Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation - Episode 566: Nourishment from Within ft Haile Thomas

Episode 566: Nourishment from Within ft Haile Thomas

11/14/20 • 81 min

Our Hen House: Vegan & Animal Rights Movement | Stories from the Frontlines of Animal Liberation

At just 19 years old, Haile Thomas is already an international speaker, wellness activist, vegan advocate, and the author of Living Lively: 80 Plant-Based Recipes to Activate Your Power and Feed Your Potential. Needless to say, we are thrilled that she is joining us on Our Hen House this week. Haile is the founder and CEO of HAPPY (Healthy, Active, Positive, Purposeful, Youth), a non-profit organization—founded when she was only 12 years old—that seeks to redefine youth empowerment through education and offers affordable peer-to-peer plant-based nutritional education. The youngest person to graduate as a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach in the United States, Haile spreads her message of empowerment and happiness from within everyday on social media with the tagline “Let’s Grow Together.”
On today’s interview, Haile shares her story of how she became passionate about holistic wellness and how the foods we eat deeply affect us in so many ways. She talks about her journey thus far (including the frightening event that motivated her to research the benefits of living plant-based), and the inspiration behind HAPPY and its work to nurture and guide the next generation towards becoming happy, informed, and active world citizens. We also discuss what we mean, and what we should mean, when we talk about “self-care,” how to find ways of taking care of yourself that actually work for YOU, and ways to help you avoid succumbing when you feel overwhelmed.
In this week’s “Our Hen House Supports Vegan Businesses” segment, we’re shouting out Misha’s Kind Foods and Lily’s Vegan Pantry, both of which are open for online ordering and shipping. Misha’s is a Black-owned plant-based company that makes artisan non-dairy cheeses and cheese spreads. Lily’s Vegan Pantry is a family owned and operated business located in the heart of Chinatown, New York City. Their goal is to offer a wide range of healthy, delicious and enjoyable vegan alternatives. Formerly known as May Wah Market, it was one of Jasmin and Mariann’s favorite shopping haunts when they lived in NYC!

“Veganism has been the catalyst for my spiritual growth and finding what really aligns with me. I think that is what veganism encourages and supports, really stepping into your own unique path, listening to your body, and finding what works for you.“
– Haile Thomas

This Week in Our Hen House:

The three keys to the HAPPY philosophy and why Haile feels they are central to her purpose
Why Haile chose to be vegan and how that connects to the HAPPY philosophy
How Haile sees the connection between self-actualization and authenticity and boycotting the exploitation of animals
What she sees as the barriers to veganism
The HAPPY Academy, its objectives, and how and why it will be expanding in 2021
How COVID-19 has impacted events and programs in 2020
Haile’s book, Living Lively, and its message of nourishing from within
What it’s like to be a young person with a huge social media following and how she feels about being labeled an “influencer”
Favorite recipes from the book
What gives her hope during these challenging times

Connect with Haile Thomas:

Living Lively: 80 Plant-Based Recipies to Activate Your Power and Feed Your Potential by Haile Thomas
The HAPPY Organization website
Haile Thomas’ website
Haile Thomas on LinkedIn
The HAPPY Organization on Instagram
Haile Thomas on Instagram

Connect with Our Hen House:

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This episode is brought to you in part through the generosity of A Well-Fed World. A Well-Fed World provides the means for change by empowering individuals, social justice organizations, and political decision makers to embrace the benefits of plant-based foods and farming. ...

This Week in Our Hen House:

The three keys to the HAPPY philosophy and why Haile feels they are central to her purpose
Why Haile chose to be vegan and how that connects to the HAPPY philosophy
How Haile sees the connection between self-actualization and authenticity and boycotting the exploitation of animals
What she sees as the barriers to veganism
The HAPPY Academy, its objectives, and how and why it will be expanding in 2021
How COVID-19 has impacted events and programs in 2020
Haile’s book, Living Lively, and its message of nourishing from within
What it’s like to be a young person with a huge social media following and how she feels about being labeled an “influencer”
Favorite recipes from the book
What gives her hope during these challenging times

Connect with Haile Thomas:

Living Lively: 80 Plant-Based Recipies to Activate Your Power and Feed Your Potential by Haile Thomas
The HAPPY Organization website
Haile Thomas’ website
Haile Thomas on LinkedIn
The HAPPY Organization on Instagram
Haile Thomas on Instagram

Connect with Our Hen House:

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Previous Episode

Episode 565: A Modern Horror Story ft Juliet Gellatley

Juliet Gellatley joins the podcast today and we seriously couldn’t be more excited about this conversation. She’s the founder and director of Viva!, a campaigning charity that has been a foundational force for the advances for veganism and animal rights in the UK and elsewhere (and also kicked off Jasmin‘s career in animal rights!). Long before many others got on board, Viva! was focusing on ending the abuse of animals exploited and killed for food and promoting a vegan diet.

