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Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and you're listening to The Vegan Report.

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If you're vegan for the animals and you care to do more for animal rights, but you're not sure

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where to start, then this podcast is for you. Every week, let yourself fall in love with

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passionate animal rights leaders who will inspire you to find your voice, your own special

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contribution to the animal rights movement, however small or big it is. Today, we are going to talk

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about chickens. And let me set the table by quoting an article I found preparing for this episode.

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It is from the Weather Network and it is titled, Why Chickens Might Be the Biggest Legacy We Leave

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on this Earth. It says, before you throw away that chicken bone, you should know, it may wind up on

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our permanent record. A study released by researchers in England last December showed that

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our lasting legacy here on Earth may be just that, as the sheer number of the world's most popular

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foal stands to leave its mark on this slice of the geological record. At any given time,

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there are an estimated 23 billion chickens on Earth, about 10 times more than any other bird

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species. They've got us outnumbered too. That's about three chickens for every person on the

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planet. According to the study's authors, the world's domesticated chicken is likely to be

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the largest standing population of a single bird species in Earth's history. Of course, reading this

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as a vegan, I think about the horrendous scale of chicken exploitation. Yes, chickens will be part

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of humans' legacy, but this is a dark and shameful legacy. To talk about this topic, I have with me

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the team behind the Truth Organization, the two co-founders Nigel and Julie. What is the Truth

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Organization? It is the non-profit behind the Egg-Truth.com initiative, which educates the

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public about the true nature of egg production, from hatchery to plate. Julie and Nigel,

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welcome to the podcast. Hi. Thank you. Hi, how are you doing? I'm great. Thank you. How about you?

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Good, good, good. Would you like to first introduce yourself and talk about your role with

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the Truth Organization? I might just go first. Hi, I'm Julie, I'm Prismaster. I go by Julie,

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and I'm the newly appointed executive director of the Truth Organization, where we host the Egg-Truth

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and the Day Earth-Truth websites and social media channels. I started off as a marketing and social

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media manager and started to transition into executive director this year. And so this will,

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from just outreach, I'll take on more strategic work and look at how we can grow and how we can

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become a key player in the vegan movement. And that's basically the plan for the coming year and

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years, I think, for me anyway. My name's Nigel. I'm the founder of the Truth Organization and its

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various incarnations, egg-truth.com and dairy-truth.com. And I started the organization

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around 2018, set up the social media platforms, obviously the websites, and developed a lot of

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the content. And then as Julie mentioned, I brought her on to manage social media,

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which is a big role and a pretty fundamental role these days in any organization, whether you're

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for-profit or non. And she did such a great job. I wanted to promote her up into executive director

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and I could then focus a bit more on fundraising, on being a bit more strategic and look at

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developing some more content while she ran the front office and social media and so on.

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And that's it. So I'm sorry I gave you both the title of founders, but Nigel, you're the sole

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founder of the organization. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So I assume both of you are vegans.

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Am I correct? Yes. So please talk about your journey from being, I guess,

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raised like everyone else with a loose understanding of our impact on animals to becoming vegan, to now

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running a vegan organization. Right. So as you just mentioned, I was like everyone else, raised

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meat, meat and three vegetables, our usual dinner or weekend food. I always had a dislike for meat.

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I just never liked eating it. I just did because your parents tell you to eat up. So I did, but

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always disliked it. And as I got older and then moved out, I started eating less and less meat,

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just naturally because I just didn't like it. And at some point I just decided, okay, today is

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the day I'm going to go vegetarian. And this was when I was a student. And then it took a long time

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to actually go to veganism. I never thought about it for me. Like for many, I think veganism

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always felt like a bit extreme and it felt restrictive. And the only people I would know

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as vegans would be the people that are out in the streets with the screens and with the

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horrible pictures of animals and blood and tortured. And so I never really thought about it until

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I became a mother when certain things click in terms of milk and nursing. And because my child

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was diagnosed with lactose intolerance, I had to give up dairy because I was nursing and the lactose

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gets through my milk as well. So I stopped dairy. And because that was such an impactful

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thing I had to do, I started researching on dairy and I started, that was like, I had one blog post,

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but I started a blog about the dairy industry and dairy. And when I finished my maternity leave,

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I was looking for a job and I found Egg Thruz. And so I technically was a vegetarian that didn't

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consume dairy. I would still eat eggs. And when I found the posting for Egg Thruz, I started then

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reading about the website and everything they put out. And I'm like, oh, I guess, I guess I'm going

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vegan. I guess we dropped the eggs too, because that was just awful. The things I read. So ever

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since I joined Egg Thruz, which was in 2020, I completely stopped eating any animal products.

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And then the other aspect, because people most, or often just think of food, but obviously goes

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beyond that. It goes to the cosmetics, to other products we use, like laundry detergent, dish soap,

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like all the little bits and pieces. And that took a little longer just to find products and

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something that's affordable, that's available. But bit by bit I made my way to hopefully fully vegan,

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and at least in my house. Yeah. Nigel?

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I've been vegan, I guess, for around 16, 17 years now. But I think like a lot of people,

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there was a couple of years of transition. I had met my wife in 2002. And when we met,

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she was a vegetarian. And of course, I knew lots of people who were vegetarian. Vegetarian is,

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and the term has been around for a long time. And we were dating, obviously, and then inevitably

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conversations would evolve to, why vegetarian? And we would learn and discover about one another.

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And that was always a topic on the table. And I understood intuitively and understandably that,

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I get vegetarianism. They take the animal, they slice its throat, or knock it unconscious,

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and then they dismember it. It sounds like a pretty ghastly and bloody process. And so you're

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kind of like, yeah, I get that. And my wife did a lot of cooking, and she was a very good cook. And

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to me, food is either good, or it's not good. There's good vegan food, and there's bad vegan

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food. There's good omnivore food and bad omnivore food. It either tastes good to you or it doesn't.

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So, but then the conversations would evolve and I'd have questions. I would pose the same

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questions that I get all the time now, whether online or through talking to family and friends.

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So it's that cognitive dissonance working its magic. And my wife would answer as best she could.

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And if she wasn't sure or thought it would be better, just here, read this or watch that.

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And I would. And so I kind of went through the process myself. There was no coercion. There was

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no, hey, you have to be, if you were going to keep carrying on this relationship, you've got to be

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vegan or vegetarian. And it was none of that. And really, at the end of the day, if you're going to

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make any commitment to a philosophical position, you got to get there on your own, because otherwise

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it's not, you know, it ain't going to stick, so to speak. So, and yeah, I gave up meat.

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I got rid of it. I understood it. I was glad to get rid of it. Then I thought, oh, I felt pretty

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good. You know, I thought, Hey, I've gotten to this place where I'm feeling good about my decision,

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my choice. Then I discovered about eggs and dairy. And I'm like, Oh, come on, really? And, you know,

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and then I realized how horrendously bad it was. It was worse, you know, than, you know, often what

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the meat industry would produce in terms of, you know, the suffering and from a welfare perspective.

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So I started to eliminate that from my diet and never to go back. I think eggs was probably the

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last thing I abandoned. And I think my experience, my transition, I think for most vegans,

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that is a very common story. I will say that actually, no, not eggs was the last thing. Cheese

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was the last thing. And at the time, not realizing that cheese was actually addictive because of the

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case of morphins in the milk that mother cows pass on to their infant calves to help the bond. This

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is passed on through the food that we consume. And sure enough, I think if you talk to most vegans,

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they'll say, yep, cheese was the last thing to go. So, and then, you know, I think like a lot of

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people, I started out in life eating like most other North Americans, my family's from the UK.

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They immigrated to Canada in the 1950s. So I grew up eating a lot of British food, which was pretty

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bad, you know, blackened meat, boiled vegetables to a mush and potatoes, and a salad was a ripped

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up, you know, iceberg lettuce, and there was some sliced up tomatoes. So, you know, that's what I

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kind of grew up on. So trust me, I didn't, I don't miss any of that for a whole host of reasons.

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Forget veganism. So what's your favorite vegan cheese brand?

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Go ahead, Julie. Yeah, I think I don't really have a favorite as in like, that's the best and don't

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taste the difference. But I just get what's in the supermarket. And this is a day, I think you

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pronounce it. And sometimes video life. But yeah, I try just the way I cook is then it's not focused

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on the cheese. It's added maybe, but it's not the focus. It doesn't carry the flavor kind of. So

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I think cheese still has a long way to go. If we really try, if we keep comparing it to dairy

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products, and if we keep asking for the same experience, I think there's still a long way to

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go. And let's see what happens to all the lab created cheeses. I'm very excited about those

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coming out and trying them. But yeah, I just that that's my way around, just to, you know, take

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cheese out of the equation and not focus the food too much around it. What about you, Nigel? Do you

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have any recommendations? I have my fast food cheese and then my gourmet cheese. My fast food

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cheese is day of shreds for melting, whether you put it on pizza or something. It's such a great

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melting cheese. I like the day of block cheddar cheese. I think that is really probably the

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closest thing to a, you know, your grocery store supermarket cheese brick you'll get.

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I think it's a little better to be perfectly honest. But for gourmet, hands down, no question.

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Miyoko's Mount Vesuvius Black Ash. The best ever. Of course, especially with fresh bread and baked

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garlic. Amazing. So let's get to the launching of the Truth Organization. How did that happen?

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And how did the world welcome your initiative? I think it was 2017. My wife, Dr. Krista Hedema,

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had been involved with Mercy for Animals here in Canada. She had undertook probably 11 or 12

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undercover investigations on farm in transport and slaughter. In the early years, I certainly

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would help and support her on that from a social media standpoint. And she was exceedingly busy,

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her exceedingly active in exposing what was on in the animal agriculture here in Canada.

