 Aloha and welcome to Lillian's Vegan World. I'm your host, Lillian Cumick, coming to you from downtown Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii Studios. Today's show is Aloha Veganism DIY Health Habits for Veg Curious. I am so excited to introduce my awesome, awesome guest who is such a gift to the vegan world here in Hawaii. Joy Waters is a producer, entrepreneur, vegan activist, Oahu VegFest producer, and so much, much more. Welcome to the show Joy. It's fantastic to have you on. Thank you Lillian and Think Tech Hawaii. So great to be here that we can have this moment together and share and hopefully inspire your community as well and all the viewers watching. I definitely have been following you and hoping that one day our path would cross. So today is the time to share everything that you do for the community here to get the vegan lifestyle promoted and so that people can learn more about it. So thank you so much for your time, Joy. Likewise, you too woman. I noticed when you moved to Hawaii and joined the veg community here and produced the cookbook and had you on my list of people to collaborate with. So I'm glad it's finally happening. Me too. Joy, I did introduce you but I know that there is so much more to you. If you wouldn't mind just telling us a little bit about yourself before we head into the show. Sure. Well, part of my journey as a vegan, I was telling Lillian that everybody has their journey, right? As a vegan it means some people go overnight but it's very rare and so usually people it could take days, weeks, months or their whole lifetime when they're doing it meal by meal and it's just part of that process and anybody can be in that process if they want to be. And I feel that when you're a vegan activist or you're a community organizer or an advocate or an educator, all the different words you can use for it, you also are on a journey and there's many stages along the way. So that's what I don't know if you want to just launch into that. That's sort of what I'm about is this evolving person who's figuring out different ways through each project that I start to deliver this message and how that happens really depends on myself as well. So Joy, how did you go from being a typical, I don't want to say use the word typical, but from going from a vegan, someone on a plant-based diet and getting into activism, you just mentioned now the stages that you kind of naturally evolve through as you start embarking on a plant-based diet. How was it for you that you ended up in activism and may I ask how long have you been vegan and how did you become vegan? Sure, everybody loves that story. Well, for me the story began in 1999 and it was a little bit unusual. I went vegan because I wanted to learn a meditation process. I was deep in the healing of myself of an autoimmune disease called lupus, but also spiritually I had realized that health is mysterious and it works on all realms and so I was learning a meditation practice and they required that you be vegetarian, no eggs. In those days they still allowed cheese, but that's all off the table now. So I didn't know anything and you'd think on a health journey I would have run into it, but I didn't know anything about factory farms or anything about it, but I came at it from a vibrational level. I understood that the reason why they were requiring it is because it had to do with getting yourself ready to go into deep meditation and that's about vibration, it's about love, it's about compassion and also I realized it's the microcosm and the macrocosm I saw, I felt in my daily meditation how connected we all are on the planet, all being, putting the plants and so because of that I realized I can't feel myself without also helping to heal the world around me. So that connection I think led me into naturally wanting to start projects that would influence the other people around me and I'm a business school major, I'm very practical and so in those days, so now it was year 2000, we had the internet, but there was no YouTube, it was life before YouTube, can you imagine? I can't remember. Right, who remembers? But in those days, there's no YouTube, so TV was it, cable TV, that was a very huge influence in people's lives, so I figured all right, the best way to make a difference and to get this information to make this, and I grew up in Hawaii so I understand local culture and veganism was very extreme ideas and there was a lot of stereotypes around it and I wanted to mainstream it into Hawaii local culture and make it that it was cool to kind of be moving towards this plant-based lifestyle. So I got, I was really lucky in those days, Time Runner Cable had OC16 which was a kind of elite channel that was only for producers for Hawaii shows and you had to apply and they accepted me and approved me so I started producing a show called Tasty and Meatless TV and I didn't even use the V word in those days because that would have been way too extreme, right? So Meatless, I put meat right in the title of the show to lure people in and we would go and my chefs, I didn't put myself in the show, I took people from the community every week showing a different dish that they had made Meatless and then we went to restaurants and we highlighted, there were no vegetarian restaurants, none, can you imagine Oahu without any in those days and so we highlighted whatever was Meatless on the menu and that was my beginning activism project, you know? You've been very cutting edge in your career it sounds because yes in the year 2000 I think that was when the word vegan or veganism sort of started coming about and then we noticed that people felt more comfortable using the word plant-based and I think people now sometimes don't even want to label themselves