, you know, potatoes and starches and rice and, you know, white rice is fine and some, you know, some vegetables and, you know, and then, you know, you can have your process stuff on top of that. I mean, but, you know, that might not work for you. You might have to steer towards 80% 80% whole foods and, you know, just have a nice big whole foods meal and have your cereal for dessert or something like that, you know, you can treat yourself, you know, there's everyone's so different genetically, how do they respond to different, so it's really hard to give a blanket advice for everyone, but I'll just say, steer towards whole foods, you know, if you want to have, treat yourself here and there and see how it goes. I mean, don't start trying to cut your calories and restrict your calories. I think that can be a little, that, you know, you don't need to, when you're eating whole foods, vegan, you don't need to cut your calories. You just need to eat more whole foods and a little bit less of the processed junk and oils and stuff and, you know, you should get results. I went full juice fast. I went full juice fast, like drinking juices and eating steamed vegetables if I was starving and like, is that the best way? Probably not. Probably wouldn't advise it. Like it's, you have to be super, like I was super mentally like focused and like, you know, not everyone can do that. Like you walk past a nice big vegan pizza when you're juice fasting and you're just like, ugh. So yeah, my advice, steer towards whole foods as much as you can, see how you go and you might have to alter it depending on your genetics and how you react. Go for a walk. If you're really, really overweight, go for a walk or a light ride on the flat on your bike. That should be your maximum exercise. Don't burn yourself out. Really easy and do it consistently day in, day out. Just really easy stuff if you're really, really overweight and yeah. Yeah, awesome, man. And going into activism where you, once it all kind of clicked for you, was it always your focus to be, I'm going to be active, I'm going to get the word out there or was that just kind of a gradual process of you becoming an activist? I was very outspoken even when I wasn't on YouTube. I was just like, it was just me in my day to day life, my mum, my brothers, my dad, you know, I was just like, this is what's happening. Look at this, you know, dad, you can't, my dad was very sick at the time. He was, he had suffering from Crohn's disease. He had, you know, tumours in his bowels, they were cutting his bowels out cancer and he, he was just very sick. And I, and I seen that it was lifestyle that was causing after, you know, just being indulged in McDougal's work and Dr. Barnard's work and all that. Like I was like, whoa, this is what's going on, dad. You know, you need to go start a solution. I was going as far as I'm making him starch based meals. And so anyway, what the point was is I was very outspoken in my day to day life. And I needed a platform. I just needed it. I remember saying to the girl I was seeing at the time, like I've got this fire inside of me. You don't understand. Like I was laying bricks, boxing at the time. And I was just 40 hours a week, laying bricks. And I was like, I can't put my energy into this brick laying. It's just not for me. You don't understand. I need to help people. It's, it's inside of me and I need to let it out. It's like a, it was burning. And I need to do this. And then like one, like when I met Abdullah Zainab with glucose network, I don't know if you know Abdullah. So I met him through durian rider. I met him. He was, he rode from Melbourne to meet durian rider. And I seen him and he made this video with Harley and he was just full energy, full inspirational dude. Like he was 10 years younger than me nearly. I was like, this dude's, you know, he's cool man. And I'd be watching his videos in the way that he just whip his camera and he was saying the things that I needed to say. He was saying them on camera. And I was like, I need to do this. So one day I went for a ride with that doula and come back and hopped in my car and I just started filming. I just started filming, just started letting stuff off of my mind. And that's how it started. And that's when I had my platform to, to share who I was. And I needed that. I needed that. So, and then it's transitioned from there. Yeah, man. I absolutely love your channel. I think I can't remember, I can't remember the first video scene. I think it was like vegan activists destroys, like, I forget the guy's name. I think it's like Keenobody or something like that. Yeah. And I was hooked on your channel forever since then. I'm a big fan of Joey versus the public series. I was going to ask about the public series because has your confidence just grew and grew more and more you do street interviews. And was there any fear the first few times you done the interviews? 