 Sorry, I'm not trying to be a Grinch or anything. Of course, like, have your Christmas, have your tradition. Just don't murder anyone in the process. Like, it's just completely contradictory. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of The Carp Strong Cast. This Carp Strong Cast episode, I thought I'd make it a little bit special, do a little Christmas special, but I want to dedicate this one to my amazing Patreon supporters. My Patrons have been with me for a couple of years now and it's the reason why I get so much freedom to spend 100% of my time focusing on, you know, animal rights activism and vegan advocacy. Love all my Patreon supporters. So what I did is I messaged them all and I asked them to send in some little questions and what we're going to do in this podcast is answer questions that my Patrons have and I'm sure they just apply out to everyone too, so it's going to be an interesting podcast and thank you all for tuning in. So it's getting towards the end of the year. I always do a lot of reflection towards the end of the year and, you know, looking at how far I've come and I never become complacent. If anything, I have just this itch that just keeps coming more and more pronounced as the time goes by. So I'm in a bit of a planning phase at the moment. My team has changed. I'm back up by myself. Everything sort of changed. It's starting to, you know, I'm starting to think ahead again and, you know, I'm planning everything from the ground up once again. But what we're going to do is we're going to go through these questions from my Patrons and, you know, we're going to just go with the flow, see how things go. So the first question is from Steven York. How's it going, Steven? And he says, hey Joey, what was your most memorable activism experience of 2019? Oh, mate. Now there's a couple of memorable experiences of 2019. The ones to do with activism would have to be at the start of the year I did a campaign against a man called Pierce Morgan who was coming against vegans. And they wouldn't get me on the show for another debate. So I took it upon myself to go at him in various ways, going to farms, you know, found a poor dead bobby calf in a bin at a dairy farm, going into piggeries and just showing Pierce Morgan what he's actually defending. Had a campaign called What Are You Defending or What Is Pierce Defending? I think it was. We've got a website still up. But yeah, that was quite memorable. But there was about three and a half weeks which I took off to do something way out of my comfort zone and it was for TV. I will be releasing the details of what that is actually very soon. I believe maybe this weekend coming I'll be releasing the details to that. So Steven, you'll be able to know what my most memorable activism experience of 2019 was and it was way outside of my comfort zone. And I can't wait to share that all with you very soon. Next question is from Jan. Jan Kozic, sorry if I can't pronounce that properly, but Hi Joey, thanks for your work. Thank you for your support. I hope you will be able to keep it going, of course. To my question, do you know of any religious group, preferably a Christian one, that also officially promotes veganism and animal rights? Thank you. Well there are Christian vegans and there are Muslim vegans. And I just don't know of any specific group called the Christian vegans. I think I've seen one called Muslim vegans on Facebook. So if you just, I would just Google it up. Google it up, say Muslim vegans or Christian vegans, whichever is your faith. And I'm sure there's a vegan promoting the message and also who adheres to that type of religion. Let's have a look here. Halo. You know that Beyonce song? I can see you. Halo. Okay, no questions, but just wanted to say thank you for what you do and have a happy vegan Christmas. Of course we're going to have a happy vegan Christmas. There's nothing weirder to me than celebrating, you know, Jesus Christ by sitting around a sacrificed animal, like an animal that's been butchered and, you know, raised in a factory farm and had their head cut off and you're eating their blood and flesh, you know, trying to celebrate family and, you know, the life of Jesus Christ around a dead body. It's more like a satanic ritual to me and I just don't understand it. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a Grinch or anything. Of course, like, have your Christmas, have your tradition. Just don't murder anyone in the process. Like it's just completely contradictory to what the spirit of Christmas actually represents. I don't know if I'll edit this. Maybe I'll just leave this unedited. We'll see. We'll see how we go. Okay, now we've got Roche, R-O-C-H, Roche. Maybe that's Roche, right, Rochelle. El Lemaire, or it could be a male. Oh, Roch, pronounced Roch. He's put it at the end of the question. Okay, right on, man. Listen, in advance of the new year, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate all that you do. Thank you so much, Roch. I consider you as the leader of this ever-growing movement. I wouldn't say that, but I appreciate the admiration that you're showing me, but I wouldn't say I'm a leader of the movement. Well, you say that you consider me as the leader. I just wouldn't say that. I'd say I've got leader tendencies, like I seem to push myself into the forefront, but I just think we all contribute to this movement in many different ways. By no means am I the leader of the movement. I would never suggest that, and I just think we're all equal, and we all bring different things to the movement. Roch says, very inspiring. Thank you so much, Roch. I appreciate that, and I take that as a compliment. I'm very happy and proud to be one of your patrons. I'm so grateful that you're one of my patrons. Thanks, Roch. My question to you is, okay, we're getting to the question. Do you still maintain relationships with non-vegan friends and non-vegan family members, and if so, do you find that difficult to do? Let me have a little sip of my coffee here. I'm using Oatly Barista, but if you can get the Oatly Barista, it's the best vegan milk to use with coffee. It's really creamy. It's quite rich, though, but it's delicious. Do I still maintain relationships with non-vegan friends and family? To be completely honest with everyone in Transparent, I isolate myself quite a lot from a lot of people, not just non-vegans, but everyone. I spend a lot of time alone, and I only have a very small group of people that I am in communication with. I don't know whether that's because of my past, and mixing with lots of people. I've had negative experiences mixing with different crowds and different groups. I like