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She went out to get a lot of corporate commitments. And I was proud of her and I admired her for what

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she was doing. But as the years went on, I felt I needed to do my own thing. I needed to have

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something, some contribution that I could make directly. And eggs, like I said, one of the last

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things I gave, one of the things when I found out, I just, it was a head shake. It was like,

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oh man, this is terrible. This is really, really bad. And most people think, well, birds, chickens

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lay eggs and cows give milk. What's the harm? Well, plenty. And so I thought, okay, as a graphic

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designer and a web designer, I decided, well, the first thing I'm going to do is develop the focal

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point, which is the website. So I spent a lot of time developing the website and the content. I had

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to educate myself on a lot of the information. I had to write it, had to get an editor, because

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I'm not a professional writer by any means. And the last thing that I contemplated doing is

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addressing the issue of human health and egg consumption, which I struggled with because

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a lot of times you want to focus on the animals, the welfare issues, the use, philosophical

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issues with just using living sentient beings and treating them as a commodity.

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You know, the health and nutrition side of things is such a complex thing. And it's even,

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it's one week, it's coffee's bad for you. The next week coffee's good for you. Alcohol, this cholesterol.

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So I thought, well, the egg industry, like the dairy industry, are really unchallenged in that

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area. So I thought I'm going to find out, find a source that is not a vegan source, not a plant

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based doctor source, but somebody who, you know, has been critical of the egg industry and egg

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consumption and cholesterol. And I found Dr. J. David Spence, University of Western Ontario

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professor of pharmacology and neurology, I believe it is. And he has written and has been interviewed

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by the media around the world. He's written for the World Health Organization and he's very,

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very critical. I reached out to him one day just on a whim thinking, maybe I'll see if I can get

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him to respond. And he did. And he sent me so much information. I was overwhelmed, but I poured

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through these studies and research and I started to coalesce in my mind what the issues were.

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So I formulated that on the website and it's a pretty big part of the website.

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I don't, we don't necessarily focus on it anymore, or not anymore, as much as the others or any less.

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Julie will tell you that a lot of the content that she's programmed over the years for social media,

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again, is on the animal side of things, the welfare side of things. But I'm

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proud of that component of the website because it was the hardest to write and understand.

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And I really sort of, I'm pretty good at it now. If I were to get into a debate with somebody,

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I think I could handle my own. So it was good for me to know that. Don't focus it on it too

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much because like I said, the welfare stuff is really central. Because we often in the vegan

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movement go down these rabbit holes of talking about, well, what if the cage was this size? Or

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if a barn has this many birds and it's multi-tier aviaries and the litter is properly clipped.

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You get into these conversations and you're like, we get sucked into it. I do sometimes too. And

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we have to be careful not to do that too much. So then did an ad campaign in, I think it was 2018,

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July or 2019, an outdoor ad campaign in Toronto at 45 transit shelter posters put up around the city.

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I designed and printed an eight page full-color booklet that went into the Toronto Star,

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17,500 inserted in Saturday home delivery skewed towards a specific area and demographic.

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And we did some collaboration with Anonymous for the Voiceless and Vegan Outreach to leaflet

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and run a campaign in Dundas square all within this four week period and social media ads.

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And so there was this multi-pronged approach and you could really see the impact it was having.

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And one of the most memorable responses I received was an email from a young woman

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who was a refugee from Syria, from the war in Syria. And she had seen the poster in the transit

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shelter and she said, I didn't know what was this egg truth. So she went literally sitting in the

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shelter, she went to the website and she couldn't believe what she was seeing. One of the first

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videos on the homepage shows, it's a high definition video filmed in Australia by Animals Australia,

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great organization. And they had filmed maceration and high definition.

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And it's barbarism. And she saw that for what it was, especially coming from Syria.

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And she commented, she says, I thought when I saw the cruelty that humans inflicted on other humans

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in the war in Syria, and then I come here to a peaceful country like Canada, and here we are

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doing the same thing, but to animals. And she said, she cried, she was in tears. And that was like,

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wow, that was pretty powerful. So through that experience, I thought, well, dairy truth next,

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it's got to be dairy. And those are the two areas that I wanted to focus on because everyone

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focuses again on the welfare and the slaughter and the killing of the animals. But these are

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slaughter industries. And they're worse because they prolong the suffering of these animals,

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dairy for five years, the male cast into the veal production and the hens, the male chicks,

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day old and 18 months, confined or even not confined, but producing an egg almost every day.

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And now they're producing up to almost 500 eggs per hen before they're slaughtered. It's horrendous

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what we're doing to them. And that was the focus and the purpose. I think to come back to the

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reception, because you ask how did the world receive Act Truth. And I think what's unique about

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Act Truth is that we really focus on that one industry because there's obviously there's many,

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many organizations out there, bigger and smaller one. And usually they talk about all of the animals

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used for food. And then eggs are usually not an afterthought, but it's on the side. It's usually

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not really focused on. And then if you see big campaigns, it's often about cage free, but

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obviously this is not helping anyone, not the hens. And so Act Truth is the first one that really

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focuses on that. And what I see through my work on social media is that many vegans say, hey,

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they say a video where someone shares say an egg recipe or something related to eggs. And they're

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like, Hey, did you know that eggs are actually terrible for the animals? Check out. And then

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they link us Act Truth. And then that's all they do. They don't start citing all the bad things.

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They like go to Act Truth and then you learn. And I think that's what's happening. And that's what

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we really want to push for and focus on that Act Truth is that one step source that people go to

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when it goes to act to help educate people, help themselves get more in depth knowledge. As Nigel

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said, we do focus on nutrition as well, even though it's not our main focus, but it's all there. We

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got the environment bit, we have the health bit, but obviously also the animals. And we also

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are beyond that have resources that help people. Okay. I learned all this crazy stuff. What do I

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do next? What's happening now? And I think that's what is unique about Act Truth. And then with

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their rituals, we try to go down a similar route. It looks very similar to Act Truth if you compare

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those two. But I think that's what's the main effect that people now had a resource at hand

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they can use to educate people and point people towards to learn. What I love about Act Truth.com

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is you can personalize your approach education to the reality of egg production. You don't have to

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sit there and have to watch one hour of footage like you would do with Dominion. You can really

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take your time. And also it is referenced. And like you said, there are different arguments for

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different people. Nigel, you were talking about the health arguments. I'm one of those people who

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don't believe that the health arguments are very convincing, but I've met vegans who were very,

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you would not have made them vegan with ethical arguments, but the health arguments resonate with

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them. And then later on, they educate themselves on the ethical aspect of the whole vegan movement.

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And yeah, I think it's a great initiative and it is a great idea. Julie, why were you attracted

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to working for the Truth organization? I mean, this is a job where you're exposed to lots of footage

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of animals being literally tortured. It's tough on your mental health. So what attracted you

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and why did you decide to get engaged professionally with the Truth organization?

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Yeah. So as I mentioned, I started off dropping dairy first and that's when I started doing

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research and that's when you automatically end up with all these organizations that educate yourself

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and you end up with the animals. And then through my job search, I found Act Thruz and

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How does with many vegans that you have this aggression, passionate first, where you learn

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all these cruelties like, oh my God, I did not know we have to change the world. How do I help

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change the world? Kind of like that mindset. I think that happens to many vegans. You want to

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help change it. And obviously with the job posting that I found with Act Thruz, it looked like an

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opportunity to be part of that change, to help put it to an end. And I liked Act Thruz for the

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reasons I mentioned earlier, it focuses on one thing because especially if you start out new,

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it's overwhelming. Like all the different aspects of food, the food industry and all the different

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animals involved and tortured, it's just so complex. So having it reduced down to the

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chickens and to the eggs was very helpful for me to then also educate myself on that topic.

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And they kind of were a gateway then to learn about all the other aspects. And you're right,

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the footage you see every day is horrendous. It's awful. And especially me in the position

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where I post, where I try to educate people and where you learn that people react to the

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cruel ones more than to the cute ones. You are then also always on the search for cruel images.

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Like I have to look, I can't say, okay, I've seen enough. That's all I need to know. And

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I can go out and educate. No, I have to keep going back. I have to find new investigations to keep,

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you know, that in people's minds, like this is still ongoing. Like you saw this one, but it's

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still happening. And all these campaigns, there's still cruelty happening. They're still tortured.

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If there's a cage or not, it's still horrible. So I have to go back to all this footage every day.

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And as bad as it is, to be honest, you know, what's worse that you tell people all this,

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you show them the images and they don't care. This is so much harder than it looks.

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You show them the images and they don't care. This is so much harder and so much traumatizing

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to me, especially when it comes to friends and family where you think they're on your side,

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they take your stand. They understand. They would totally agree that abusing and exploiting an

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animal should not be done under any circumstance if it's not needed. And we do not need X to survive.

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And then they're like, yeah, but I like it. And that's the end of it. And you're like,

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and that makes it harder and more traumatizing, to be honest, that you are against those walls.

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And that's the cruel part. But that's also a part that motivates me to do a better job and to look

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at it from different angles and to find different ways of presenting the information to get through

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to people, because it's a very individual choice and a very individual journey for everyone. And

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people respond to different messages differently. And sometimes it's just a tiny seed you plant,

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something that just stays in the back of their head. And you keep bringing back messages.