100% there was fear. 100%. Like it took me a year just to be able to socialize normally in public after getting off drugs and that like I had some serious anxiety and social interaction issues. Like I had to retrain every part of myself. I was only used to talking to people when I was drunk or on drugs. So going out there by myself in public with a little, I started, I had an iPhone 5 on my belt. I had this tiny little microphone. I would do the filming myself. If you look at the earlier videos, I'm looking at the camera the whole time. That's because I'm trying to keep us in frame. People were thinking that I was deliberately not looking at the person I was interviewing. But that's because I was just out there by myself just like this, you know, and my first interview I did with Martin from Think About This. So he was the first vegan YouTuber I was seeing doing you interviews. He was the first one. I went out with him. I had this awesome in my mind, the karma questioning. Do you believe in karma? Do you believe that what you do, if you do bad things that can come return to you sort of thing? And the line of questioning was great. And then at the end we asked him if they ate meat. And that was like, anyway, Martin said to me, you're really good at this, you know, you're really good at this. You should do it, man. Like seriously, yeah, like, because he's like, he didn't have the confidence to approach people and talk the way that I did. But he was, he's very good at interviews, but he just said to me that I was particularly impressed. And so I decided to do it myself. I was out there with a few vegans in Rundlemore and I just whipped out my phone and started interviewing people. And my style has developed a lot as I've progressed as an activist, I think. I think my questions are a lot, they're more thought out before I was very reserved. I was shitting myself sometimes. I remember when I went to film the dairy interviews, my third to Joey vs. the public, the dairy one, I was driving in the city and I was like, you know, I was looking at all the people in the city and I was like, I'm petrified of this. Like these are really controversial questions, man. And I'm out here by myself and I just, I wanted to turn back and I was like, you know, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? And I thought about, you know, animal rights. And I was like, you know, that's why I'm doing this, man. So just do it. Like don't let fear hold you back. Like remember the reason you're doing this and then, yeah, I just kept going. So yeah, man, it's like, it's a really, it's a really brave thing to do. It's also, it can be a very dangerous thing, because obviously, as you're saying, it's like controversial topics and people do get automatically kind of go in the defense when you start to question what they're doing. So it's also very brave of you. So it's awesome to see how many you're doing as well. They've had some like crazy responses from the public of the reasons why they agree to eat in animals and stuff. But is there any responses or people that kind of stood out to you? Well, I've nearly been beaten up. I've nearly been beaten up for like, you know, just that was not a spiritual fair. Yeah, so spiritual fair by a Reiki master, you know, like their spiritual people, when you start questioning people's moral stance on animal abuse, it's just like, because they have this ingrained, rude, ingrained belief that they're spiritual and they're this positive vibe is emanating from them. And then I was just like, you know, question their moral stance on animal eating. And oh, what? That's what nothing to do with spirituality. So I've had responses like that. You know, people's dads coming to beat me up. Yeah, that's crazy. I couldn't say what that's the people that yeah, like, I think there was like a vegetarian who you know what it is your hunted the hunter vegetarian. Yeah. Is that the one? Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, she hunted. She believed in animal ethics, but she hunted when she was out with aboriginals in Australia. And you know, so yeah, that was pretty crazy. Yeah, there's been a lot of people just walked off and while I'm interviewing them, you know, about meat causing cancer and whether they think it's, you know, child abuse to knowingly feed them carcinogenic meat substance, not people that that don't know, but people that have been informed that that process meets a carcinogenic. And then to knowingly give your children known carcinogens is that could that be considered child abuse? Now that was a controversial question. People just walk and I had a hot dog vendor who was selling hot dogs just walked off on me. So that was pretty controversial too. It was also quite awkward walking back and back past him every time I was interviewing people like that. Yeah, that's something I've got like my me, my girlfriend raising our daughter vegan, and that's something that a comment that we've had is that it's child abuse to raise your your child vegan, which it seems, I don't know, it's just, I don't know, it's just it seems crazy a bit because it seems like the most normal thing in the world to us that we're not exposed and hard to cruelty and stuff. And but I see a lot of people can say things like that. I think it's just because they don't quite understand it. So they feel they have to kind of challenge it and talk shit. Yeah, well, it's going against the norm. They honestly believe that, you know, meat, dairy and eggs are the healthiest food groups on the planet. The doctors all agree and the, you know, the nutritionists all agree that you need certain nutrients from meat. You can't be a pregnant