either, they just get sick of all the connotations and things that people assume when you do label yourself as that. So you've been doing some very cutting edge stuff, what kind of projects have you been working on? Yes, so even me, I would rather say I'm a loveitarian, you know, than claim there's a lot of still stereotypes around veganism and there's a lot of vegans just like on their journey as a vegan activist, you have to work through a lot of anger I think and so as different people who are trying to expand their sphere of influence and influence the world around them working on their own internal anger the message can come out sometimes differently and a lot of people because of that have gotten this impression of vegan so I say I'm a loveitarian. So once the YouTube started going and so many people was creating now content about how to cook plant-based and all it was just becoming more popular around 2005 I stopped producing the TV show and I think I started doing these other projects kind of took a break from direct advocacy, you know, on vegan because I felt a little burnout and I think it's really important for activists to pay attention to that and I started projects like Street Angels Hawaii where a whole bunch of I managed a bunch of volunteers who would cook vegan for the homeless and we serve on Alamoana Beach Park every week and other projects I started was because I had been doing so much video production and now all the schools were starting to have iPads in the schools so I got a grant from the Department of Education I started a program called Kiki Voices Youth Media and so I was teaching the kids how to tell video stories and of course I always wanted them to have a positive message in their story and some of them did some great little video skits and one of them won an award so I did a lot of projects like that for a while it was really into the sharing economy and tried to start a time bank here in Hawaii and even organized a little festival called share fest and I think that's when I started realizing it was time to stop producing educational content inspirational stuff for screens for the internet because by then it was like 2009-2009 you know it was like it it was exploding and and I realized that we were spending so much time on screens that I thought I'm going to start producing events to get people together in real life and that's when I we started the Oahu vegan meetup and you know I was still in that share fest mode and then eventually and I started doing different meetups around the island for for smaller groups and eventually that led to veg fest Oahu working together with by then things were more mainstream and more restaurants were opening up and down to earth was you know flourishing as a provider so it wasn't until 2015 that I was like wow we really have a vendor community now where we could have a festival like veg fest well for any of the viewers who are watching and are living in Oahu you might have you might remember I'm sure you do this awesome veg fest that was held was it in the summertime joy a month was it held every year hopefully it was informed yes back to school okay and I was fortunate enough to to visit twice because I had just moved to Hawaii fantastic and the woman behind the veg fest is the joy waters so what an incredible accomplishment to get you know get all these vendors together get the funding for it find the venue I mean it was amazing and I think I speak on behalf a lot of on behalf of you know many people in our community we really miss it and can't wait for you to get back into it once you know once times once the times get back to you know being able to do stuff like that so you have definitely you've put you've put you've brought so much to the community joy veg fest is definitely an amazing feat yes and veg fest was another strategy right another strategy to mainstream these ideas because I made sure that I got the mate I did it on the mayor's land and in in right there in Honolulu Halle and that took a lot of negotiation and but meanwhile they were learning so much about why we were even having this festival and we did it for four years before the pandemic shut that down and the last year we had like 5000 people attend I've had the mayor speak from our stage we got a grant from the Hawaii tourism authority to support this festival so and you know I have to give a shout out to Down to Earth who was a solid sponsor from day one because they realized the potential of this and I'll tell you I did it for the community but just as much I did it for the the food entrepreneurs on Oahu I wanted to give them a market I wanted them to feel confident that the demand for plant based was growing on the island and it did and they would come you know food vendors that didn't exist were born out of trying out at veg fest and making tons of money and then you know continuing on with their little food trucks or you know catering and certainly some of the restaurants would try out new dishes as they were evolving and being able to staff a booth at veg fest so the plant based community on Oahu grew a lot in those just five years since we started doing the festival and that was felt really good that felt really good because you know I was it's like it had an economic value and that's how I convinced the white tourism authority to give us money because I said hey if you want Hawaii to remain a cutting edge you know destination spot you've got to become we have to have a plant based industry here in the islands yeah you did an amazing job and what I I do love about the veg fest is it definitely showcased plant based food and took it to a whole new level because I think people were shocked that there were you know you had vendors that were