 think that one criticism that I often face kind of switching gears is that I'm too anthropocentric and I think that that's probably a fair criticism and I'll share a little bit of experience with me. So when I was in college I took my first philosophy course and I was introduced to Peter Singer. Peter Singer is someone who makes the case for animal welfare and rights that is indisputable and ever since then you know what I kind of already cared about it really put it into perspective and it led me to try to seek out you know vegetarianism and veganism. Now a couple years ago I had a meatless diet and I failed miserably because I didn't teach myself how to cook so you know that repetition just the same getting the same bokeh burgers over and over again just trying to live off of that didn't work and I thought oh you know this is great I'm gonna go vegan so you know that failed but I'm back to you know the state where I really especially thinking about the climate and how much veganism would impact the environment there's just no reason not to anymore. So the reason why I'm bringing this up is because you are so unique in that you're one of the only candidates proposing a very robust animal welfare platform and I want you to talk through this because you're vegan so you are someone who I aspire to be like I'm trying to learn recipes and actually learn how to cook for myself that would be a little bit helpful but talk about your animal rights platform because that's something that we don't hear enough about and this isn't just about animal welfare for that morality aspect which I think is absolutely important but this is also about the climate so there's there's no reason for us not to be vegan anymore and you're kind of bringing that to the forefront and for a lot of people it's uncomfortable because it you know it's difficult to grapple with that fact how am I living my life is it fully ethical no it's not you know so explain that because you know I think that that's really important and it's not talked about enough. Yeah absolutely so I am vegan I've been vegan for almost four years now the reason I went vegan was for the environment I went and I watched a documentary called House Spiracy after going to a climate action march where there was a woman wearing a cow costume holding up a science and you can't be a true environmentalist and you'll see you're vegan watch House Spiracy so I was like sure I'll listen to the random woman in a cow costume and I went I watched it and it changed my life it was by I think I watched it mid December and then by then early December and then by January 3rd I was fully vegan I completely eliminated all animal products for my from my life well not my life yet but most at least from my diet and and I felt great I thought I was gonna die I thought I was gonna die being malnourished I you know I used to bodybuild when I was in the Navy I I'm this thing because I don't eat enough it's not because but I used to I used to lift weights and I felt healthier after going vegan after a month than I did my entire peak condition of fitness so so so for me it was it was a big radical change so for that year I stumbled through it and I was able to continue to to be vegan learn it I wasn't like an evangelist vegan at that moment right it was like I'm just gonna learn this for me to make sure that I could do it well enough before I start advocating anybody else to do it means learning new recipes that means knowing where to go to restaurants like knowing every aspect of what it's like to live a life as a vegan it took me a year and then after that year I watched a documentary called Earthlings where I saw the horrors of factory farming I saw the horrors of you know fur based you know leather making all of it right and and I just was appalled we were doing this to our world not just environmentally but just just ethically I felt like oh morally this is gross like we're we're murdering these baby chickens like ours and within birth just because they're males and they provide no use to society and I was just like that's disgusting we need to stop this practice and so so I don't I do not say we should ban all meat that's not my my my policy so let me get into the policies first I'd like the caveat and say this when I put in in my environmental platform there is if there is a plank in there which is this the elimination of all animal agriculture subsidies right now we are we are wasting tons of money and we're picking winners and losers when the dairy industry and the meat industry are actually losing because of the fact that people are becoming more aware and plant-based products are becoming more widely available so we're having the subsidized dairy farmers more than we ever have in this country one because of Trump's tariffs which is interesting enough but another is because it's just not a popular product we dumped I think millions of gallons of milk out last year because it just couldn't leave the shelves fast enough so so so we have to stop subsidizing that we should also stop subsidizing fossil fuels anything that hurts the environment we should stop subsidizing so I'm not just single-line animal agriculture I'm talking about big agro too that also isn't doing well by the environment either so when it comes to animal rights we need to give we need to start doing things when you mainly like you're talking about banning you know shark fins and and actually taking taking real steps against you know animal horse soring which is a horrible practice that is used just to make horses walk higher right it's just like they put these iron hoofs on them they're so heavy that they have to like fling their legs up just so they can walk it's disgusting the practice is in humane you also have the fact that when we when we create medicine for example so so when we when we have testing for new generic medicines and we're gonna make talent aisle a plus two talent on all a plus plus right every time you make that new iteration you have to go through all of the testing requirements that the FDA requires before you can just put it into the public so that means they know what Tylenol is going to do to the mice but they go ahead and put the mice to the same rigorous test to kill them every time it's not necessary like it's useless it's useless loss of life in in a system that is more expensive it's not it's not conducive to research we could do it on a computer screen we don't have to kill the mice every time we know how the mice are going to perform to the like DNA molecule we know right so we can do things like that so so basically what I'm talking about is really just common-sense reforms and and you know I'm not this this vegan that's gonna create vegan bill number a vegan bill or number a vegan bill a vegan bill B but but we're gonna be like hey we're gonna slide in this amendment to the farm bill hey we're gonna slide this amendment into this medical bill we're just gonna do these little amendments that are gonna benefit animals that the country already agrees with and not call it vegan we're just gonna call it animal rights you know and people agree with this stuff this isn't foreign people don't like what's happening at SeaWorld people don't like the idea of fur practice after they watch it happen for the first time when they electrocute these poor animals from the anus and pull out you know disclaimer right like it's gross it's it's it's horrifying like a horror movie so so I think most Americans can agree that that stuff is just wrong and archaic and nobody wants to see this happen and they picture their dog or their cat in that situation they'll be like oh my god how dare you even make the reference it's like hey the four-legged animal that can't talk yeah yeah yeah yeah that's that's what it is so it's gotta bring up the