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But yeah, that's the challenge. But definitely, yeah, you have to take a step back sometimes,

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because you can what they call over witness. But it's also what brings me back and what keeps

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me going and what keeps me motivated and what will hopefully keep me going until we see actual

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change. Well, let's talk about the negative reaction to your initiative. You know, I recently I was

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posting on Instagram and the algorithm just put me on the radar of a lot of, I guess,

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let's call them anti vegans. And all of a sudden, you know, my posts were flooded with people,

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you know, posting images of meat and talking about obscure studies on how my brain would shrink

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because of my vegan diet. And, you know, it felt ridiculous. It felt a bit funny, but it was also,

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you know, a bit disturbing. So did you have any of that?

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Honestly, it's it's actually more happening on our dairy through platforms.

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People feel more threatened if you tell them to, you know, stop eating cheese. But when it comes to

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eggs, it's what what happens more is that people come forward, say, oh, but I have backyard chickens

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and I'm nice to the chickens. So I have have good eggs. So that comes out first. And that really

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isn't isn't helping in our argument, because from our point of view, is it still exploiting the

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animals, you still use an animal that has been bred to lay eggs more than is necessary for

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for them in nature to like, you know, keep their their group and their species alive. So you still

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like abusing them and you're still helping the egg industry making eggs looks like a natural and nice

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and like cute little food, you know, from the cute little hen. So that's more happening on

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X-Ruice. Of course, there are sometimes people that say, oh, yeah, I love to eat chickens. And

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they post a picture of a roast chicken. But I mean, it's understandable if you

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if you confront people with something like this, something they've grown up with. And I see it in

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the children books that I read to my son, like you see the cute little farm and there's a hen and

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there's a cow and there's a pig and they're all happy there. And you know, they eat and they're

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just there there. And there's nothing else to it. But that's how we grew up. We learned that those

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animals, they live on farms. And they're happy on that farm. And then as you grow older, you never

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give it a second thought because those pictures kind of continue throughout the supermarket, right?

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It's on the labels, it's on the pictures above the shelves. So it's just a continuum. If then

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someone comes out, yes, look at that picture. That's the actual truth. People obviously feel,

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you know, offended. It's like, you know, we're not one to point fingers and say you are the cause of

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and because of you just take and die because I don't think it's very effective. But that's how

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people feel if you're threatened in their food choices and what many people do if they feel

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threatened, they fight back. Right. And usually it comes in with those crazy arguments and they

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find those ridiculous studies or whatever argument they bring forward just that they're able to hold

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on to their world feels like no, I'm right. I'm right. And here, this is why. And sometimes it

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looks very desperate, especially for us vegans who have been in this fight, so to speak, for many

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years. You've seen it repetitively brought up certain crazy arguments. But yeah, as I said,

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it's more it's people feel more threatened about their cheese than about their eggs. So we have

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bigger problems on dairy truth and bigger arguments. And for some reason, more farmers come forward

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that feel threatened because obviously we say that their industry has to be stopped, shouldn't be

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subsidized and so forth. And then the farmers come forward and they tell you all about it and that

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you have no idea. And because you're not a farmer, you are not allowed to speak about cows and what

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makes them happy and not. So that's more happening on dairy for some reason. Yeah. And we will talk

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about dairy truth later. But this is a great segue for my next question, which is what do you think

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of the clean and innocent image of the egg production industry? You know, this when I go

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to the supermarket and I look at the place where they put all the eggs, you know, it's white,

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it's clean. There are cute images, like you said, of chickens in the farm. And it's such a contrast

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with what you can find on eggtruth.com. So what do you think of that, of that whole marketing to

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just sell the eggs and that cultural image of the egg production? Nigel, would you like to comment?

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Yeah, I think it's great marketing, smart marketing, clever advertising. They are literally taking

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something that is ugly and violent and where there's immense suffering. And they have turned

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it into something that is welcomed, happy, wholesome, family oriented. I mean, you could go on

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with all sorts of adjectives. This is not by accident. This is by intention. The egg industry

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as the dairy industry have access to millions of dollars, not only in government subsidies, which

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they'll deny tooth and nail they receive any, which is an outright lie. And through checkoff

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programs, which is a hidden fee inside the eggs and dairy and the supply chain between the

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wholesaler and the retailer. Some of that money goes back to the national or provincial lobby

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groups to spend money on advertising. They go into schools, they develop educational programs.

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It's all by design. It's not by accident or anything. So, and to be quite honest, if I was

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head of an ad agency or head of creative for an ad agency or the lobby group, and I have a product,

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I have a product, there is a problem with it. How do we get people to consume it? And how do we get

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people to consume more of it next year than they did this year? And so you have to sanitize it in a

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way that people aren't going to think that you're trying to pull the rug over their eyes, but you're

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going to position it in such a way that, you know, encourages them and makes them feel good about

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buying it. And, and you know, it's interesting. I remember many, many years ago, I'm going to be

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dating myself here, but I used to get TV Guide magazine in the home, like millions of households,

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and it had your entire TV schedule for the week and TV Guide, but there was always BDS articles

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in there. And there was an article in there, one issue, and it was by an orthopedic surgeon.

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And the orthopedic surgeon described what would happen if you saw, if two men got into a fist fight,

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just like what you see on television. So the topic was violence on television and what you're seeing

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on television. And he would describe a television fight as this endless brawl with fists flying,

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it would go on for several minutes, chairs, and you know, and then he said in real life, what would

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happen, he would describe it clinically. He would refer to the bone in the hand that would crack,

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it might protrude through the skin. He depicted this ugly reality of what a simple fist fight

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would look like. And it would be over in 30 seconds, less so. And he said, the problem is,

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is that we as a culture take violence and we sanitize it because we want to sell it to other

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people en masse, whether it's in the form of entertainment, whether it's in the form of food,

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it doesn't matter. You show people the truth, the reality, they don't want to know. Show, lie to me,

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and show me something else. And I'll feel good about consuming it, whether again, whether it's

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watching violence or, and look, I consume entertainment like most people, but I know

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it's, you know, when I see, I know when I see real violence, you see the war in Ukraine,

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that's really disturbing. That's really upsetting and it should be, but we've sanitized it in our

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society. And so it's natural that they would do the same thing in terms of food. So, you know,

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through social media, through social media advertising, and we, you know, pockmark the year

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with small social media ad campaigns, but they're out there. We do do them. And occasionally we do

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some bigger campaigns if we can, you know, get the fundraising or the funds to execute a bigger

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program. But, and that's what we try to do sometimes is go into their domain, which is the

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advertising realm where they are have unfettered access and no one ever challenges them to go

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there and say, uh-uh, that's not what it's like. This is what it's like. Go to egg-truth.com or

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dairy-truth.com, learn the truth. And, um, and like Julie said, you're going to get people who,

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um, you know, will fight you tooth and nail, uh, you know, and, you know, I, I even, I remember I

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had somebody recently on egg truth, uh, posting about, uh, maybe it was, I shared the website.

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So I always see when I see anything news or posts, I'll share the website wherever again.

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And somebody said, well, it's, you know, they were talking with such authority that there's no way

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that a chick can be sexed. It's impossible. They can't sex a child. They can't have sex with a

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child. It's impossible. They can't sex a chick. What are you talking about? You're lying. And I'm

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like, dude, that's exactly what they call it. Sexing. There's a room where, where people sit

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around a table, a table where the chicks come in, they pick up the chicks, the male goes down one

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shoot and the female goes down another shoot. They're trained to sex the chicks, you know, so

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the people will, will just, just, just pull out the complete opposite reality and present that as

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if that's just a indisputable fact. Um, so, but again, like you said to your question, um, uh,

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I don't fault the industry for presenting it the way they do. Uh, their job is this is, this is,

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this is what it's about. It's about money. It's about their members. It's about supporting industry,

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growing in the industry, and they're doing what they should do as a for-profit industry to promote

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it. Um, uh, you know, moral and ethical issues aside, but in a free and open society that needs

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to be challenged. It should be challenged. And we do get pushback. Like when we, I can tell you lots

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of stories about outdoor ad companies who, who really, you know, um, um, refuse to run ads, you

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know, are antagonistic, outright belligerent because they, they don't want to give, they don't

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want to give an opportunity for another voice to come into the marketplace and present something

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that the only, the one side has had, you know, uh, generations, uh, an opportunity to do unopposed.

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What, what I find interesting, um, when you started a podcast, you brought up that, um,

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that, that article that talks about that if many years from now we would dig up the earth,

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we would find so many chicken bones that it may seem that chickens must have ruled the world at

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that point, which is our point right now. And that's the crazy part. How many chickens do you see in

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your daily life, considering the billions of chickens that are out there that are raised for

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meat that are used for, for eggs you don't. And even if you, um, go to the supermarket, there's

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one chicken on that packet, right? And even if you go beyond that and you go on their website

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from the egg industry with certain egg farmers, it's mostly about the egg farmer. They might show

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the farm and then a couple of hens, but the sheer size of it, the millions and millions of hands

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that are locked away for this industry, you'll never get to see this. And that's, and that's the

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crazy part, um, that we never get to see them, you know, like, um, I think, um, Ed Winters, the

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earthling at said, uh, posted the other day that, you know, people mostly meet those animals, what

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we call farm animals on a plate. They never see them in real life. They never touch the hen. They

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never see a hen or a cow or a pig or whatever it is. And, and that is the crazy part. And it's

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obviously used in our marketing scheme and used to keep the narrative alive, the narrative of like,

374
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:37,760
this is a farm animal and this is one we keep at home. This is okay to eat because of the

375
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:42,320
because of that. And, and yeah, you see that on the packaging and it helps people as much as that

376
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,800
to feel good about it. You feel good about buying eggs because it feels wholesome. It feels natural.