selling ice cream or nice cream that you would not have any idea contained no dairy at all but there was just so much food and so much excellent excellent food and vibes and so many people coming together to do that so Joy we look forward to another one we are going to just take a quick break for some messages and be right back to talk about Joy and her journey with active visit stay tuned I'm Mitch Ewan host of Hawaii the state of clean energy on Think Tech Hawaii Hawaii the state of clean energy is about following the many clean energy initiatives in Hawaii Hawaii the state of clean energy appears weekly on Think Tech Hawaii at 4 p.m on Wednesdays thank you so much for watching our show we'll see you then Aloha welcome back to Lillian's vegan world I'm your host Lillian Cumick I'm a vegan chef recipe developer and author of the newly released cookbook Hawaii a vegan paradise very excited to tell you that my next book tasting Hawaii vegan style is due to be released in fall this year around October so definitely stay tuned for that and talking about vegan food and plant-based living I would like to welcome back my wonderful guest all the way from Maui Joy Waters welcome back to the show awesome great to have this conversation it's like a trip through memory lane of what I've been doing you know I can I can actually feel your energy it's it's so vibrant I have to say and I remember seeing one of your videos on your youtube channel which we will be telling that the viewers about shortly that you were actually honored by the state of Hawaii and you tell us quickly about that and then we I do want to delve into activism and sure yeah um blessings congratulations on that as well thank you and blessings to senator gabbard one of our state senator Susan avid vegan we're so blessed to have him and he put that together but they do yeah sort of citizen commendations for when you're done good as a engaged and active citizen making a difference in the community so all the senator signed it and he presented that to me at one of the veg best thank you that you can see stories like that on my website I do a lot of different projects but kind of my home is positive media hawaii so dub dub dub that positive media hawaii has um that story with the senator um and uh yes and during the pandemic I found myself without you know without an event project anymore and so I did start delving more as you mentioned into creating youtube videos in a new way and on instagram too with the brand diy healthy habits um and uh I've had chronic illness my whole life you mentioned about my vibrant energy it's because of the vegan diet of course but also um I call it the holy trinity meditation vegan diet and um qi kong energy exercises learning how to manage your energy um through exercises that can relax your nervous system when you're really tensed or energize yourself when you need some you know you need some verb and uh I decided to start sharing the things that um for frustrated people who aren't getting answers I didn't find my answers in western medicine doctors especially for chronic it's they don't really understand so I put together a toolkit that works for me and I'm sharing it over time on my youtube channel um under joy waters or on instagram diy healthy habits so that's kind of what I've been working on in the pandemic um as well as I know you um were I we originally connected because you were interested in the new project that I've been working on for the last um seven months and it's I did not find found this this was a group called agriculture fairness alliance which uh was founded co-founded by Laura Montane and I really loved the message and it was the I've always been a grassroots person in terms of activism I've worked on the grassroots level and this was the first time that I considered yes it's time to work in politics now and try to work on a lobby strategy and and I did and I and there's two reasons why I decided that was a good idea one is because with climate change we have finally have a reason powerful enough that congress is listening and congress is interested on both sides of the table democrats and public and senators want to sign their name to bills that say they're happening in the name of helping climate change and because we all know how many emissions the animal agriculture industry makes we have a platform now that can be that we can give them some convincing arguments on how we can change the food system and the other reason why I decided to work with agriculture fairness alliance and devote my activism energy to them um till we wait for the pandemic to be over is I found Laura's strategy was really brilliant in that she's focusing the lobby strategy on the farm bill and the farm bill is we all think oh supply and demand if we stop eating meat the supply of meat will come down right but I learned through agriculture fairness alliance that that is broken if there is not supply and demand with animal agriculture why because of the farm bill the farm bill represents millions of dollars billions of dollars of our taxpayer money that the government is spending on the agriculture industry and agriculture fairness alliance as a lobby group is a watchdog looking to see how that money is spent and turns out a huge chunk of it the majority between 1580 percent depending on the program is all being given to animal farmers so that means even if the demand goes down the price going to stay the same because they have a client they have a buyer for their wares and um I feel like it's time there's finally a listening in congress in the name of climate change to look at how they're subsidizing our food system and and shift it towards a climate friendly crops which obviously would be more plants and healthful