standards and I'm not saying we need to treat humans as equal as animals I'm just saying that we should give animals enough rights and not be subjugated court tortured and killed right right it's just we can see something as a lesser but not like equal we but not have to kill it like we don't kill our animals for that same reason we don't we don't kill our pets I mean we don't kill our pets because we see them more morally desirable than a pig but we need to give that pig I think the same level of that that dog deserves right so it's a little controversial but you know it needs to be said and I and I do represent a segment of the population that does want to see more ethically based legislation that actually accounts for all species and not just us because look what human-based laws have done to our planet yeah right you know if we if we consider the actual you know animals in the rainforest you know maybe we wouldn't chop them down so fast right you know or or the or the deforestation right that we do is like man if we actually took consideration of the deer and the wolves you know because we care about the animals maybe we wouldn't have done that to the rainforest or murdered all the wolves right so so that's those it's just those basic things that if humans just thought differently I think we would have got our way out of a lot of really unintended consequences yeah and we just saw everything as ours and now we're reaping what we sow yeah yeah absolutely it's it's just exploitation to the point where there's nothing left to exploit and now we're thinking how is this going to affect my life but I think that this like conversation now is really it's crucial right because a lot of people they're thinking bigger you know that they're thinking long-term they're thinking what is my place in history going to be so like 200 years from now if human beings are lucky enough to survive you know how will people look back at us now and how we treated animals and that's my thought is of course ethically speaking we're you know ideally always progressing forward so I can't help but think I would very much judge myself you know unkindly as someone who's a meat eater but it's about education it's about kind of learning and really it is it's it's not just a diet change which is kind of why the way that I viewed it was this is just a diet but I'm on it forever but it's a lifestyle change and it's learning it's about you know messing messing up but taking the chance and then trying to reevaluate your position exactly my fiancee she drank college collagen by accident and it was like oh you just got day zeroed and we joke we joke about it right it's like oh you got those day zeroed which means oh you lost your veganism they're gonna start from day one now which is a joke of course yeah but but you know it's become this this thing so I do want to mention this about veganism okay I want to mention some facts that maybe your audience doesn't know so we have about 7.5 billion humans on the planet right and the we have 76 billion farm animals on the planet right now now think about that those cows those pigs those chickens they eat a hell of a lot more food than we do right when it comes to grain just per grain right that is just it's just insane so they account for 52 52% of the land use 51% of our actual freshwater use it is accounts for the same amount of emissions that every car plane truck train everything all of our transportation combined is the animal agriculture it also is one of the largest polluters of ocean dead zones in the entire country we have pig lagoons that are actually going into communities that are low poverty and giving a massive amount of asthma pig lagoons are basically holes in the ground that they dump the pig crap into and they just keep them there because there's nothing else and when there's a hurricane they just flood everything and get everybody else sick it's in get our vegetables with E. coli you know and and I just heard the statistic yesterday four pounds of beef which is what the average American eats every month is equivalent to one flight from New York to London so think about that every average American in the country is taking the equivalent of one flight from New York to London on their own that is how horrible beef is and all meat is in our entire in our animal products in general is it's destroying our planet like it's comical to think about the fact that we just didn't feed the cows we'd have plenty of food for everybody like overnight it would it's just it's just insanity to think that we played this stupid arcade game where people are like oh but if we eat all soy or we all vegetables and there won't be enough vegetables for everybody it's like the cows are eating something they're eating vegetables they're eating so it's such a simple thing that you could think through like that yeah yes exactly so we just cut out the middleman and then now we have all the soy yeah so that they're eating and then we're gonna be able to have the food necessary but anyways I just wanted to make sure that your audience understood the impacts of what animal agriculture is doing to our planet and and it is it is devastating is absolutely devastating go to a vegan calculator online and compare what your water savings what you're saving in water CO2 emissions just alone it's it's it's it's the fastest thing anybody can do for the environment yeah yeah and that's what's really I think given me this sense of urgency because I already was one over with the morality argument but also when you factor in that carbon footprint and what it does to the planet it's like this is just a no a no brainer just don't go again exactly you know and and and I don't I don't say that to like you go vegan right now yeah because I'm saying that because like you know there's no reason not to yeah no world justification other than meat taste good that is going to you know keep it and I'm right now right now in this community and are in the vegan community it like you're on the west coast you're even better right yeah yeah so so so you have access to probably the best vegan foods that has ever existed on the planet well in Oregon is yeah yeah yeah so so so there is even no more excuse for you either yeah because because you probably already have vegan friends that are doing it and you could eat a little turn so that's a good point because I kind of noticed something and you can correct me if I'm wrong I do feel like there is a bit of a cultural shift like we're in the middle of that because before like ten years ago it's like if you knew someone who was vegan it was like that was so strange but now so many people are vegan like I know multiple people who are vegan where it's not it's not so like elusive anymore it's like it's not a stereotype anymore exactly but it's just anybody you know vegan politician you know vegan athletes vegan everybody like it's everybody there's vegan everywhere all over the corners of the globe and the cheapest foods are vegan beans rice you know veggies fruits nuts seeds like those are the cheapest foods in the grocery store so so a lot of people and I always make fun of the wherever poor college kid when you're eating ramen and bite beans and rice you were vegan yeah that's living on that you know and and so so yeah it's one of those things that you know I think we understand is like if you don't eat me you just don't eat me and you're so many other things you can eat there's ten thousand other ingredients you can choose from yeah yeah absolutely thank you for sharing those statistics and opening the door to that I just think it's so we're in such a fascinating time to where I want to pick the brains of veganism especially so vegan curious I'm you know I'm gonna graduate from vegetarian to vegan but I just think it's so fascinating