377
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:56,480
Um, yeah. I always say I can forgive the consumers for, you know, the cultural, uh, conditioning for,

378
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:02,480
you know, that marketing, but what about the executives, you know, the, the people running

379
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:10,000
those ads, uh, the people running those, uh, industries from their, uh, offices. Um, have you

380
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:17,280
ever had any interactions with them? And do you know if they are aware of the harm they are causing?

381
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:27,920
So me personally, I have spoken to someone. Um, and the crazy thing is they grew up with the same

382
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:32,160
narrative. They grew up in the same cultural setting where this is a farm animal and this is

383
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:37,520
why it's okay. That what you do to them. Um, and obviously as I said, they are, they are with an

384
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:42,800
economical interest, right? They want to make money. And so that will always be their point of

385
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:46,800
view. That will always be the set of glasses they look through and they look at the hands.

386
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:52,080
And, um, the question is, do they even think it's cruel? Do they even think it's bad to do that to

387
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:59,760
the hands? Um, does it matter? Um, and then, you know, they also have cognitive dissonance, you know,

388
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:04,960
um, they also can compartmentalize this. They might even call themselves a good farmer if they

389
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:11,760
implement a couple of more welfare, uh, rules on their farm. Um, so I think they fall for the same

390
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:20,720
cultural and narrative, uh, upbringing that the consumer falls too. Um, and the economic

391
00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:25,680
investment that they have in a farm probably helps to keep them there. And it's hard to,

392
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:30,960
to move away in that if you invested your life savings on a farm and now it has to, you know,

393
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:36,000
pay the bills and help raise your children and maybe they even step up to take over.

394
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:42,480
So there's so many aspects to it that kind of help them to stay and keep doing what they're doing.

395
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:48,560
I think, um, there are a few farmers that do kind of have this epiphany and wake up one day and say,

396
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:53,440
what am I doing? And that's very single cases and they're out there and they speak

397
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:57,840
about the cruelty that's going on and what's really happening and, um, what it means for the

398
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,800
animal that, but that's a minority and, um, probably often not heard and not, you know,

399
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:09,360
pushed out there in, uh, in the public media. Well, let's, yeah, I, I, sorry, I'll just add,

400
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,960
you know, um, when you mentioned executives, you know, there's the ad execs and there's the,

401
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:20,800
the execs of these companies. Um, you know, my wife, when she was with mercy for animals,

402
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:26,960
they did an investigation of West. Um, and it was, uh, you may recall it, it was where

403
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,480
they had video of the farm workers who catch the chickens and put them in the slam them in the

404
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:38,960
crates and put them onto the trucks. And there's a firm that whose business is, is as, as a

405
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:46,560
contractor to do that. And there was workers caught on camera, literally slamming the, picking up

406
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:52,640
the chickens by the legs and slamming their heads against the wall and on the ground. One was, uh,

407
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:59,600
uh, emulating or mock copulation with a chicken. Um, you know, just really horrible things.

408
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:06,240
And the company was, um, I believe it was the brand was Lilydale, but the parent company was

409
00:45:06,240 --> 00:45:12,160
Sofina foods, which is located in Burlington, Ontario. Well, the owner of Sofina foods is Michael

410
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:18,880
Latifi and Michael Latifi lives in, uh, the bridal path or Rosedale somewhere in Toronto,

411
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:25,200
when a very wealthy neighborhood on a large estate, very wealthy, his son, Nicholas Latifi

412
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:31,520
ended up racing for the Williams F1 racing team for three years. Um, and Sofina foods was

413
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:38,800
sponsorship on, on, on the car for the team. Um, it was funded by Michael Latifi and you know,

414
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:44,560
in many of my wife's previous investigations, when they go to the corporate company and say,

415
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:49,840
Hey, this is what we've done. Some have stepped up and said, okay, I want them out of our supply

416
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:56,720
chain done until that's fixed, you know, but even them, they all think it's an isolated incident.

417
00:45:56,720 --> 00:46:03,840
And Michael Latifi made no response. He left it to his PR people. They took the position. It was

418
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:08,560
an isolated incident, even though there was another investigation involving Lily, Lilydale,

419
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:18,480
brand turkeys also in BC. Um, uh, when you're in a Julie alluded to it, when you're that wealthy,

420
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:26,000
when your livelihood and the income and, and, uh, is, is so dependent, um, uh, you either,

421
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:30,240
you probably don't spend a lot of time visiting your suppliers. You don't walk into chicken

422
00:46:30,240 --> 00:46:35,440
barns. You probably don't go. Why would you, you know, that's for, that's for underlings to do.

423
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:42,240
You know, you, you know, you were, you have this cognitive dissonance, the same as farmers do to

424
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:49,680
some degree. Um, and it's a philosophical position, you know, um, some people are animals

425
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:54,480
are for food, period. That's it. It'll never change in their minds. Um, like Julie said,

426
00:46:54,480 --> 00:47:00,080
sometimes you'll get the odd farmer who breaks away and says, I can't do this anymore. Um,

427
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:06,880
there's lots of examples of that. And, um, I don't know, maybe the wealthier you become as a result

428
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:13,440
of this exploitation of animals, uh, the more invested you are in maintaining that power

429
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:23,040
structure, because it's, it's made you very, very wealthy. And, um, uh, I don't know, maybe it's

430
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:30,400
a greater level of, of cognitive dissonance. Maybe it's not, maybe you just simply don't care.

431
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:35,200
It's probably a number of things, but, uh, you know, it's a good question. And I, I don't know.

432
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:42,400
I often wonder what goes through those people's minds because they do inevitably, they're going

433
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:47,680
to see something on the news. They're going to see something, or even their kids, their kids got to

434
00:47:47,680 --> 00:47:55,760
come home at some point and say, dad, did you know this? You know, my friends at school said that

435
00:47:55,760 --> 00:48:02,800
this is what you do. This is, this video is one of your farms out in wherever, or maybe the kids,

436
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,320
I don't know, maybe private schools, they know they don't do that so much. I don't know. But,

437
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:13,040
uh, you know, they've, and look, there are examples of where an executive will change.

438
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:19,200
Look at Canada goose, look at the protest they used to do outside of that guy's home, the owner

439
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:25,280
of Canada goose. And I may be mistaken, but recently I think that they're in the next several years,

440
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:33,680
they're going to eliminate, um, uh, coyote fur from their, from their coats, from their clothing

441
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:38,560
wear. Now they haven't gotten to the goose down yet, but they're looking at getting rid of fur

442
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:45,520
from coyote. So there are examples of those who were intransigent and then there are those who

443
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:49,120
just, you know, do bow to public pressure. So got to keep it up.

444
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:57,600
I used to be a volunteer for Oxfam and I remember Oxfam America would always target the employees

445
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:04,320
of corporations they would go after. And I think that's something lacking among, uh, you know,

446
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:11,120
vegan organizations and vegan activists to really target the employees and, uh, not just, you know,

447
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:19,520
the, the consumers. Um, but let's get to the life of those chickens we have been talking about,

448
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:26,320
uh, since the beginning of this episode, eggtruth.com has a section called life of a hen.

449
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:33,680
And I would like to know, you know, what is the fate of the chickens exploited by this industry?

450
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:43,200
Uh, what is, uh, their life like and why, yeah. And are they sentient? You know, this is something,

451
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:51,200
um, I think at the most basic level, there are some people who don't even believe that

452
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:57,760
animals are sentient. They don't think that they can experience pain. They think of them as machines.

453
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:06,160
Um, so are they sentient? What is their life like in this, uh, industry? Um, yes, go ahead.

454
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:16,480
Um, uh, to answer the first question, yes, they are sentient. Um, they are mammals. They have brains,

455
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:22,080
they have central nervous system, they have pain receptors, they're conscious, they have memories,

456
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:28,400
they have, um, uh, exhibit all the cognitive functions that we would describe as sentience.

457
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:36,160
Um, on our, one of our blogs on egg-truth.com is, uh, one called the Cambridge declaration

458
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:43,600
of consciousness. And this is a group of scientists and neuroscientists who had, uh, had had had

459
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:50,000
an event a number of years ago at Cambridge university in the UK, in which all these scientists

460
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:57,600
came together and basically said animals are sentient, even cephalopods. Um, and they, they

461
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:02,960
have, they meet all the requirements for what we, what we deem to be sentience. And they actually

462
00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:10,160
pointed out, they singled out, uh, cephalopods and birds. And we've seen, you can go to YouTube and

463
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:16,320
find countless examples of birds exhibiting extraordinary behavior from making tools and

464
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:24,160
memory and so on. There's no question that they're sentient and ask anybody who rescues these animals.

465
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:33,520
They form relationships, they purr when you pet them, just like a cat, they, um, and they,

466
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:41,600
they respond to stimuli, compassionate, friendly stimuli versus aggressive and hateful stimuli,

467
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:48,160
just like all living beings. So when people say these animals aren't sentient, they, they are

468
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:53,200
just, they are, they either they're lying or they're, or they're fools. One of the two, I don't

469
00:51:53,200 --> 00:52:00,640
know which one it is in terms of their life. You know, 18 months is typically cited as the last

470
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:07,600
of a female hen. Um, they're obviously all bred in commercial hatcheries. Uh, they're sexed,

471
00:52:08,240 --> 00:52:14,160
the males into the macerator, which is a giant stainless steel hopper with high speed spinning,

472
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:18,800
spinning blades at the bottom. They all get dumped in there because males don't lay eggs and

473
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:25,040
they're not ideal for raising for meat. Uh, what they call broilers are genetically engineered,

474
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:30,800
selectively bred to produce large breasts and reach slaughter weight in 45 days. Those are not

475
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:39,040
male chicks as in the egg industry. Females will get d beat often, uh, to prevent predatory behavior

476
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:44,400
in confined spaces. Um, they'll get, sometimes they'll get their toes clipped. Usually the

477
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:50,400
roosters do cause they'll tend to be aggressive when copulating with the, um, the females. Um,

478
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:58,880
but, uh, they'll get vaccinated and they'll be sent to, um, uh, uh, temporary housing until

479
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:04,320
they're mature enough, uh, to, uh, lay eggs, which they'll then be either on the same farm or shipped

480
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:10,640
to another farm where they'll be housed for egg laying and that egg laying will take, you know,

481
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:16,640
uh, they'll lay an egg every, you know, 24 to 30 to maybe to 36 hours.