woman if you're not eating meat, you know, cheese and dairy and stuff. You know, they've done a very good job at infiltrating the nutrition data and, you know, manufacturing their own, you know, you know, sort of rigged scientific studies and, you know, you know, you can't blame people for thinking veganism is completely unhealthy and their kids are going to die from it. But, you know, I would test their meat, sort of, I would test the children like this, show them what happens to animals so that they can get their meat, see if they still want to eat it. You know, that should be like, that should be like, you know, the easiest test to see whether eating meat is natural and stuff. Like, kids don't want to, you know, some kids don't even have to see what happens to animals to not want to eat animals. They just have to know that it's an animal. And they're like, I don't want to eat an animal. Kids are born with this innate, you know, it's in our nature to be vegan. Like, it's so obvious. Like, we're going against our nature to eat meat, dairy and eggs, which they're bad for our health anyway. So, yeah, man. Like, do you think there's a lot of people who they'll be vegan and they're happy enough just being vegan? But I guess the question is, is being vegan enough or do we need more vegan activists? Well, being vegan is the least we can do. That is the bare minimum we can do is just be like a piece of coral, just not hurting or doing our best not to hurt the animals in the environment around us. Of course, just by existing and being human, we're going to, you know, we're going to displace some of the wildlife, you know, building houses and stuff. But this, this is not what we're talking about. Being vegan is obviously practically, as far as practical, reducing the suffering and cruelty in your life. It's just like the minimum. But once, the way you can start doing something is being proactive. I mean, I don't know if everyone should be an activist in the sense like James Aspie, everyone can do what James Aspie does. Everyone can do what Earthling Ed does. Everyone can do what Joey Carbstrong does. I don't know about that. Everyone can do something though in their own way, like being proactive as in, you know, sharing recipes at your school with other parents, dropping truth bombs about health, sharing documentaries on your Facebook page, you know, making your household strictly vegan households, showing people how easy veganism can be using only cruelty-free products in your beauty salon. You know, just stuff like you could make a little avatar and you could have your own anonymous avatar. You can have your own Instagram account, sharing slaughterhouse images of animal cruelty and stuff. Everyone can do something, but not everyone has to be what their vision of an activist is because that can be daunting. I mean, you know, not everyone can sit there facing slaughterhouse footage every weekend showing it to people and out there in the public questioning people's morals. You know, that's not for everyone. And I understand that. I mean, I used to have a different view like everyone has to be an activist on YouTube. I don't know about that. But if that's what you think that you're cut out for, then go for it, man. Go for it because everyone is slightly different in character and can handle slightly different things. And that's the beauty of it. We need different forms of activism everywhere all working together. So... Yeah, exactly. And how do you cope with... Obviously, you're doing a lot of strength of use. You're showing a lot of slaughterhouse footage. How do you deal with... How do you stay motivated, I guess? Because if you're constantly around seeing this horrible footage and people being negative quite a lot of the time, how do you stay motivated to kind of keep going? Motivation comes from the realisation of how much work there is to do. And focusing on the animals. Otherwise, if I was doing this for any other reason, I don't know if I'd still be doing it, to be honest, because it's pretty taxing. But I know the reason why I'm doing it, which keeps me solid in it, like a hard stance in this because I know it's for a very, very noble cause. And it needs to be fought like this. There's no more noble cause than standing up for the most innocent, the most oppressed beings on this planet that everyone has literally forgotten about. I don't need to sit here in a room full of people and talk about how important human rights are. Do I? We all are on the same level with that. We all know human rights violations are wrong, but how many people honestly say, no, that animals deserve rights. Animals deserve a right to a life without suffering. That's what I'm talking about. That is why it's the most noble cause. Now, am I saying like I would one day stand up for humans the way I stand up for animals? 100% I would. 