to keep my circle quite small as I've gotten older. That's just generally. In terms of specifically non-vegan friends, to be honest with you, I don't really have much contact with people that aren't vegan generally, but I have a lot of respect for my older friends, a lot of them. They have been with me through some of my hardest times, and they've seen me at my lowest points, and there is just a level of respect that I have for those people, whether they're vegan or not, that I couldn't wipe my hands of someone who's been there for me through my hardest times. I have a level of loyalty to people from my past, and respect. Not everyone obviously, but there's a few people that even though they're not vegan, I still love them dearly, and love them like family. But it doesn't mean that I'm with them constantly. As I've grown up, we've all just started to part ways, and that's what happens. It's not necessarily to do with being vegan or not, it's just that as I've gotten older, I've learned to part ways, and I'm really focused on my mission. But I can see how that could be difficult 100%. When it comes to non-vegan family, when I was back in Australia, back around my family, if I had a birthday or something, then we'd be eating vegan at my birthday, otherwise I would just not have you there. If you want to order a dead baby lamb on my birthday, then you can just leave, or I don't want you celebrating with me if you're going to hack up a baby to do that. That's just an out of common respect for a friend who's against the murder of animals, who's against animal abuse and animal cruelty. Out of respect for that individual, why wouldn't you just eat vegan on that occasion? Otherwise, you're just showing pure disrespect to that person. You know, it's like if you go into a different country where there's a different culture and there's a way to dress like I was in Bali recently, and when you go into the temples, you have to wear a sarong. And if you were to be like, I'm not wearing a sarong, I'm just going to go into this temple and disrespect and offend their culture and the people that live there, then I would just think that's a dick move. It's the same with a vegan who's, in principle, against animal cruelty, and you were there just eating a dead animal who'd been tortured in the slaughterhouse in front of them on their birthday. I just think that's the height of disrespect and a true friend, a true family member who really cared about you would put their meat-eating habit aside for one day for you. I just think that that's the least they could do. I mean, I would do it. Well, obviously, I wouldn't go against my principles and start eating meat on someone's birthday, but when it comes to an issue of justice, like animal abuse or child abuse or let's just say someone was mentally abused, then I would avoid certain topics to make sure that they weren't triggered by that. Say someone was suffering PTSD from the war. I'm not going to go in there and start talking about this war movie that I watched where people are getting their heads blown off in front of that person. I'll just be like, well, that's got this PTSD. They're in the war. I'm going to be a little bit sensitive about that. Same with a vegan. If they're a vegan because they're against animals being killed, then why eat a murdered animal in front of them? It just shows a level of disrespect to that individual. If a friend is going to deliberately do that, they're not a friend. They're not a friend of yours. I'll tell you a story of some of my friends from my past too and really hard. My mate Chad, a real hard guy. He used to go toe to toe on the street with anyone. I'd never seen him back down in a fire. He was a real tough guy. Recently, it was only 18 months ago, I went to his house. They were all drinking. I obviously don't drink. And they had a bit of a sort of a catch up and there was lots of people there. They had roast pig. I think they roasted pigs. But what they did when I arrived is they put everything away. They put all the animal products away while I was there. And I was there for two hours. And people were hungry and all this. But they didn't bring out the animals. The murdered animals until I'd left. So I just thought that that was an amazing show of respect from some old friends of mine. And I truly appreciated that. They're not vegan. My mate's not a vegan. He eats killed animals. He eats murdered animals. But out of respect for me, he didn't bring them out to the table. He knows what I do for a living. He knows what I do as a passion. He knows how close this is to my heart. And he just waited till I left. So I thought that was an amazing show of respect. So anyway, that's the answer to the question. I don't know if I answered your question in detail. But that's my experience now. I'm a bit of a bad example of someone just who maintains relationships with old friends because I'm in a different country now. I'm a traveling activist. I generally have a small circle anyway. And people know my principles. And I have a different type of character than to someone who... My character is very strong. So when I'm in the room and you know about it, so if there's a murdered animal and I'm around, then you'll know about it. So people just respect that. And my character is different to other people. So I have a video on my channel called How to Deal with Non-Vegan Family and Friends. I think that might help you with... Because everyone's personality type is slightly different. Well, a lot different. Not slightly different. I mean, you could be a young 12-year-old or 13-year-old teenage girl and you just don't have that strong character. There are ways that you can adapt to situations if you don't have that real strong character where you don't want to displease anyone. There's ways of adapting and navigating these difficult situations. Check out my video. Erfling Ed also has a great video on that as well on his channel. Let's have a look here. Natasha Pallaria. The longer I am vegan, the more it hurts my heart that most people are not. I am somewhat hopeful about the future of this movement. But at the end of the day, it all feels the same. I am literally existing with a broken heart constantly because the animals are always on my mind and in my heart. I feel very connected to them, like I've never felt before. Everywhere I look, there are new restaurants that include steak houses and seafood places. I sometimes can't breathe and always feeling overwhelmed. Watching smiling, smacking lips, spending hundreds on food is like living amongst demons. The amount of money made by raping, torturing and murdering innocent beings is astronomical. Exactly, it's