482
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:23,600
Um, they will, you know, often in Canada, certainly, uh, they'll often be finding confined

483
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:30,400
in cages, maybe six or eight to a cage on a wire floor. Um, they'll defecate and urinate through

484
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:35,920
the cage wire cage floor. They're usually built in a shape like this, so everything can fall down

485
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:40,400
into the manure pits, but inevitably it gets in on the other cages and the birds beneath them.

486
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:49,680
Um, they will, uh, have suffered feather loss, um, inactivity and, uh, being stationary for so long,

487
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:55,360
they'll often develop fatty liver syndrome. Um, they can experience egg impaction where the egg

488
00:53:55,360 --> 00:54:03,040
gets stuck in their overduck, uh, their ovary, um, and, uh, the shell will soften, it'll get infected.

489
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:09,360
They could have, um, prolapses where literally the reproductive organs just fall out of their body.

490
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:14,240
They'll often die in the cages and then they'll end up, you know, workers will come along and,

491
00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:22,320
and, um, uh, take them out, throw them in the garbage. Um, they'll, like I said, they'll lay

492
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:31,680
anywhere between 320 to 350 and some farms will lay about 300 to 350. Um, they'll lay about,

493
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:38,480
um, 350 and some farms, there's one in Iowa now, one in Germany that have reached 518 months. Um,

494
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:46,080
and you know, for clarity, birds lay eggs for reproduction only, uh, like in nature,

495
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,600
look at your birds in the spring. When they come out in the spring, they may lay a clutch or two a

496
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:56,080
season. That's it. Laying an egg every 30 hours is not natural. They have been selectively bred and

497
00:54:56,080 --> 00:55:02,400
genetically altered to do that. And that is a horrendous burden on their reproductive systems.

498
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:11,440
Um, despite being supplemented with calcium, their bones will still become brittle in, in,

499
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:17,920
in, in housing before they get transported and slaughter. Um, uh, I think compassion for world

500
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:22,640
farming in the UK found that one third of all hands that go to slaughter either go to slaughter

501
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:28,480
with either broken bones or have had broken bones that have healed improperly as a result. Um,

502
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:34,880
then of course, the birds are hung upside down, throats are slit, put into scalding hot water

503
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:40,640
tanks for de-feathering. Some of them are alive when they go into the scalding tanks and they come

504
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:46,400
out and then go through the, um, have the dismemberment phase of the slaughter process.

505
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:53,200
Um, some will argue that the male chicks have it easy because they're day old, but they're conscious

506
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:59,040
and alive and aware. Uh, they're, they're what I think I may get this word wrong. They're coccicidial

507
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:03,440
so that they're, when they're hatched, they're fully conscious and aware. Their eyes are open.

508
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,840
Unlike, you know, other mammals where their eyes will be closed for a period of time and they'll

509
00:56:07,840 --> 00:56:13,920
squeak and you know, the mother has to make sure they all get milk. Chicks are born conscious. They

510
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:19,280
even can communicate with the mothers in, while they're in the shell, they have, there's that

511
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:26,640
evidence of communication. Um, so it's really the female hands that have, you know, uh, have the

512
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:31,680
greatest duration of suffering and, and they're ultimately sent to slaughter. So it's, it's, um,

513
00:56:32,240 --> 00:56:39,120
uh, I don't know that if I sat around for a few hours, if I could think of anything worse in terms

514
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:45,680
of my goal was to impose as much suffering and torture on an animal, you know, than what they

515
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:52,160
do in the egg industry. Uh, maybe dairy, uh, you know, it's academic, whether you want to discuss

516
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:57,120
whether dairy or eggs are worse, but they're both horrendous in my view, but eggs in particular is,

517
00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:03,680
um, is very nasty. Yeah. I think you can summarize by saying that the egg is sorry, not the egg,

518
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:08,240
the hen, obviously the hen and all the other things are commodified. So from the first day

519
00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:13,120
is like, you know, naturally you see this fan on her nest sitting on her eggs until they hatch.

520
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:17,280
But what do you have in the egg industry? You have crates and crates full of eggs. There's no mother

521
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:21,840
hen around and they're in incubators. And that's where they, how their life starts. And that's

522
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:27,360
goes from that tray to the next tray to the sorting to the cage and so on. It's just a commodity from

523
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:32,880
day one, um, until their last day. And even the other aspect of the industry that people usually

524
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:37,200
don't talk about are what they call the parent flock. So who lays these eggs, who, you know,

525
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:41,520
someone has to lay these eggs that make the hens that layer eggs. And that's another aspect of the

526
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:46,320
industry. That's absolutely cruel where you put a couple of roosters with lots of hens and they're

527
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:53,200
like, you know, aggressively breeding to lay eggs, um, that then become our layer hens. And that

528
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:58,160
aspect is just as cruel and they have just as a short of a lifespan and are what they call

529
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:04,640
depopulated when they stop producing enough fertilized eggs. Um, and that's all part of the

530
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:09,440
industry. And, and as you mentioned, we have that page on our website called the life of a hen. And

531
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:14,000
this is one of the most visited pages on our websites. And there we obviously go into greater

532
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:19,040
detail as a Nigel outline. We look at, um, the different housing systems and what that really

533
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:26,480
means, um, for the hens and, um, to help people understand what's going on behind, uh, those sheds

534
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:31,280
and, uh, to make a better choice and see that certain labels don't really make a difference

535
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:38,800
in the lives of those hens. Yeah. Going back to that point on sentience, um, I had a guest, uh,

536
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:45,200
Kennedy little from, uh, farm transition academy. And she made the point that a lot of those workers

537
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:53,760
have a distorted view of animals because the animals they see have been broken. Um, their

538
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:58,800
spirit has been broken. You know, they're traumatized creatures. And so they look at them

539
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:05,680
and they don't see, uh, signs of, uh, you know, sentience, vitality or, or something like that.

540
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:12,640
They see just the, this poor creature. And so maybe that's why they, they get the idea that

541
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:20,320
this is just a machine. This is nothing more than, uh, an object. Um, I think also on that point,

542
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:25,680
Brian workers often, especially if you're new, you're getting into chicken catching,

543
00:59:25,680 --> 00:59:29,680
you're a summer university student, or maybe you're living in a rural environment and your

544
00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:36,800
job opportunities aren't very broad. Um, you go working on a farm, there's almost, um, a necessity

545
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:43,520
for those workers who have to desensitize themselves to the plight of the animals because

546
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:51,680
they can't function on a daily basis. And we know from studies and research, um, that, you know,

547
00:59:51,680 --> 00:59:57,920
I'll cite Smithfield Foods down in North Carolina, a massive pig slaughter facility. It's now owned

548
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:06,640
by a Chinese firm. Um, but workers there, you know, um, uh, managers of the company, they would have,

549
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:12,720
they would have African-American employees, Indigenous American employees, and poor white

550
01:00:12,720 --> 01:00:17,840
employees. And they would literally pit the groups against one another. So there was racial conflict

551
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:22,640
within the workplace. So certain groups would work in another area. One ethnic group would work in

552
01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:29,520
another area, but all eventually, you know, they wouldn't report their, their injuries because they

553
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:34,480
would get taken off the line, fired. There was no medical support. So they would suffer some of the

554
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:41,840
highest workplace injuries occur in slaughter facilities of any industry, anywhere. And they also,

555
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:49,440
um, they also, um, uh, there are excessive crime rates, domestic violence in these communities

556
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:55,840
where these massive slaughter factories are. This is no coincidence. These are people, again,

557
01:00:55,840 --> 01:01:01,440
some who have no other options for, for employment, go to work in these places and

558
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:10,160
have, suffer either from PTSD, a lot of them do, unrecognized, undiagnosed, and, you know, they come

559
01:01:10,160 --> 01:01:16,960
home and, and they have this level of irritation and aggravation and even aggressiveness. Uh, they

560
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:22,000
come home and, you know, you come home and the kids are screaming and the wife hasn't made dinner

561
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:30,160
or whatever, you know, traditional households. You come home and you blow, you blow a fuse and somebody

562
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:36,560
gets smacked around, somebody gets hit. These things, again, no coincidence. And these large

563
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:44,080
companies, you know, um, they are responsible for the social ills that come out, come out of

564
01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:52,720
this industry. And there are many from health to mental health, um, workplace injuries and so on.