100% I would. I don't want to see humans getting hurt. But my job on this earth is to stand up for those who people have forgotten, the ones who can't speak up for themselves. They can't break out of their prison camp and say, you've got to see what's going on in there. They're killing my family. They're breeding. They can't. That's why we need to go in there, get the footage out, show it to people and be their voice. And that's why I think there's no more noble cause. And that's what keeps me motivated. And I would plead with other vegans to look at it like that too. I know when you've been vegan for a while, it's easy to take it back, fought and be like, oh, it's a bit too hard. But everyone can do something. And even if it's just sharing activist videos that you wish you could do what they did, just share that. Yeah, watch this. Watch this. So yeah. No, no, I got it. The good thing is there's people out there like yourself, like James Aspey, all these types of people that keep people inspired, keep people motivated. So I really appreciate you doing what you do because it keeps me motivated. And I can also speak for so many other people that you've inspired as well. You might have seen, there's a lot of talk at the moment in the UK about bringing back Fox hunting. I just wanted to kind of get your take on single issue campaigns. And do you feel it kind of benefits the vegan movement at all? Well, that's a very complicated topic. Okay, so veganism obviously solves all of these issues. Being vegan solves all of them at once. So promoting veganism is basically what should be the foundation of everyone's activism, just promote veganism because it solves Fox hunting, it solves live export, solves all of these issues are solved by being vegan. Nothing comes close. It is basically the golden key to solve all of these animal issues. Do I think single issue campaigns shouldn't be held, shouldn't be done? No, I don't because I know that, I know a lot of meat, dairy, and eggities that live export is so wrong. Dolphin captivity is wrong, that save the whales. And I think that that is sort of getting their foot in. Okay, once we've got their foot in, it's the vegan's job then to go save the whales. What about this animal suffering? What about that? So I think these single, like saving the dogs in Newland. That's the perfect way to get someone here in Australia pointing the finger to see the hypocrisy in saving the dogs in Newland while you're eating the pigs out of the gas chambers in Adelaide, Australia. Come on. Now, so I think these single issue campaigns have their place because so many meat, dairy, and egg eaters, non-vegans are involved in single issue campaigns, genuinely involved in helping these animals while with the same hand committing an act of violence to get their dinner plate filled with flesh. So yeah, there's two ways to look at it. Veganism solves them all. I personally wouldn't, I prefer to promote veganism. Yeah. And I stick to the most oppressed persecuted animals at the, well, cows, chickens, pigs, lands. That's where my focus predominantly is. Fur activism, Erfling Aides got a great video about fur activism. He really changed my perception of it. And he said that because fur is just, you know, everyone knows wearing dogs, you know, even meat, dairy, and egg, we can all agree, like, you know, that is messed up. People have pet dogs, they can make the connection much easier. So he thinks we should attack it now while people all agree, majority of people agree that it's wrong. And he said that that's our chance. So yeah, these single issue campaigns have their place. And but I prefer to promote that veganism solves everything. Yeah, no, definitely 100% agree. Definitely has its place. I think it's just, if someone's making that connect, like connection, like with like foxes or with dogs and stuff, as you're saying, it's like it's one foot in the door. They've got that open mind that they are against animal cruelty. And it's just, it might just be a slow process, but they'll get that. No, and look at look at like those outspoken celebrities like Ricky Gervais or whatever his name is. And he's just like, you know, animal cruelty is wrong. And then he get like a million vegans. But you still eat burgers. Yeah, exactly. And this is because he cares about elephants and, you know, game hunting and, you know, like, you know, people killing lions and stuff publicly. This is a ticket for vegans to go, wait a second, bro. Wait a second. Yeah. What about the cows, pigs, chickens, you know? So I think they have their place. Yeah, 100%. When I spoke to my friend, who's a big fan of your channel, my friend, Laura, she wanted to ask a question if that's all right. She was wondering what your take is on when people say you have to, you can't be manly if you don't, if you don't eat animals. And some people see it as like a weakness that men who care about animals and sometimes are embarrassed to eat meat in front of their friends of like the fear of being kind of ridiculed or anything like that. What is your kind of thoughts on that? And do you have any advice on how to get through to people with that kind of mentality? Yeah. Well, I'd say it's straight up just like this. It takes more of a man to stand up for the most innocent than it does to hurt and oppress them. Think about it. Children in this society, someone hurts a child, you walk up, we take up arms and we get that man. You know, people would think that's a noble cause standing up for children. Are you going to let someone touch anyone's kid? Pedophiles, we chuck them in prison. We don't want them in our society. You know, we'd kick the hell out of someone if we've seen someone hurt in a child. Animal rights is