crazy. How can I cope with these feelings and dealing with non-vegans in everyday life, including being judged and questioned all the time about my moral obligations? Okay, so... This is a very serious question. Natasha says, how do I cope with these feelings? I'm sorry that you're going through that, Natasha, but I just want you to know that you're not the only one who goes through this. We all do. This is what I mean. This is what I was talking about before about different characters. Natasha's obviously got a very empathic nature where she's feeling things very deeply, which happens to me a lot too, but I've got a bit of a rough... I'm a bit more rough. I've had a bit of a rough life, and I've learned to block certain things out as a survival sort of mechanism. Natasha's feeling things very deeply. How can I cope with this, she's saying? Dealing with people, questioning her and judging her all the time about my moral obligations. Now, Natasha, I want you to look at your perspective here. I mean, obviously, eating animals is, you know, very normalized in society, so most people contribute to this abuse that happens to animals. But if it was child abuse, if someone was questioning you about why you don't contribute to the abuse of children, would that be a hard, you know, question to answer? Would you, you know, you would be very fixed in your belief there? What do you mean? That's ridiculous. Of course, I'm not going to abuse children. It's completely unnecessary. Why would I derive pleasure from the abuse of an innocent child? This is the same here. I want you to feel very strong in your conviction here because the stronger you are in your conviction of why you don't do something that's evil, you know, the easier it is going to be to cope with these feelings. Just, I don't know when the last time you watched Dominion is or like just, like, watching something like Dominion, I mean, as horrible and horrific as it is and as hard as it is, it really shifts your perspective from what you're going through right now to what the animals go through on a day-to-day basis. And it really does give you this really strong perspective where, like, you're just like, oh, my God, like, you know, I'm getting judged. I'm getting questioned all the time. But look at this. Look what's happening here. You know, so I just want you to try to shift your perspective when you're feeling like that and just know that you're not alone, you know? You're not alone. We're all feeling very similar at times. Sometimes I have highs, sometimes I have lows. I would ask you to, like, do you get involved in any type of activism? Are you vocal? Do you have an outlet? Because having an outlet, having a feeling like you're doing something to make a difference can help you overcome those feelings where, like, you say everywhere, I look at there are new restaurants that include steakhouses and food places. I can't breathe from always feeling overwhelmed, you know, people eating animals all around you, and are you doing something productive to give you the feeling that you're helping to make a difference? I mean, obviously, you're a patriot of mine, so that's a way that you're helping to contribute to activism. Is there any other way that you can help make a dent in these industries? And when you do that, it makes you feel less helpless when you're doing something proactive to help stop the abuse that happens to animals in whatever way you can. So the more proactive you are, the less helpless you'll feel, the more perspective you'll have about what's happening to animals, the less hard you're going to find it to cope with these feelings that you get by being judged and questioned all the time. So I hope those two things help, perspective, see what's going on with the animals. Think of it in terms of child abuse, you don't have to sit there and justify why you don't abuse children, so you're not going to sit there and try to justify why you don't abuse animals or feel obligated to justify why you don't abuse animals. So the perspective thing and then the proactive way you're helping to solve the problem with animals so that you don't feel helpless. I think those two things might help a lot. Now, look, I don't claim to have all the answers either, guys. I'm just giving a bit of advice that might help. There could be better advice out there. I'm not claiming to know everything. We're all trying our best, aren't we? Someone's called the drama llama and it's quite hilarious. There's a little picture of a llama poking their tongue out. Really cute. Do you think that items made using animal products but not containing animal products are vegan? i.e. beer filtered with icing glass. Ising glass? What's icing glass? Let me just I.S.I.N.G L.A.S Let's just look that up. A kind of gelatin obtained. Ah, cool. I didn't know that. Thanks, drama llama. Didn't know what icing glass was. A kind of gelatin obtained from fish. Okay. Do I think beer filtered with fish gelatin is vegan? I always hear people say no but by that same logic sugar-fooded with bone char not be vegan either or any organic produce because of the livestock manure used I think one could argue that the only reason these items are made using animal products is because there's an abundance of cheap leftovers from the meat industries and if we stop the demand for meat then these products will just use alternatives. Since animal products are not required to create these foods, do I have any thoughts? Well drama llama I think we're getting into the as far as practically possible sort of area Let me just have a sip here. Oh my god, Oatly, barista is so good. But so let's just think about this obviously we do eat produce that has been fertilized with manure and like you know when you start going down the line there and you know the only reason they're using this manure is because there's so many animals being bred and they don't have anything to do with this tons and tons of feces so they're throwing it all over our crops so if we all went vegan all this feces to throw on the crops and we'll be thinking about veganic farming and using more towards the synthetic crop fertilizers so what you're saying is veganism solves this problem where like all of these you know leftover body parts and you know fish gelatin from the fishing industry and you know these weird little just bone char and all this stuff they're using to filter products and we wouldn't be using these products if we all went vegan because they wouldn't have byproduct they just wouldn't have byproduct you know so yeah I get that now sugar sugar is a very difficult one because if you start saying like look if you choose