565
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:56,800
And many of them, you know, especially in the United States, less so here, but it still happens

566
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:03,360
here. Um, they have a responsibility for that. And, you know, even if you look at something like,

567
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:08,000
uh, immigration issues, which in the States, it's all they ever talk about, build the wall,

568
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:15,360
immigration. Well, you go down to Mexico or Central America, you can hear recruitment ads in print,

569
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:22,320
on radio, in Spanish, all these massive slaughter companies trying to get people to come up to work

570
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:26,560
and they'll even, they won't outrightly help them to get into the country illegally. But,

571
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,440
you know, if you come in undocumented, they're not going to spend too much time asking you for

572
01:02:31,440 --> 01:02:36,960
your documentation. They are one of the biggest recruiters of illegal immigrants into any,

573
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:41,840
many countries to work in these, in these slaughter facilities, because most American

574
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:46,960
born citizens, as most Canadian born citizens, they don't want to do these jobs. They don't

575
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:54,560
want to do this kind of work and undocumented or temporary foreign workers. They don't care. The

576
01:02:54,560 --> 01:03:01,760
employers don't care about them. They don't care about their PTSD. They, they're going to, um,

577
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:04,480
they're going to use them up and spit them out because they know next season, they're going to

578
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:09,120
get a whole new crop of temporary foreign workers or illegal immigrants. And that's where the,

579
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:13,600
the connection between human rights and animal rights is, is, is very, very clear. I know that's

580
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:18,880
a little off topic, but I just wanted to get that in there. It's, it's a pertinent point. Uh, you

581
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:26,080
know, I always, I'm always shocked by how this industry is just bad on every level, you know,

582
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:34,000
environmental level, human level, uh, of course, animal welfare. And, you know, sometimes I'm,

583
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:39,360
I'm stuck with using some religious language, like this is evil. You know, this is an evil industry.

584
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:47,360
Like there, there's no better word to describe this, uh, activity that, that we're, um, uh,

585
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:55,040
doing as humans. Um, do you think it's possible? And you brushed off on that, uh, Julie, uh, do

586
01:03:55,040 --> 01:04:01,840
you think it's possible to have a humane egg production industry as, uh, many companies, uh,

587
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:09,440
you know, market themselves to be, uh, you know, this, uh, chicken was raised, uh, free range and,

588
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:17,120
uh, it was happy during its life. Um, and things like that we can read on, uh, on the packaging of

589
01:04:17,120 --> 01:04:23,520
those products. Well, question back, how would you define the humane aspect of this? What is humane?

590
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:32,800
Do you have a definition? Well, we would need to ask them what is really humane. Why are they

591
01:04:32,800 --> 01:04:40,560
saying it is humane? Um, but I understand your point. So the problem is that it's not like many

592
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:47,440
other labels or certification. There's no, uh, no official definition or official, um, regulation

593
01:04:47,440 --> 01:04:52,720
about it. And what I like to say when it comes to agony, I can choose like there is no right way to

594
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:59,760
do the wrong thing. Right. Um, no, I don't think there is a humane way to produce eggs because it's

595
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:05,920
intrinsically wrong to exploit that animal. As Nigel hinted earlier that the amount of eggs

596
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:10,320
they lay, no matter the setting where she lays them, that is already the cruelty because she's

597
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:16,400
been bred to do that. Um, hence develop over in cancer because of the over overly activities of

598
01:05:16,400 --> 01:05:23,040
their, um, in our organs. And there's just no way to do it. Right. Um, even if you look at backyard

599
01:05:23,040 --> 01:05:30,800
situations, they still rely on that breeding, uh, that came initially. They often also rely on,

600
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:36,080
um, getting the chicks from hatcheries, which is still a cruel place where they kill the male chicks.

601
01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:44,000
Um, many, um, if you stay with the backyard situation are probably not willing to care for

602
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:49,680
the animals that goes beyond them laying enough eggs, say they get, they get sick. First, they

603
01:05:49,680 --> 01:05:54,000
might be hard pressed to find a vet that has any knowledge about how to treat a chicken. Second,

604
01:05:54,000 --> 01:06:01,040
are they ready to spend say $500 on one vet bill? If they find one that treat them, are they ready

605
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:07,840
to do that? I'd say many wouldn't because then they look at, okay, how many X does this hen produce?

606
01:06:07,840 --> 01:06:12,320
Is that worth the $500 for that one treatment? And then you go back to the commodification

607
01:06:13,200 --> 01:06:19,280
and you end up in the same situation, even if it's dialed down to a backyard. Um, and the worst is

608
01:06:19,280 --> 01:06:24,000
that even if the people that have those many Instagram accounts that, you know, share their

609
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:28,320
perfect picture, perfect life of the few hens roaming around in their garden and being part of

610
01:06:28,320 --> 01:06:35,360
their little garden ecosystem, they just help people to feel good about eating eggs. They still

611
01:06:35,360 --> 01:06:40,560
feel good about if they buy the cage free supermarket egg, because they remember that video where that

612
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:46,160
hen was so happy. And isn't that the same? Isn't that that where that came from? So I don't think

613
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:51,520
there's a humane way to do it. And you know, the thing is we don't need to eat eggs. There is no

614
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:58,320
reason why we have to fight for this industry to survive. We don't need eggs to survive. We don't

615
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:05,600
need eggs to be healthy. We don't need eggs to have a complete, um, diet. So if we keep fighting

616
01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:09,920
for our eggs, then really what we're doing is saying, I like eggs and that's why I want to eat

617
01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:14,720
them. And that's why I'm okay with those animals going through whatever they're going through.

618
01:07:14,720 --> 01:07:20,160
And that what it comes down to, no matter if they're from a backyard operation or from a large

619
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:23,440
large industry and cages or cage free situations.

620
01:07:25,520 --> 01:07:31,040
Um, yes, it's a really good point. Did you want to add something Nigel?

621
01:07:32,800 --> 01:07:40,720
Um, um, I, you know, Julie touched on backyard, uh, hence, and I think that's probably

622
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:46,240
the one scenario where you'll get, um, um,

623
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:54,960
um, people advocating for more than anything else in terms of this humane sort of scenario.

624
01:07:56,960 --> 01:08:04,640
And, uh, you know, look, do I think a hen living in a small backyard with a coop and

625
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:09,600
places they can, you know, dust, bathe and pack off the ground and walk around

626
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:14,960
that are, yes, inevitably going to lay an egg and the person who owns the home is going to

627
01:08:14,960 --> 01:08:22,640
eat that egg. Is that better than, you know, being in a battery cage? Um, yeah, I mean,

628
01:08:22,640 --> 01:08:30,080
let's be honest, it is better. Um, but again, as I may have alluded to earlier,

629
01:08:30,640 --> 01:08:36,000
you know, we can often discuss the issue of treatment and that's what this is about.

630
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:41,680
When you bring up the issue of humane, it is an issue of treatment, which means

631
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:50,240
regardless of the scenario, you are accepting that treating an animal as a commodity is using

632
01:08:50,240 --> 01:08:56,800
them as a resource for the sole benefit or utility of us humans. You're, you've already

633
01:08:56,800 --> 01:09:04,160
crossed that line and now you're into this discussion about treatment. So the, the issue

634
01:09:04,160 --> 01:09:12,080
of use is, is really, you know, the treatment compounds the initial harm. The primary harm

635
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:19,200
is use. And like Julie said, you know, yeah, they're in a backyard, but they're still going

636
01:09:19,200 --> 01:09:25,600
to be laying an egg every 24 to 30 hours because they have 10,000 years of human intervention

637
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:31,680
acting as an artificial agent for natural selection. And here we are, the 21st century,

638
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:39,120
the 21st century, they're laying 350 up to 500 eggs in 18 months, which is, which is,

639
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:46,000
anyways, it's, it's, it's, it's insanity. And, you know, I have this discussion on social media

640
01:09:46,000 --> 01:09:53,280
with people sometimes, and I always say to people, why did you get a backyard hen? Is it for you

641
01:09:53,280 --> 01:10:00,400
or is it for the hen? If it's for the hen, as you say, then my recommendation is, is to find an

642
01:10:00,400 --> 01:10:08,880
avian vet, take your, your hen to the avian vet and have a subcutaneous hormonal implant

643
01:10:09,920 --> 01:10:16,080
and they're readily available or so in Canada and the U S there's issues in the U S with the FDA and

644
01:10:16,080 --> 01:10:22,560
limitations on these hormonal implants, but they will prevent that hen from laying eggs for months

645
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:28,640
and months. It isn't cheap, but you know, I mean, we all know a visit to the vet with our cat or

646
01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:34,560
dog and ended up with three or $400 just like that. So this was really no different. And that will

647
01:10:34,560 --> 01:10:41,520
result in egg laying cessation. And you talk to people on farm sanctuaries where they do this to

648
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:46,720
prevent egg impaction, to limit the risks of ovarian cancer, which I forgot to mention in the

649
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:52,720
life of a hen, Julie mentioned it earlier. So thank you for reminding me on that ovarian cancer,

650
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:57,280
they had the highest rates of spontaneously occurring ovarian cancer of any species in the

651
01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:04,720
world. And that is because of their manipulated reproductive systems. So this implant will help

652
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:11,520
them eliminate egg laying for months on end. It has to be renewed every so often, but if the hen

653
01:11:11,520 --> 01:11:16,480
and their welfare is a primary consideration, which they always say they are, and it's really

654
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:22,480
not thereafter the eggs without the guilt, they want guilt free eggs, but it's, you know, and

655
01:11:22,480 --> 01:11:27,920
farm sanctuary workers will tell you time and time again, the difference in the animal's behavior,

656
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:35,760
personality is dramatically is altered once these hormonal implants are put in, because

657
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:42,800
this constant laying, this constant hormonal activity in their bodies to lay eggs almost daily

658
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:48,240
takes a toll. I mean, and look at a pregnant human being, a woman, look what she goes through in nine

659
01:11:48,240 --> 01:11:52,960
months of gestation, look at the postpartum depression sometimes that they can endure

660
01:11:52,960 --> 01:12:00,320
after giving birth. So look at all the hormonal flux that goes on in a human being's body,

661
01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:05,440
woman's body during, you know, that period of time, think about it for a small animal,

662
01:12:05,440 --> 01:12:11,120
who's doing it every 30, 36 hours for, you know, for the rest of their lives, potentially. So

663
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:17,840
to stop that would really be to the benefit from their, from a health perspective, and from their

664
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:26,880
own well-being. So the answer is no, there is no humane scenario. It isn't humane. And you're still

665
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:34,320
crossing that, that in what is in my mind, an impenetrable moral barrier with you cannot cross

666
01:12:34,320 --> 01:12:40,720
that line into accepting the idea that we can use other living beings for, for our own benefit.

