Food For Thought: The Joys And Benefits Of Living Vegan

As an advocate for animals and compassionate living for over 25 years, you can imagine I've made mistakes, I've learned a bit, and I've thought a lot about what is effective -- and what is not. And so I give you 10 Habits of Highly Effective Advocates. Take a listen, and enjoy some lil' shareables, if you're so inclined to share:  *The goal is to live according to compassion. The goal is not to “live according to veganism.”   *When you think being vegan is the end goal -- the badge, the destination, you get hung up on trying to be perfect or achieving a state of purity, and you forget what being vegan is all about.  *Being vegan is the means to the goal and that goal is unconditional compassion and optimal wellness.  *Highly Effective Advocates understand that perfection is the enemy of the good. *The problems we face in our world are not because we have so much compassion we don’t know what to do with it. The problems are because people aren’t living according to their own values of compassion and kindness.

The weight of a word doesn’t simply lie in its dictionary definition. Words don’t simply have denotations — they also have connotations: a number of associations and attributes that stretch beyond the literal meaning. The word “butcher” has always been associated with the killing and preparing of animals for human consumption, but a new contingency of vegetarian and vegan butchers — who cleave plant fibers rather than animal bones — have claimed this name for themselves.  Listen to today's episode brought to you by listeners like you. Thank you for supporting this podcast. 

Whether you're interested in a visit to Africa or not, check out this episode that not only provides details about traveling to Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas and Botswana to go on a safari but also offers thoughts on how we need to think about wild places. I also offer tips for using airline miles (rather than dollars) to fly and how to avoid long security and customs lines.  This podcast is sponsored by listeners like you. Help it continue.  

Journey with me through the Sonoma Wine Country as I share my experience eating vegan food, drinking wine, and talking to a wine-making hunter, who invited me to join him on one of his hunts. In this episode, I offer my thoughts about "vegan wines." This podcast is sponsored by listeners like you. Help it continue. Visit JoyfulVegan.com for everything you need to live compassionately and healthfully.  

The well-intentioned rallying cry to “change the world” becomes louder and more hashtag-worthy, especially as Earth Day approaches. A search on Google garners millions of results for articles to help people make a difference: *10 Things That Even YOU Can Do to Change the World*30 Things You Can Do to Change the World in 30 Seconds*50 Ways YOU Can Change the World without Leaving Your Favorite Chair. The problem is that we're asking the wrong thing of people. It’s not that we CAN change the world. It’s that we ARE changing the world. What we need to do is STOP changing the world -- and change ourselves instead.  This podcast is sponsored by listeners like you. Help it continue. Supporters receive such perks as written podcast transcripts.  Listen by clicking the play button below or by subscribing to the RSS feed or listening through iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud.

On my last visit to Seattle, WA 12 years ago, there were just a handful of vegan restaurants. Vegan donuts? Yes. (Yay!) A 100% vegan store? Yes. (Yay!) But vegan restaurants. Just a few. Of course as vegans, we're never at risk of starving, but darnit, it's just so much better when we can enjoy delicious, beautiful, creative food in a restaurant and not have to pick the only vegan-izable thing on the menu. Thank you to all of the restauranteurs who made this trip an edible adventure. Take a listen for my favorite places in Port Townsend and Seattle, Washington.  This podcast is sponsored by listeners like you. Help it continue.

I’ve heard every justification for the consumption of animals, but I was a bit stunned when I heard someone claim that vegans should eat oysters because bivalves are "basically plants." No doubt there are grey areas in this whole attempt to live as compassionately as possible. But even the fuzzy lines are still lines. If I let you eat oysters, would you stop eating cows? Listen by clicking the play button below or by subscribing to the RSS feed or listening through  iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud.

Cat cafes have become a popular trend all around the world, but who do they ultimately serve? Are they just about the schtick, or can they play a role in helping people adopt homeless cats? Today's podcast episode explores this topic, offers some questions we should be asking, and provides a model that other cat cafes might follow. Thank you for supporting this podcast: Patreon.com/ColleenPatrickGoudreau

Today's episode concludes a 3-part series on Animals in Film. In Part One, I talk about the history behind the American Humane Association and its “no animals were harmed in the making of this film" disclaimer. In Part Two, we discuss where things have gone wrong on TV and movie sets that lead to the death or injury of animals and why these productions still received the “No Animals Were Harmed” disclaimer from the monitors meant to protect the animals. Today, in Part Three, we address what can be done so that animals ARE NOT harmed on sets and what the public can do to be involved. Listen by clicking the play button below or by subscribing to the RSS feed or listening through iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud.