organic sugar I know they don't filter organic sugar with bone char and I know beet sugar isn't filtered with bone char and if you're in the UK a lot of the sugar I think the majority of the sugar is beet sugar and then you start talking about processed foods that don't contain animal products but sugar might be an ingredient and then you don't know whether that sugar was processed with bone char was filtered with bone char was it beet sugar was it organic sugar you start getting into this realm of like okay now we're getting really far down the line here you know you might pick up a vegan bar protein bar and it might have sugar in there then you got to recall the company and see what type of sugar they used in this instance and whether that sugar was then filtered with bone char somewhere down the line then you start talking about wine let's talk about wine if you buy a bolognese sauce that says in the ingredients it's tomatoes garlic, onions, wine you don't know whether that wine was vegan then you call the pasta company find out if their wine was filtered with ussing glass is it if I'm pronouncing that right with fish gelatin then you find out that it was okay that bolognese sauce has used animal byproducts now if we were to use this logic then beer, wine sugar filtered with bone char those products are not vegan but fruits and vegetables that are fertilized with manure are vegan drama lama I think what you're saying is we are contradicting ourselves there we might be contradicting ourselves there and I can see that's a bit of a conundrum there that's a bit of a moral conundrum like sugar filtered with bone char or an apple they've used manure to fertilize the crops there like it's still animal byproducts that have been used in the process now this is like this is kind of going into this is kind of a grey area this isn't a black and white topic here it's not as direct as using dairy products it's not as direct as hey you buy cheese you're directly causing the dairy industry to make money and exist and exploit cows when you buy an apple you know are you supporting the are you supporting animal agriculture directly by buying that apple if they've used feces to fertilize that apple it's a very it's a very kind of open question and up for debate here you know like me personally I don't drink alcohol but if I did I would try to get the vegan wine because there's an alternative I know there's certain beers that don't use gelatin so I'd go for those when it comes to sugar if you've got a choice between beet sugar which is made from beets and you know just cane sugar filtered with bone char then you know obviously I'm going to go for the one that's easy to choose which is the vegan one I'll choose the vegan option I know organic sugar which is only like 50p more or something like that really hardly anything more isn't filtered with bone char so I'll just go for the organic sugar when it comes to apples and pears and berries and things like that am I going to ring up every single grower we've imported this from Greece we've imported these berries from France those apples came from some place in Eastern Europe you know this wheat was from Australia or this rice was from Thailand am I going to start telling people you better check where that rice came from and how much manure was used in the process of growing that that just gets out of the realm of as far as practically possible for me so for me when it comes to plant produce with manure being used you can't trace that it's really hard to trace that and if we all went vegan they wouldn't be using all this manure to fertilize crops so to answer your question simply with beer corona we don't use fish so I would choose that corona it's a very easy choice to make so you can avoid that what else did we say I'm just having a look here sugar it's a really easy choice but when it comes to buying say you bought a cake it's vegan someone baked a cake and it was a vegan cake but you don't know what sugar they used are you going to avoid the cake I don't know this is where it gets difficult it's not whether I would avoid the cake it's whether I'm going to tell people to avoid that cake if it's all the if all the products in there are plant based right don't use no eggs no dairy and there might be some sugar in there that you don't know it's kind of 50-50 whether it was beet sugar organic sugar I don't know maple sugar or whether it was cane sugar filtered with bone char it's just like would I tell people to avoid that I think you're making I think that would be making things very complicated but you're going to buy a bag of sugar it's easy to buy the organic bag of sugar and avoid the bone char it's easy to buy a bag of beet sugar and avoid the bone char or try a different alternative sweetener and avoid cane sugar all together so there are things practical things you can do to avoid the bone char but in terms of all circumstances I don't know that just gets out of practically possible I think that's just like and fruits and vegetables I don't even know if I really want to go there I don't even know if it's very wise to go there right now because that's just a very big that just opens up Pandora's box when you start going into that area so I hope that sort of answers I know that was very long and drawn out but hey if you want to add to the discussion send us an email or comment down below if this is on YouTube you can open up the discussion there okay let's go on to the next question and like I said I don't have all the answers I don't claim to know everything there are obviously some grey areas that we can discuss the moral implications of we're all learning as we're going a lot of these issues are very new a lot of these issues haven't been talked about discussed or even researched in depth yet so we have to really keep an open mind and keep the discussion open Jay Olders excuse me just having a sip of the old coffee there hi Joey thanks for what you're doing thank you for your support Jay I really appreciate it I have a question how do I reconcile thoughts on having pets particularly rescued pets not only the aspect of keeping an animal in quotations but also for people who perhaps discover veganism after they already have a dog or cat I went from vegetarian to vegan about 8 years ago and at the time I had a cat I know dogs can have veggie food but cats are very difficult if not impossible to keep healthy on a vegan diet I tried, someone in brackets I tried he's since passed on so this isn't an issue I'm very sorry you lost your cat I have to deal with but it's something I still don't know how to wrap my head around so I guess one aspect of the pets thing is the