667
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:47,040
And maybe one last thing to add to that point. People often when they look at nitrocosm,

668
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:51,760
guilt-free eggs, they think about, you know, the carton of 12 eggs, but eggs are in so many other

669
01:12:51,760 --> 01:12:57,600
products, you know, that you buy and no one looks at those eggs and where they come from. So there's

670
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:03,440
a big part of that industry that feeds into that. And even if you spend an extraordinary amount of

671
01:13:03,440 --> 01:13:10,000
money to like happy or good eggs, you still are not free of all the eggs that are in those products.

672
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:16,320
Same as when you go to a restaurant, you do not know where those eggs came from. So the best is

673
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:23,440
if you really care for hands, if you really love hands, then just don't eat eggs. And we're

674
01:13:23,440 --> 01:13:31,600
recording this conversation, we're in the month of August. And it's often during autumn that we see

675
01:13:31,600 --> 01:13:38,320
people wanting to get rid of their hand, their backyard hand, because it stopped laying eggs.

676
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:47,760
You know, there's a period of two years for those chickens where they're laying their eggs.

677
01:13:47,760 --> 01:13:55,120
And then after that period, they stop and often their caretaker just, you know,

678
01:13:55,120 --> 01:14:03,040
put them online on social media and try to find someone to take care of them. Yeah.

679
01:14:03,040 --> 01:14:09,840
So we mentioned on that point, Ryan, I'll just interject. You're right. And since a lot of

680
01:14:09,840 --> 01:14:16,160
municipalities across the country are starting to allow people to have and raise backyard hands

681
01:14:16,160 --> 01:14:22,560
and backyard flocks under the guise of, you know, local food, right. That's a good thing. Local,

682
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:27,040
you know, less than 100 kilometers from your home, produce your own food. So municipalities,

683
01:14:27,040 --> 01:14:32,240
cities are now starting to allow this. And as you said, once they start to develop either health

684
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:40,160
problems or their egg laying wains after 18 months, two years, I've read stories and Montreal SPCA

685
01:14:40,160 --> 01:14:46,480
was a perfect example saying, we're now starting to see people dumping hens. You know, it used to

686
01:14:46,480 --> 01:14:51,280
be just cats and dogs and the odd reptile. Now they're seeing birds and hens showing up

687
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:55,760
because people don't want them anymore. So now that's that cost, that burden is now falling

688
01:14:55,760 --> 01:15:05,280
towards the municipality. Their local or regional SPCA body or entity has to deal with that. And of

689
01:15:05,280 --> 01:15:10,400
course, what ends up happening, it'll often get euthanized or sometimes they'll get rehomed. But

690
01:15:10,400 --> 01:15:15,120
you know, it's just the same pattern all over again, different species, but same pattern.

691
01:15:15,120 --> 01:15:23,440
Oh, yes. I'm based in Quebec here in Montreal. And, you know, when I talk to sanctuary, you know,

692
01:15:23,440 --> 01:15:33,040
vegan farm sanctuaries, owners, they often tell me that we're at full capacity. And every year

693
01:15:33,600 --> 01:15:41,920
there is just an army of new chickens, even roosters, looking for homes, looking for

694
01:15:41,920 --> 01:15:50,720
places where to and it started with this whole backyard trend. So yeah, it's a sad situation.

695
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:59,280
We mentioned that egg truth is just part of, you know, it's one of the initiatives that

696
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:08,320
the truth organization has launched. There is also dairy truth.com. And I would love to hear you

697
01:16:08,320 --> 01:16:14,800
talk, you know, say a few words about this platform. And I'm very curious about,

698
01:16:14,800 --> 01:16:22,000
is your organization planning on launching a new platform of the sort maybe about pigs this time?

699
01:16:25,120 --> 01:16:28,800
Go ahead, on the initial thought of why launching dairy truth, Nigel.

700
01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:39,040
Okay. Yeah, I guess, you know, again, it was, you know, once egg truth was up and running and,

701
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:46,720
and, you know, the activities were, you know, in play, the social media channels were set up and

702
01:16:47,360 --> 01:16:53,840
I ended up thinking, okay, well, I can just simply replicate this. You know, I don't have to reinvent

703
01:16:53,840 --> 01:17:01,200
the wheel. So it'll, you know, be a lot easier to, to produce a website and social media platform for

704
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:06,720
the other obvious, or at least to me, the obvious focus, which was, you know,

705
01:17:06,720 --> 01:17:13,840
the obvious focus, which was dairy. Because again, that whole, you know, transition and the

706
01:17:13,840 --> 01:17:21,280
experience of so many vegans is that is that dairy and eggs, you know, is one of the last sort of

707
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:30,880
things that we recognize are problematic. And, and sometimes people give up dairy last, sometimes

708
01:17:30,880 --> 01:17:36,560
they give up eggs last, but again, everyone says, I only know when I first started this, I would have

709
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:44,880
probably started there. So, and so the, you know, the, the, the one thing that I wanted to add to

710
01:17:44,880 --> 01:17:49,440
the, to the, to the dairy truth side of things was the environmental aspect, because dairy has a

711
01:17:49,440 --> 01:17:56,640
certainly much more significant environmental impact than on the egg industry. Both are not good,

712
01:17:56,640 --> 01:18:09,120
but dairy in particular is very, very troublesome. And we, we had a professor who's written on this

713
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:19,280
subject many times provide the content for that page on our website. And again, as you'd mentioned,

714
01:18:19,280 --> 01:18:24,000
Ryan earlier, that there are some vegans, you know, who come to veganism by way of, you know,

715
01:18:24,000 --> 01:18:30,160
the animal welfare issue, some come from the health aspect, health and nutrition, some come

716
01:18:30,160 --> 01:18:38,240
from the environmental side. So this was an opportunity to, you know, put information out

717
01:18:38,240 --> 01:18:43,360
there that hopefully those who were, you know, whose main concern was environment would could

718
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:52,480
find their way to a dairy free life as well. So, and having Julie on board, you know, this would

719
01:18:52,480 --> 01:19:00,240
this would double the work. And so I can't even remember now, Julie, whether we had dairy truth

720
01:19:00,240 --> 01:19:05,440
running at the time when you started or... No, you already knew that you wanted to launch it. And,

721
01:19:05,440 --> 01:19:11,840
and then when I was already working with Egg Truth, I think it was just, it just fit the overall theme

722
01:19:11,840 --> 01:19:16,160
that as Nigel mentioned, also the last big obstacles for vegetarians usually become vegan.

723
01:19:16,800 --> 01:19:22,160
And again, with the idea that really single out that one industry, because to every of these

724
01:19:22,160 --> 01:19:26,400
industries, there's so many layers, so many aspects to it that we mentioned the workers,

725
01:19:26,960 --> 01:19:32,160
we mentioned environment, there's so many parts of it. And I find it hard to give it justice and the

726
01:19:32,160 --> 01:19:36,560
space it needs and the information it needs on a website where you just put in all the farm animals

727
01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:40,880
and maybe then even animals for entertainment and, and so on and so forth. And I think that was the

728
01:19:40,880 --> 01:19:48,240
idea to have the basically the, yeah, the look and feel of the Egg Truth kind of, so people were

729
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:55,040
familiar with that. And then just do that for dairy as well. And I think we had great responses. I

730
01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:59,600
think people really, really took to it and really liked it again as a source to share and point

731
01:19:59,600 --> 01:20:04,240
people to, but also to educate themselves on various aspects of the dairy industry. And there

732
01:20:04,240 --> 01:20:10,800
are so many, so many parts to it that are just so cruel and not even known to most people that

733
01:20:10,800 --> 01:20:16,960
don't even know that cows not continuously give milk. So we educate on a very basic level, but we

734
01:20:16,960 --> 01:20:23,760
also go really down into detail. And again, we also help people then to transition out of dairy. Like

735
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:28,160
what do I eat and study? We're asking about our favorite cheese. We have a long list of products

736
01:20:28,160 --> 01:20:33,120
that are not to promote, they're not sponsored. It's just like here, if you want to replace it,

737
01:20:33,120 --> 01:20:37,920
if you can't give it up, those are great products you might look at and use. And that's on there.

738
01:20:38,480 --> 01:20:44,240
And what we also try is to highlight and share sanctuaries, which are a bit an important part

739
01:20:44,240 --> 01:20:50,960
of the vegan movement, a big part of educating and sharing animals and animals as individuals and not

740
01:20:50,960 --> 01:20:59,600
animals of like a mass in a crowded shed where it's easier to not care. It's harder to not care. If

741
01:20:59,600 --> 01:21:04,880
you see that one that has a name, but it has a story that has feelings, that has preferences

742
01:21:04,880 --> 01:21:09,840
and that you keep seeing on social media. And we're trying to give them space and to have their

743
01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:16,080
animals shown and heard and just help people to like fall in love with those animals. And if it's

744
01:21:16,080 --> 01:21:21,200
sometimes feels hard to not eat cheese, then go back to those animals and then you get reminded

745
01:21:21,200 --> 01:21:26,320
why you're doing it, why it's important to not eat that cheese that is made of dairy.