the same. You're standing up for innocent animals that can't defend themselves against the vast majority of society. Now, you tell me how much courage that takes. Tell me how much courage it takes to walk into a work site where there's people eating meat, drinking iced coffee milk out of dairy's milk with a vegan tattoo on your neck saying, well, I don't think participating in violence against innocent animals is right. It takes more courage to do that than it does to conform to whatever else is doing, doesn't it? And you're going to get in arguments. There's going to be awkward situations at dinner when you're saying like, this takes courage. It takes a man to do that. And not saying it takes a woman to. A strong, hearted woman. It takes courage. That's what I mean. I'm not saying men. But the issue is predominantly with men who think it's macho to eat a steak, which has been programmed into them through advertising. So I think with women, it's a lot easier because they don't have that pressure on them to be this macho person. So I think with women, veganism comes a lot more naturally. They've got that empathy that they're allowed to express their emotions in this society. But men, it's a little bit more different. And I've said to them, look, mate, I used to be a violent person towards people I wouldn't mess around, man. But I still understand that standing up for animals is a noble cause. It takes courage and a real human to stand up. 100%. Man, I really appreciate that. We'll wrap up with you at the moment, but do you have any advice for people who are looking to go vegan or wanting to go vegan? Yeah, well, my advice would be like, first, you need to understand why you want to do it. Why do you want to go vegan? I mean, there's literally, there's many benefits to going vegan, but there's one of the only reasons to go vegan is for animals to go right. So you're doing this for an altruistic reason. I think understand the suffering that's going on. Face it first hand. You need to see the images from inside and what these animals are going through. And it's hard. It's very hard to do. I would say to do it. So then you get a real deeper understanding of what veganism is. It's not a diet. It's not anything else. It's not a trend. It's literally about animal rights. It's about standing up for these innocent beings. And that's what I would say to people. You need to get an understanding of what veganism is. I see a lot of new vegans, they get into it because of seeing some diet coach on YouTube, and they think veganism is a diet. So what happens is they go vegan because of this diet coach and they lose faith in this diet coach. And then they lose faith in veganism because they haven't even gained an understanding of what veganism is. So educating yourself on animal rights and what's going on is a massive man because without that, why would you stay vegan? So that would be my advice. Understand why you're doing it. Educate yourself on what's happening to animals. Make a decision with your heart, not with your conditioning. Awesome man. And what can people expect from the future? Are you going to the vegan camp out in July? So July and me and James are flying over for the vegan camp out. I'll be doing a speech there. I'll just be telling people about my life story and how I've become similar to what we're doing here. I'll be doing an activism workshop there. Then we'll be traveling to Norwich to do a similar thing in Norwich. And then we'll be doing some major activism around London with Ed and Paul Bashir doing massive Cube of Truth. It's going to be big. We're going to be there for nearly two weeks just doing vigils. So stay in touch with me and James's Instagram, YouTube and things like that. We'll be keeping you updated on what's going on. And yeah, we'll be traveling around UK doing activism. And it should be massive. It should be epic. Awesome man. And where can people find you online? Joey Carbstrong on everything. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. I've got a Snapchat. I think my Snapchat name is in the link in the description box of my YouTube channel. Yeah, it's not hard to find me. Awesome man. I really appreciate you doing this. Again, I'm such a big fan of your channel. You're a massive inspiration to me and again to so many others. So I really appreciate you taking the time out your busy day and having a chat man. Thanks bro. You asked some really good questions man. That was really well said out. You knew to spark, to ignite that spark in me. It was good. Oh, that's awesome man. I really appreciate it. So there we have it. That's episode 31 done. I really hope you enjoyed it. I had a great time speaking with Joey. So Joey, thanks so much for coming on the show. Like Joey who's mentioned, you can find him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Joey Karbstrong is a pretty easy guy to find it as he was saying. And if you're looking to contact myself, you can get me over Instagram and Facebook at NaughtyMult podcast and also on Twitter as well at NaughtyMultpod. And if you're looking to contact me by email, you can get me over at NaughtyMultpodcast at outlook.com. I'll take the time again just to thank so much for Dylan this episode and for the continued support that's shown for NaughtyMult podcast.