keeping of the animal we'll address that first if you're going to rescue a dog or cat the alternative to you if you were not to rescue them would be they get euthanised so I think rescuing them is the most ethical thing to do and you can't just let a cat and dog roam free in society you just can't do that they'll just get, especially in the western world in Thailand and Bali you can have street dogs it's fine the best thing we can do is control the breeding of domesticated animals and make sure they don't run around out in the street and get picked up by a dog catcher and get sent to a welfare shelter and when they get euthanised the most vegan thing we can do is control their breeding so there's not millions of them running around and millions more of them getting euthanised I mean that's the best thing we can do when it comes to feeding dogs, dogs can be vegan very easily they can have a plant-based diet very easily, nutritionally adequate plant-based diet their Border Collie for you the fourth oldest dog ever was a Border Collie I mean actually let's just go let's just google it up oldest dog, vegan Bramble one remarkable example is that Bramble a 27 year old Border Collie whose vegan diet of rice lentils and organic vegetables, earned her some consideration by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest living dog in 2002 so yeah dogs are fine now cats your other question was about cats, let's have a look I had a cat at the time you said it's nearly impossible to keep a cat healthy on a vegan diet that is not true I can objectively say that's not true there are many anecdotes hundreds or even thousands of anecdotes of vegans having cats that they feed a plant-based diet that's formulated, so all they're doing you know how you can make a beyond burger where they get a pea like some peas and they turn it into meat what they're doing with cat food is they're isolating the proteins out of the plants they're adding the the the nutrient profile that a cat needs and they're formulating plants into like meat for cats that's it cats need touring so if you monitor these cats and you feed them a nutritionally adequate plant-based diet there's no reason why they can't eat a plant-based diet I mean there's no reason to stab one species of animals in the throat to feed to a cat it makes no ethical sense whatsoever let me say my friend that you tried I'm not sure how much you tried or whether you had confidence in trying there is a study done on vegetarian animals even cats and you know as long as they're I think it's their acid in their urine is monitored you can have perfectly healthy plant-based cats and there's many anecdotes on the movement of people with vegan cats and it's just like burger how do they get that to taste like meat you can have a fiber like I think you take all the fiber out of the plants you know isolate the amino acids the protein add in the nutrients that cats would get from meat like a supplement in there and what you've just basically formulated meat for cats out of plants I mean we have technology to do that now and there's veterinary approved vegan cat food out there just google it up if that answers your question Jay thank you for that question it's one we get a lot Jane Peters hi Jane how do you stop yourself from going nuts after seeing the torture and abuse of murder of animals oh my god yeah that is hard and so Jane continues on to say I've only seen videos and it's pretty much impossible to close my eyes without seeing a little pig being stabbed in the throat or a cow being punched or trying to get to her baby who's being dragged away by his little leg having no clue what the hell was going on oh my god and then she says she goes on to say thank you for everything you do you're a really good person we're so lucky to have people in the world like you who are actually getting out there and doing everything they possibly can to end the suffering much love and respect Jane thanks Jane we all try our best I mean I think maybe I could try a little bit harder and just give it more of my all we'll see how we go see how we go next year actually this year is nearly ending so whenever she closes her eyes pigs being stabbed and cows being punched and it's just horrible so Jane I totally understand that Jane sounds like another empath a lot of vegans are empaths here so how do I stop myself from going nuts I do something productive to try to end to try to I use what happens to animals as fuel for my activism makes me angry and I use that anger and I turn it into being productive and it forces me to do something about what's going on to them that's what I do all of those visualizations you're having that's the animals calling out for your help think of it like that those animals are calling out for your help do not feel helpless do something every single day anything sharing a post making a video getting out there and talking to people in the supermarket if you're a runner run long distances and attribute it to the vegan diet say you don't have to eat animals to get big and strong if you like doing weights whatever it is however you're going to advocate if you like cooking recipes cook some recipes up for your friends and teach them about vegan cooking without animal cruelty whatever it is use what's these visualizations of what's happening to animals and use that as fuel to help stop what's happening to them to help stop the abuse that's happening to them in whatever way you can there's multiple different ways of doing that but yeah I would say let it fuel you don't let it break you Ryan says Joey love your content thanks so much Ryan you've mentioned in the past that there are forms of vegan activism you don't personally do for various reasons even though the motivations of the activists you may agree with are there any forms of popular activism you would consider problematic or ineffective that are detracting from the movement in your view okay just going to have another sip of this Oakley coffee I'm not actually sponsored by Oakley but it's delicious oh delicious oh my god are there any forms of popular activism I'd consider problematic Ryan the longer I've been an activist the longer I've been in the movement I'm starting to think that I don't actually know if there's any type of activism if done with the right intention is problematic because after talking to that vegan couple on a podcast and they were talking about the radical flank effect how people viewed Malcolm X as militant and extreme and what that ended up doing was it helped Dr. Martin Luther King look less militant so they both had this same intention in a way but Malcolm X actually provided the radical