crops you know and when they do that and they take away the subsidies and an organic apple will cost right now you go to get a cheeseburger at mcdonald's it's cheaper than an organic apple but that's because of subsidy it is crazy I urge anyone watching who's you know really interested to learn more about this agriculture fairness alliance um to go to joy waters youtube channel there's a really great video there and joy explains how you can donate actually you can do monthly donations which I personally do um since watching your video and it's a very small amount they're very affordable but you are making a difference which brings me to my next question joy how do you make a difference and what is activism what can someone like you or I who believe in vegan lifestyle who want to see you know positive changes in our community in our health in our environment you know change what's going on in in the animal world what can we do do to get moved forward in a healthy way yes that's such a great question and um and I know sometimes people can feel a little intimidated like I don't want to start a huge project and everything so I think what a person can do is to acknowledge I have a sphere of influence acknowledge that you have a sphere of influence and you and if you want to you can do things to expand the sphere I would argue doing qi kong helps you expand the sphere because when you talk people listen but other things too you can do projects and stuff and so I'm writing this book we'll see if it ever gets published called becoming an everyday change maker and the point is to encourage people to have a life that where they have sustainable lifestyle habits and they they're living an engaged citizen life and everywhere they go even if it's just in the grocery store line they see themselves as having a sphere of influence and therefore they can say something to the person who's like oh well you sure like kale or whatever you know and there's always an opportunity and that's what this everyday change maker um hope is that everybody owns their own you know sphere of influence and is interested in expanding it and then my diy healthy habits there's a lot of ways people can expand and strengthen their sphere of influence I absolutely agree like it can be as simple as inviting people over to your place for dinner and cooking plant-based food for them because when you think about it you're saving you're saving animals you're you're doing the right thing so much influence in just sharing food with people because we all food is something that really brings us together and it's definitely a passion in my life with what I do and I do I I totally get what you're saying like any person can be an influencer you just got to make it just just make it happen start talking about it be open about it um you have this this new project your diy healthy habits I just want to say you Lillian are an excellent example of a wonderful vibrant beautiful vegan influencer and you know I have so much respect to people who choose their way of influencing and activism to be an actual food provider whether it's to your friends at the most awesome dinner parties and they just get transformed through that or through a food truck or a restaurant or a grocery store I mean let's face it if more and more people want to eat this way but we don't have all no grinds to buy then what's not going to happen right so so thanks for all the you are an ambassador of beautiful food and I really appreciate everything in your your cookbook is amazing thank you so much well it's interesting because I did mention on my last show two weeks ago I had the very famous Sam Choi sit at my table for a seven course dinner and it was the first time he had he had eaten vegan can you believe it so he is coming to another dinner and I'm going to be serving you Italian in August an Italian seven course dinner but he was so taken aback and one of the things he said is I feel satisfied yeah it was such a simple statement he said it was fantastic I think he said excellent excellent excellent but he said I feel satisfied like he wasn't expecting that the food would be you know satisfying enough that he might have to stop at a fast food joint on the way home or something. Bravo because having Sam Choi if you work your magic on that would be in our cap that's a feather in your cap we need a vegan expression for that but that is a great a great accomplishment so I am that's the best that made my day hearing that news Sam Choi is eating at your table that's awesome thank you I hear that he's telling people about these the food that he tried so that's a good start again you can influence people and you just don't even know about it so get talking get moving and just yeah get out there Joy we are heading towards landing this plane today I do want to get your last closing thoughts and some something you can just say to the viewers whatever you would like to say. Well Lillian Mahalo Nui to you and to Think Tech Hawaii for having me here I look forward collaborating with you Lillian in the future and viewers please look me up come join my conversation on Instagram at DIY Healthy Habits or on YouTube you can just find me with my name Joy Waters please subscribe so that we can stay connected and I want to you know be part of your journey of feeling purposeful and confident and that your life matters so I'll see you on my platforms and we'll get excited together thank you so much Joy it has been a joyous time with you honestly you what you do is is incredible for Hawaii and we're very lucky to have you here on the islands and to our viewers I thank you so much for watching another episode of Lillian's Vegan World stay tuned for my next show two weeks from now and take care hello