Today's episode is framed around a conversation I had with a non-vegan German (who lives in the U.S.), who was not only doubtful we'd be able to eat while visiting southern Germany (as vegans) but who also lamented that we would be "missing out" on the traditions of this country. I assured him that when you look through the meat-eating lens, you see only meat and when you look through the vegan lens you see options you wouldn't have been looking for otherwise. I assured him we'd be fine. I assured him there are higher principles than eating animal-based sausage. But I said all that before we left for our trip. Listen to today's podcast episode to see if I was right. Support this podcast.

Help celebrate the TEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the Food for Thought podcast by sitting back and taking in the love letters I've received from listeners and supporters this past year. The stories are as diverse as the listeners and reflect varied ages and backgrounds, but they all share common threads of hope, transformation, and compassion. I hope you are as moved by the letters as I am humbled by them. If you ever once thought that “people don’t change,” then you’re in for quite a treat. And grab some tea or a glass of wine. The episode is just short of 2 hours!  Thank you for all your support and love these last 10 years!

Having experienced all these benefits of getting meat, dairy, and eggs out of our lives and having found our own voice, it's natural to next ask “Where do I fit into this whole thing?” “How can I help?” “What skills do I have that I can use to be part of the solution?” What's my contribution?” Finally, we can relax into this compassionate and healthy way of living and adapt fully and joyfully into a non-vegan world. This episode wraps up our 10 Stages of What Happens When you Stop Eating Animals. 

Every one of us has had to manage what to do when uninvited guests take up residence in our attics, walls, or basements. Sadly, we're too quick to consider them "pests" and take lethal measures to get rid of them. But even when we want to take compassionate action, we may be deceived or making it worse for the animal. Listen to this important episode about how to change our perception and behavior and still humanely deal with rats, squirrels, raccoons, and even cockroaches.  Thank you for supporting this podcast: www.colleenpatrickgoudreau.com/support

We already impact animals so much in our every day lives: we eat them, we destroy their homes, we make them perform for us, we shoot them for sport, we use and hurt them in so many ways. So how can we HELP them in our every day lives?? Listen to my TOP 5 SUGGESTIONS that don't even require much effort but that make a huge difference in the lives of individual animals and that make us better people. Listen by subscribing to the RSS feed or listening through iTunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud.

In Animals in Film: Part 1, we talked about the history behind the American Humane Association and its “No Animals Were Harmed” disclaimer. Today, in Animals in Film: Part 2, we discuss where things have gone wrong on TV and movie sets that lead to the death or injury of animals and why these productions still received the “No Animals Were Harmed” disclaimer from the monitors meant to protect the animals. Thank you to the listeners for supporting this podcast. 

Every regular filmgoer is familiar with the disclaimer at the end of film credits that states “no animals were harmed in the making of this film.” This message is given with the approval of the American Humane Association, which has oversight over the treatment of animals in films, but what took place to give an outside group oversight over a private industry? Today we talk about that history, which includes a horse being pushed off of a 75-foot high cliff. Help make these podcast episodes possible. Become a supporter today.

There are a lot of opinions and theories about whether it’s better to eat more cooked veggies or more raw veggies -- or about whether it's more beneficial to eat 100% raw fruits and veggies and avoid cooked foods altogether. In today's episode I hope to settle this once and for all. Help make these podcast episodes possible. Become a supporter today.

In today's episode, I review a Hungarian film called White God by director Kornél Mundruczó. The film won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, and the main canine actor received their presigious Palm Dog Award. This film is at once a revenge film, a science fiction film, a horror film, a political film, a coming of age film, and a film steeped in stark realism. But most importantly, for me, for you, and for the animals, it is an animal rights film. Take a listen, and be sure to watch the film. NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS PODCAST.

Please enjoy this compilation of editorials I've written and recorded over the years for my local national public radio station. With over 10 2-minute episodes heard back to back, you'll enjoy topics such as urban livestock, caring for hurt or injured dogs and cats, having a turkey-free Thanksgiving, the violence inherent in slaugherhouses and how it affects the workers, shark fin and foie gras bans, animal abuse in Ancient Rome and today, and lots more! For the animals...enjoy!

Living according to your ethics in a complicated world certainly comes with challenges, but it's not impossible. For vegans trying to do the right thing, it's one thing to opt out of eating the obvious animal products -- meat, dairy, and eggs - but what about the trickier, grayer areas, including work. What if you work for a software company and you're put on a project to build a website for a hunting company? What if you work in a restaurant and have to serve meat? What if you work in a job that requires you to cook meat? These are real scenarios for many people, and the answer isn't to "stop being vegan" because things are complicated. Take a listen to my thoughts in today's episode of Food for Thought.