flank which helped Martin Luther King look less extreme so without Malcolm X Martin Luther King looked extreme so when you talk about in the vegan movement you got these people in you know steakhouses causing this disruption like DXC I think that's very important for the movement it creates a debate and then you get someone like Earthling Ed or James Aspie on TV or Natasha and Luca or you name them and then they start discussing it with the vegan advocacy when you force things into a debate with these extreme in quotations forms of activism we come in and we win the debate which is like what Wayne Hussang I really wish I could pronounce his name but the founder of DXC says in his speech whether or not I think they're effective that's another thing what do you mean by effective not everyone is a vegan advocate some people are activists they're just trying to force the conversation of animal rights into the media that doesn't mean they're trying to turn people vegan it means they're trying to create some noise so it means like what effective at what creating noise or turning people vegan I mean so some people are fur activists they're not trying to turn anyone vegan they're trying to shame people away from wearing fur everyone has different strategies and techniques and if their intention is you know for the animals as long as they're not you know I don't believe in causing violence to other people like unless it's really in self-defense but you know I don't believe in actually being violent to someone to create the change that we want I just don't know about harming anyone but in terms of you know looking extreme or being extremists that's all a matter of perception and detracting from the movement I really don't like those who are out there spending all their time resources and energy and creative ability slating other animal rights activists I think that that's just what are you doing why don't you use all of that energy into speaking up for the animals instead of slating criticising making articles about other activists I mean get yourself some perspective of your energy to speak up for animals who are screaming in gas chambers so yeah I think that that's like a little bit of a detracting thing but that's not animal rights activists and that's just I don't know some type of weird jealous hatred or some type of I don't really know what fuels people like that if they use their energy for the animals they'd be very very productive activists so I think that that is problematic in a way although there are legitimate criticism some people they're just clear there's some ulterior motive to it I don't like giving people an excuse to eat animal products I don't say if you buy free range and all this I don't think that that's animal rights activism either so telling people that there's a humane way to eat animals or consume animal products I think we need to be very fixed in our conviction when it comes to what's ethical and what's not you know there's no right way to do the wrong thing we all know that phrase so yeah those things are saying there's a higher welfare way of exploiting animals I don't agree with that spending your time bringing down other activists when you could be spending your time speaking up for animals those two things Jamie chambers what brand of dog food do you feed your dog go Jamie I do not have a dog in my care at the moment but when I did have I would feed them like a mixture of I think it was vegan pet there's a bunch though just it doesn't really matter but like I was using like a dry food like a formulated veterinary approved dry dog food and I'd mix it with a wet food that I'd just prepare myself so I'd like over cook brown rice to the point where it was stodgy because dogs to eat so that the dog that was in my care could just hit properly and then I'd use like TVP and then some peanut butter or some lentils really overcooked so it was really stodgy and I'd mix it together so yeah like some fat some whole grains and not beans some lentils they were red lentils and you know some dry formulated vegan pet food that's what I was doing and then you could put in some veggies some carrots but there's great recipes online if you wanted to make your own in Japan said what's planned for 2020 how long are you going to stay in the UK and where to next how are you spending Christmas and New Year what's planned for 2020 now like I said I'm actually by myself now I don't have a team with me but I've got a new management who will be helping me plan out 2020 so I've never been one for planning but 2020 is going to be the year for planning in terms of what is planned we have to wait and see for that because I'm going to do everything from the ground up and re-plan reschedule and there could be some really big things happening for 2020 but we'll have to wait to see how long are you going to stay in the UK and where to next I don't actually know yet I don't actually know yet sorry Al but you'll be the first to know how are you spending Christmas and New Year I'm actually out in the country at the moment I'm out of the office so I'll be spending Christmas and New Year's out here with some friends speaking of which have a happy one thank you very much Al in Japan okay so Al I'm sorry I can't tell you more but I'm in a planning phase right now Robbie ETHAT ETHAT how did family and friends react when you started doing activism and how did it affect your relationship with them thank you for all you do Joey family and friends react I really don't know how my friends reacted because I wasn't in contact with a lot of them a lot of my friends were either gang members or they're in prison they lived a certain life so I wasn't really in contact with them the friends that I wasn't were in contact with they couldn't really believe it there was a lot of ridicule that happened my friend group we used to give each other a bit of shit we were poking fun at each other all the time for our whole lives so of course they're going to poke fun at me for this but I think they were just happy my friends especially and my family were just happy that I was sober and not out there causing havoc when I was a drug addict and a gang member I was very violent and very hard to be around very unstable so yeah they were happy that I was sober and stable the animal rights thing I guess they there was a lot of respect for that but also a bit of ridicule for the vegan thing and they were really steak eating me eating people a lot of my friends my family they were a bit off at the start but as the years went by and how serious they realized this was a lot of my family are actually vegan now so my mom my brother my brother's wife