 Hello everyone, so I've been contacted by a news channel based in Tel Aviv, I2 for News, and they're about to call right now, so it's World Vegan Day at this time of filming, and I'm about to go on to the news to discuss, I guess, World Vegan Day, maybe the animals, and we'll see how we go. Well, cut the cows, milk and say chow to chicken, because today is World Vegan Day where we're all being encouraged to stop using animal products and adopt a healthier lifestyle. Well, since its beginning, the vegan movement has continually been gathering steam as people around the world adopt more sustainable practices such as eating less meat and not wearing fur, and activists are raising awareness with their actions like this one, and just a warning, you may find the following footage upsetting. It just feels really sad seeing how desperate these animals look, this is so unnatural for them, you know, and this is what people are supporting places like this, I mean, no one really knows about places like this, I mean, this here is one of the secrets of animal agriculture, the parent breeding sheds, and they're not exposed all that often, but they are horrible breeding facilities, and whenever you go out and you buy a chicken breast or you buy chicken slices or you buy a KFC or chicken wings, you're funding these places, you know, you're responsible for these animals to be in these dark, filthy, rotten hell holes being forced to mate with each other, they can't escape the roosters in here, you know, there's so much that goes on down the line that you're just would be completely unaware or if it wasn't for, you know, activists exposing it. And the man you're seeing there is vegan activist Joey Carbstrong, and Joey joins us now live from London, good evening Joey, thanks for coming on. Firstly, those are really traumatic worrying scenes that we just played there, walk us through your story, what prompted you to change? I have an interesting story and thank you for having me first of all, but I have interesting story and I come from a past of violence and gangs and I ended up in prison, and I got sober in prison, this was about eight years ago, and after coming out and, you know, living a healthier lifestyle, I always thought it was hypocritical to care for certain animals, but have other animals chopped up on my plate and I felt like a hypocrite, so I had this new lease on life and I had this transformation and I spontaneously decided to go vegan and it just so happens that today is my eight year vegan anniversary on World Vegan Day, so I've been spending the last few years campaigning for animals and going into farms and exposing slaughter houses and hoping that people make the connection to the animals because one of the problems is people have this disconnect from what's on their plate to the animal from which that flesh was torn and I really want to raise awareness because I believe most people are good-hearted people, they care about what happens to animals, but when they go to the supermarket and they buy the dairy and the eggs in the flesh, they are doing something that's against their nature which is to be cruel to innocent beings. Joey, you know, some of your methods many people say are unorthodox, you've copped a lot of flak for say these SeaWorld stunts selling the dolphin, tuna and other, you know, stunts where you've gone inside slaughterhouses etc, what do you say to these people who say it's maybe too much? Well, the SeaWorld stunt was to get people to understand that they wouldn't eat a dolphin but they're happy to eat a tuna and these two animals are conscious beings, they both experience pain and suffering, I was trying to point out a word called speciesism, it's similar to racism but it's to do with species, people discriminate based on species and what I'm trying to do is create public awareness and people aren't going to listen to me unless I do something that's sort of pushing the boundaries in order to raise public consciousness and it does get media and people do start thinking about these things and I do have many people transform their lifestyles because of my um my outreach efforts and my activism efforts. So the first sort of international vegan day Joey was back in 1994, tell me how have things progressed since then? Well it was probably about what was that about ten eight years old in 1994 so you know just since I've been vegan in the last eight years especially in the last four years it's progressed exponentially and we're seeing more and more people adopting a plant-based diet for health of the environment but more and more people understanding that animals are sentient conscious beings who deserve not the same exact same rights as humans but at least the right not to be exploited and killed for an unnecessary reason like a bit of flesh when we have these amazing healthy plant-based meats now we've got amazing plant-based foods and it's just so cruel outdated and unnecessary and we really do need to evolve as a species or it will be too late for the planet we're doing something that's incredibly unsustainable but the vegan movement has evolved and it will continue to evolve because we have to evolve past this you know outdated medieval way of producing food. And this of course as the Glasgow summit is underway right now in Scotland how does the traditional farming and agriculture play a part in climate change? Cows are producing methane and I think it's I'm not a climate specialist but I'm pretty sure methane over a 20 year period is about 100 times more powerful than carbon dioxide gas but another big thing with the environment is land use resource use we're growing all of this soy all of these crops to feed to the animals then we kill the animals just to get this small amount of protein it's incredibly insane use of our resources and water and people are starving people are literally starving and we're feeding all of these crops to animals to then eat a little bit of their flesh it's just it's the height of injustice and you know we could eat the plants directly and there was a massive study come out of Oxford University it said we animal agriculture uses 83% of farmland if we all adopted a vegan diet we could reduce the earth's farmland by 75% now that's massive in terms of population growth we really need to start thinking about that. Totally right and just finally Joey fairly briefly you know what would you say to people who are thinking about giving it a crack veganism what would you tell them? I would say sign up to challenge22 and they'll help you every step of the way challenge22.com it's completely free and really it's as simple as choosing soy milk rice milk the tofu the vegan section find it in your supermarket it's that easy and you'll feel a lot better for it and you know there might be parents out there Joey watching you know with their kids thinking gee how am I going to get my kid off it's you know daily milk drink or whatever how healthy is it for children to grow up without all of these traditional animal products that we've been used to? Children can be perfectly healthy on a vegan diet but the science is clear the academy of nutrition and dietetics released a peer reviewed statement stating that human beings can be healthy on a vegan diet through all stages of the cycle that's pregnancy infancy you know the elderly athletes so this is one of the most prestigious health organizations here saying this so you know just listen to the science so plants are healthy the doctors want you to eat more fruits and vegetables why do people think that that's an unhealthy choice to make just make sure you're supplementing B12 and get an array of different whole foods and fiber and you'll be fine. Joey you've certainly brought up some extremely good points and we really appreciate having you on thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. What do you think did I do okay? I was a bit nervous to be honest. I don't know much about the climate that's one for some of the climate specialists out there but um I think methane is a hundred times stronger than carbon dioxide over a 20 year period but you know it's not my strong suit uh animal rights is more my strong suit but yeah I hope that was a positive message to give to people on World Vegan Day and uh yeah that was cool I'm happy they called me and they showed one amazing thing they did they showed the parent breeder sheds that from my recent uncovered campaign how good is that on tv they literally just showed my campaign on tv live tv I didn't expect them to do that I didn't expect them to do that and I'm happy they did that was great wow so there we go challenge 22 Lincoln Bayer and everyone out there advocate for the animals um encourage people to go vegan the animals need you and um the planet actually can't sustain us much longer going the way we're going so peace. It just feels really sad seeing how desperate these animals look this is so unnatural for them you know and uh this is what people are supporting places like this I mean you no one really knows about places like this I mean this here is one of the secrets of animal agriculture the parent breeding sheds and uh they're not exposed all that often but they are horrible breeding facilities and uh whenever you go out and you buy a chicken breast or you buy chicken slices or you buy a kfc or chicken wings you're funding these places you know you're responsible for these animals to be in these dark filthy rotten hell holes being forced to mate with each other they can't escape the roosters in here you know there's so much that goes on down the line that you're just would be completely unaware of if it wasn't for you know activists exposing it