746
01:21:27,440 --> 01:21:32,000
And then so for the future right now, we're really focused on growing what we have right now,

747
01:21:32,000 --> 01:21:36,800
because I think there's still potential. We really see ourselves as that one step

748
01:21:36,800 --> 01:21:42,400
place where people go to educate themselves on eggs or dairy. As I said, usually they're just like,

749
01:21:42,400 --> 01:21:46,320
oh, just check egg throughs or just take dairy throughs. And I think there's still a place for

750
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:52,480
us to grow that people see us at that resource. And then who knows what the future holds. I think

751
01:21:52,480 --> 01:22:00,320
it would make sense to stay in the space of maybe food, but not food that obviously is caused in

752
01:22:00,320 --> 01:22:04,960
slaughter. So I could think honey would be something like that, but there's nothing of this planned

753
01:22:04,960 --> 01:22:09,600
yet. It's just, as I said, I think it would make sense to stay in that part of the food industry.

754
01:22:10,240 --> 01:22:14,960
But as for now, we're just trying to push egg throughs in there, through out there,

755
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:21,520
and try to be more present, find different ways of presenting the information and make people care

756
01:22:22,320 --> 01:22:31,360
and hopefully become vegan. And I encourage people to visit those two websites, eggthrough.com and

757
01:22:31,360 --> 01:22:38,480
dairytruth.com. I just want to correct you on that, Ryan. It's egg-truth.com and dairy-truth.com.

758
01:22:38,480 --> 01:22:45,680
I did try to get the other URLs and I couldn't. I've got some other ones too, like eggtruth.ca

759
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:53,920
or dairytruth.ca and so on. I've got so many URLs that redirect to our website, but the eggtruth.com

760
01:22:53,920 --> 01:23:00,160
one actually was, I think it was a pig farm in Iowa, had that URL. For some reason, I have no idea

761
01:23:00,160 --> 01:23:06,000
why. I did try to get it, but I couldn't. So I had to put the dash in there. And like I said,

762
01:23:06,000 --> 01:23:09,040
we have other iterations of the URLs that redirect there, but yeah.

763
01:23:09,040 --> 01:23:15,040
Well, the links will be in the description. And I know that they are essential tools for me.

764
01:23:15,040 --> 01:23:26,000
Like you said, Nigel, earlier, I like to just post the link instead of starting to argue my way with

765
01:23:26,000 --> 01:23:32,800
people. I wish it was translated in French because I have many friends here who speak French and

766
01:23:32,800 --> 01:23:40,560
would benefit from reading egg-truth.com in their native language.

767
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:50,320
Well, it's interesting that you should say that. And Julie's right. We're going to just stay focused

768
01:23:50,320 --> 01:23:57,120
on egg-truth.com and dairytruth.com for now, continue to grow those social media platforms,

769
01:23:57,920 --> 01:24:08,800
try to create awareness about those resources. But yeah, having the website in other languages

770
01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:17,600
is certainly something that's down the road. Interestingly, when I did the

771
01:24:17,600 --> 01:24:27,360
outdoor ad campaign back in 2018 or 2019, spring, the number of inquiries I had from around the world

772
01:24:28,160 --> 01:24:34,960
where they wanted the poster that was created, but they wanted it in their language. So I said,

773
01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:44,000
okay, you send me everything in, whether it's Spanish, I think we did Spanish, Italian,

774
01:24:44,000 --> 01:24:54,320
Polish, and we didn't do a French one, but we did a number of them. And I basically recreated the

775
01:24:54,320 --> 01:24:59,440
posters in those languages and sent them to creative that they could print however big or small

776
01:24:59,440 --> 01:25:08,800
they wanted. And so one of the languages that we may look at doing initially is, well, certainly

777
01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:17,040
French, but Spanish, because Central and South America is massive markets. And yeah, that's

778
01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:28,080
something that certainly should be in the pipeline. And even although Australians speak English too,

779
01:25:28,080 --> 01:25:34,640
the brochure that we had for that campaign, I had a couple of farm sanctuaries in Australia,

780
01:25:34,640 --> 01:25:40,480
who wanted it. And I said, well, I said, you can have it. I said, but it actually references a hen

781
01:25:40,480 --> 01:25:47,680
that lives at Happily Everest or farm sanctuary in Campbellville, Ontario. And it mentions

782
01:25:47,680 --> 01:25:55,920
famous celebrities in Canada who were vegan, Brian Adams, and the hockey player, George LaRocque,

783
01:25:55,920 --> 01:26:01,120
and some other ones that, and a figure skater came figure skater. So I'd have to go to the

784
01:26:01,120 --> 01:26:07,280
Australianize that for you. So they sent me information and pictures of a hen that they

785
01:26:07,280 --> 01:26:12,400
had at a sanctuary and mentioned some Australian celebrities who were vegan. So I Australianize

786
01:26:12,400 --> 01:26:17,600
the brochure and just sent it to them to give it to them to print and use however they wish.

787
01:26:17,600 --> 01:26:24,080
Because at the end of the day, collaboration and sharing of all this information is really

788
01:26:24,080 --> 01:26:31,200
an important part of what we do. And when I see an egg truth post, like I'll see,

789
01:26:31,200 --> 01:26:36,240
I'll remember even before Julie came on board and I was doing memes every day and designing memes,

790
01:26:36,240 --> 01:26:40,560
I designed a meme and I put it out there. And two years later or three years later, I see like,

791
01:26:40,560 --> 01:26:45,120
I don't know, Jean Bauer from farm sanctuary sharing it with a comment. And of course,

792
01:26:45,120 --> 01:26:49,680
Jean Bauer is going to get like, you know, 15, 20,000 likes and reactions to it.

793
01:26:49,680 --> 01:26:57,840
That's that makes me feel great because, you know, I love to see it. Other people posted

794
01:26:57,840 --> 01:27:04,720
people I don't even know some I do some I don't. But our goal is to as a resource, like you said,

795
01:27:04,720 --> 01:27:11,040
you use it as a resource for people who were either active animal rights activists and advocates or

796
01:27:11,040 --> 01:27:16,720
people who were passive and on social media and don't always have the right media to share it.

797
01:27:16,720 --> 01:27:21,760
And on social media and don't always have the right words or how to argue or take a position.

798
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:27,440
You can just simply say, here, I think you should read this, you know, and that's that's great.

799
01:27:28,240 --> 01:27:31,520
As long as, you know, it can be a resource for resharing.

800
01:27:33,200 --> 01:27:36,240
That's tremendous. I can reach so many people.

801
01:27:37,040 --> 01:27:43,040
I love hearing that. And I'm so grateful that you're working so hard on those two initiatives,

802
01:27:43,040 --> 01:27:52,080
you know, it's so it's done by experts. And it's not, you know, we see a lot of pseudoscience in

803
01:27:52,080 --> 01:27:59,840
vegan circles, you know, a lot of unfiltered articles and things said about the industry.

804
01:27:59,840 --> 01:28:08,880
And I like to see to have trust in a in a tool like yours. So thank you so much for working

805
01:28:08,880 --> 01:28:19,120
so hard on egg-truth.com and dairy-truth.com. And before we end this conversation, did you want to

806
01:28:19,120 --> 01:28:24,320
add something? Well, as you said, we have the website, but we also very active on social media

807
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:30,640
because for the website, people actively have to want to educate themselves. But I think we're also

808
01:28:30,640 --> 01:28:36,400
out there to get the people that might need a little push. And so we're very active on social

809
01:28:36,400 --> 01:28:41,440
media. We're on all the known platforms on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and now the new

810
01:28:42,960 --> 01:28:49,600
threat. We're all out there so people can find us there same name. And we're happy for people to

811
01:28:49,600 --> 01:28:57,520
check us out to share us to just reference us. And that's a big part of our advocacy to like

812
01:28:57,520 --> 01:29:03,120
actively go out and actively put the content in front of people, hoping that even if they don't

813
01:29:03,120 --> 01:29:07,120
reply, even if they don't share their story, but hoping to plant some seeds in the back of the

814
01:29:07,120 --> 01:29:12,720
heads and hopefully convince people that it might be better if we leave eggs and dairy off our plates.

815
01:29:14,160 --> 01:29:21,520
I hope so. I truly hope so. I'm rooting for you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you both of you

816
01:29:21,520 --> 01:29:28,560
for having taken the time to answer my questions, share your insights. Thank you so much. Thank you

817
01:29:28,560 --> 01:29:33,920
Ryan very much. It was a pleasure. And we're hoping to do something a bit more

818
01:29:36,880 --> 01:29:45,760
public in the fall. We're working on some things right now that hopefully we'll certainly let you

819
01:29:45,760 --> 01:29:51,440
know or give you the heads up if it happens. And so you can actively share and promote that with

820
01:29:51,440 --> 01:29:56,800
your listeners. But again, yeah, thanks for having us on. Thank you everyone for listening. What an

821
01:29:56,800 --> 01:30:03,840
amazing conversation this was. I am so grateful that the truth organization exists. I invite you

822
01:30:03,840 --> 01:30:10,240
to share this episode with your community. They need to learn what is happening behind the scenes

823
01:30:10,240 --> 01:30:18,000
of the egg industry. And finally, let me know if you liked this conversation, leave me a good review

824
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:26,000
or reach out on Instagram at vegan report podcast. Thank you again for listening. Take care and see

825
01:30:26,000 --> 01:30:30,800
you next Tuesday for a new episode.