their child my oldest brother he's like vegan but vegetarian he eats predominantly plant based I'm going to say that then I've got like cousins and uncles and stuff who have taken on the plant based diet as well so yeah friends and family everyone's going to react a little bit shocked at the start there's going to be some push back but the longer you vegan the more people start to take it seriously and obviously I'm all over the internet and you know viral videos and then on the news and I was all over the media so then they started to wow what's going on here people are taking Joey seriously and maybe we should too Sue Bamford hi Joey just wondering if you see yourself moving back to Australia in the near future not in the near future but possibly in the future okay we got Mandy Mankowska Joey Loveheart I think you've done this before but would you be keen to do more activism with baby animals such as piglets I think the impact would be double the people would instantly make the connection between their vegan hearts and lifelong omni conditioning it would unravel their cognitive dissonance and put things into perspective visually rather than purely relying on factual arguments that may not make that much sense to their conditioned minds love ya okay yeah thanks Mandy I'd really appreciate your support and your question I get what you're saying it's more of an emotional reaction when they actually see the piglet I did a video about a year or two ago called piglets vs the public that was with Julian the piglet and there was another piglet I forgot the other piglet's name I'm so sorry but Julian if you ever see me kissing this little baby piglet that's Julian little baby piglet they were rescued from a factory farm there was an opportunity to do that opportunity to not come along very often to be honest those piglets had been down that beach front many times before the person who was they were in their care had taken them out to that beach and they loved going around running around on the beach so I had the opportunity to talk to the passes by about the piglets but that it's not really that it's quite difficult to take a piglet that's been rescued from a horrible situation and bring them out into the public those opportunities really rare to come by and putting a piglet through that type of stress is not really that even though the knock on effect of people seeing that piglet is really positive for the species of that animal that video I know is responsible for turning a lot of people vegan it went viral on Facebook like a million people seeing it on Facebook hundreds of thousands of people have seen it on YouTube really big impact it's just those opportunities are really hard to come by I can't just manufacture opportunities like that but you know I really am considering doing something with the help of maybe a sanctuary in the future Patrick says isn't not murdering animals great well Patrick yes it is it's fantastic I wouldn't say it's great I just think it's like well it is it's it's amazing but like it should just be the status quo it should just be like the general moral baseline not to stab animals and not to eat their dead bodies or pay for them to be stabbed I mean you know not abusing human children is great too but it should just be something that's expected of society you know it shouldn't be like it doesn't make you a good person not to contribute to the murder of animals it just makes you morally neutral but thanks Patrick glad that you're a vegan says David Naylor what do you think of the argument that animal agriculture on at least some scale is essential to keep your ecosystems healthy such as our soils and that growing enough to feed the world through monoculture would cause damage as our ecosystems are perhaps not designed to sustain this type of system I'm thinking of Joe Rogan's recent videos could technologies be the answer David I haven't seen the argument on Joe Rogan's videos I haven't seen what they're actually saying animal agriculture on at least some scale is essential to keep our ecosystems healthy such as our soils the thing is animal agriculture the leading cause of deforestation is animal agriculture I know that deforestation is really bad for the soils everything dries up I'm not a specialist on soil but I know deforestation is really bad and the reason we're monocropping so much is to feed animals so more planting of trees would take the carbon out of the air and help replenish the soil but in terms of exploiting animals to murder them why there's a difference between having animals roaming freely and leaving their droppings on the soil you don't have to breed them and murder them in the process why murder them I think this is people scratching at straws looking for an excuse to murder animals I'm not saying animals aren't essential to keep our ecosystems healthy but what I'm saying is why do we have to murder them to keep our ecosystems healthy that's just people that love me trying to find an excuse I'm very suspicious of that I think that needs a lot more thinking through by experts but in no way we need to breed and murder animals to keep the ecosystems healthy way before animal agriculture the ecosystems were fine ok now we have animal agriculture guess what's happening the earth is going to absolute shit going to hell in a handbasket because of the resources water use, land use deforestation all of the carbon footprint animal agriculture the greenhouse gases all of those things animal agriculture in no way is fundamental to a healthy ecosystem it's completely the opposite so yeah that's my perspective on that one David we need more experts on soil erosion I think these people they have a bias they just have this ulterior motive they want to find an excuse a really good excuse for eating meat Valentine says as animal rights activists who are working to bring an end to systematic oppression of non-human animals what would you say are our greatest strengths and weaknesses as a community our greatest strengths is our sort of our willingness to go up against adversity because we understand what we're doing is right the right thing so we can go up against all adversity and our tenacity and the way that we are working together in various different ways our weaknesses as a community would be the way that people spend too much time bringing other people down who are trying to do the right thing and the inviting and all of those things that take the energy from hard working activists and sort of distract people from what's going on to animals I think these are all weaknesses as a community but the greatest strengths is our character, strength of character in the face of adversity our willingness to keep going and to keep the animals close to our heart Yvonne? Hello Hi Joey Hi Yvonne I can't pronounce your last name but we've had multiple Skype sessions together my question would be what was your big aha moment my big aha moment I guess she means my aha moment when I went vegan my aha moment mainly while I was on house arrest I put on a lot of weight and I was looking for a diet to lose weight and I came across a raw foodist who was talking about the power of plants I used his juiced fasting technique to lose a lot of weight and I felt amazing so that was kind of like a big seed planted there while I was in prison I stopped using drugs and alcohol for the first time in 12 years and I've seen things from this new perspective a bird's eye view of my life so I had kind of an epiphany in prison that was a huge aha moment and then when I was got out and I wasn't fully vegan yet and I was criticising my mum about smoking and she talked about the vices people have that they don't change I used that time when she said those words I reflected and instantly thought I've always wanted to be a vegan I've always known exploiting animals is completely wrong and unjustified but I've got a piece of a cow or chicken on my plate and I stopped being complacent and I took the plunge right there and then those were my aha moments my highlight of 2019 that's coming I'll let you guys know about all that the biggest challenge for 2019 would be my trauma therapy I was in trauma therapy for the last year it was a big challenge for me to face all those deep dark demons and but I feel like the treatment was really effective with me and it was a huge challenge but also the highlight of 2019 was also a big challenge for me too but the biggest challenge was dealing with my trauma which I'm very grateful that I had the help of a beautiful therapist to do that I know it's more than one question last one what are your goals for 2020 besides making everyone go vegan I'm going to set out goals for 2020 also going to set out a plan and I'm thinking about maybe running those past you guys I really think goals and plans should be kept between the person who's making them and I think it more likely to achieve them but I'm always striving to do more so that's what I'll say in terms of loose plans I'll be making those loose plans within the next couple of weeks I'm going to like I said I'm going to rebuild everything from the ground up and start fresh so she says I'd love to see you on a TED talk you never know thank you again for doing what you do for the animals you're an amazing activist and person thank you so much Yvonne I think that's how you pronounce it yeah but in terms of the biggest highlight I'll be releasing that very soon and my goals I'm going to keep them between me and I think the goals thing you just know that it's to reach more people and to convert more people to veganism to make more activist so how I do that will be very systematic and I plan this year will be the one of the only years of me being an activist where I've actually made plans okay so we've got the last question here I believe one of the last questions Joey any plans for a North American tour would love to meet you here in Vancouver Canada keep up the fight your work inspires me to get active I'm going to go into my third cube tomorrow your videos are changing lives thanks so much Tosh thanks for your support could possibly be in Vancouver Canada I can't go to North America because it's just customs reasons it's a bit difficult but Canada could definitely be on the cards thank you so much Tosh okay so that looks like that's all of the questions from my amazing Patreon supporters thank you so much guys in terms of my answers the questions like I said I don't claim to know everything a lot of these things are up for discussion especially the grey areas with fruits and vegetables being fertilized with the manure a couple of other grey areas that we talked about too but always open for discussion and learning more and I hope you guys are all focused on achieving your goals for 2020 or at least making out a loose plan and staying strong and just brainstorming how we can how you can make a difference and step things up a notch I'm always trying to step things up a notch year after year and I just want to thank everyone who supported me so far and who's been there for me it's been a big year it's been quite exhausting at times lots of highs and lows but it's been all completely worth it and we can never forget why we're all fighting and why we're vegan and if you're not yet vegan and you're listening to this all the way through wow, Merry Christmas thanks for coming this far and I hope your New Year's resolution is to stop eating the abused body parts of animals who were tortured and killed in slaughterhouses and to help band together with us all to make this world a better place so thank you all to my especially to my amazing patreons and donors and supporters and commenters and everyone who's subscribed and we made 100k subscribers this year it was amazing and I just want to send love out to you and to anyone who's doing it hard because it's a Christmas season and they have to be around family and friends around the table where there's an abused animal on the table and I just want you to stay strong and to remain calm and maybe don't be combative at this time of the season but maybe to be to try to to affect people positively and try to get them thinking and try to get them making more ethical decisions but be smart about it and ask leading questions and draw the conversation towards their principles generally and see if they want to help bring more compassion into the world and do this all in a positive way being combative and causing a big fight at the table this year I mean try not to do that it's just going to make your life harder but if there are any emotions coming up this year I want you to use those emotions as fuel to help generate your advocacy in the future that's what I do I always use all these emotions the anger the negative feelings I use them to generate my activism going forward so thank you everyone for tuning in I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Carp Strong Class the Christmas special it's been good I really enjoy these longer form chats it gives me more of a time to talk to you about all different topics a range of different topics and the next Carp Strong Class will probably have a guest if we don't it will be me again but we'll be talking about something interesting but thank you all for tuning in and stay vegan and I'll see you all in the next video or the next podcast peace