Among other things, we discuss HOGWOOD: A Modern Horror Story, a short film that details a groundbreaking investigation of a notorious UK pig “farm” by Viva!, along with the subsequent campaign that led to the to the facility’s demise. Part of that discussion is how to overcome the fundamental problem of animal rights campaigning — what is happening to animals is so awful that people can just shut down and refuse to watch films depicting it. Perhaps most importantly, we talk about how Viva! managed to bring enormous attention to the film and the horrors it depicts, and to distribute it via the major streaming platforms. This is incredibly effective activism! Juliet also discusses why people in the UK, a country known for, and proud of, its love of animals, believe that they have much better standards for the treatment of farmed animals than most countries, why they are sadly mistaken, and how to disabuse them of that false notion.

Juliet directs all aspects of Viva!, from campaigning, to writing articles, to giving public talks, and organizing fundraising events. She also founded and directs its health arm, Viva!Health, which concentrates on campaigning on health and nutrition. She has investigated many farms, revealing devastating animal cruelty, and is also the author of several books, including the The Livewire Guide to Going, Being and Staying Veggie, Born to be Wild: The Livewire Guide to Saving Animals, and, along with Tony Wardle, The Silent Ark.

In this week’s “Our Hen House Supports Vegan Businesses” segment, we’re shouting out Fineapple Vegan and its Liquid Gold Vegan Cheese Sauce, as well as, just in time for the holidays, Vegan Gift Shop, an online store with cruelty-free & eco-friendly vegan gift ideas plus everyday vegan grocery items!

“The truth is that because people are so brainwashed into thinking that it’s normal to consume animals, they are much more uncomfortable with confronting what happens to those animals because they are part and parcel of that cruelty.”
– Juliet Gellatley

This Week in Our Hen House:

Why Viva! chose to focus on campaigning for animals raised for food and why it was important to Juliet to start a charity that could connect with people individually to raise the issue of animal equality
The aftermath of the Hogwood investigation and what a major British supermarket did with the information Viva! brought them
Why The Truth About Vegans was made to discredit Viva! and how it had completely the opposite effect
Exploring the role of agricultural veterinarians in factory farming
Whether Juliet thinks that there will still be a move towards a vegan lifestyle by increasing numbers of people despite a move towards reform in animal agriculture
Why campaigning matters and why it is so important to educate people on the climatic effects of choosing a vegan diet
The growth of veganism in the UK
How factory farms contribute to the spread of viruses

Connect with Juliet Gellatley:

Next Episode

Episode 567: Living Future ft Melissa Hoffman and Shawn Smith

This week we’re pleased to feature Shawn Smith and Melissa Hoffman of LivingFuture Foundation. The two live on SHO Farm, a 1300-acre regenerative vegan farm in Vermont, where they farm and steward the land so that all occupants can coexist in harmony. Shawn and Melissa are passionate about the long-term viability of food-medicine agriculture and the ecosystems that support life on our delicate, yet resilient, planet. Melissa is the creative force behind SHO Farm and is a perennial, plant-based chef and educator dedicated to the relationship between living land systems and the rich traditions of global plant-based gastronomy. Shawn is an animal rights activist, a lawyer, a real estate professional, and runs the Sanctuary at SHO—home to a rescued flock of ducks.
Today, Shawn and Melissa are sharing the details of their wildlife integrated approach to farming and the techniques they use to achieve their goals and further their central purpose. Highlighting the importance of understanding how ecosystems function, they discuss how we can eliminate the use of animals and still feed a growing population by redesigning the way we live and farm. Shawn also explains how SHO Farm disrupted the cycle of violence from another farm by not only rescuing ducks who were on their way to slaughter, but finding non-lethal and caring solutions when rats decided to make the duck barn their home.
In this week’s segment to support vegan businesses, we’re showing some love to Renegade Food, which makes 100% plant-based organic smoked meats with the belief that eating well should be easy and taste delicious, as well as to four children’s picture books from Eifrig Publishing by 19 year old author Lotus Kay and illustrator Chey Diehl, including the very timely A Thanksgiving for the Turkeys.

“There’s a movement called regenerative vegan. We’re still looking at regenerating ourselves, our communities, and the ecosystem, but we’re doing it in a way that does not use animals.”
– Melissa Hoffman

This Week in Our Hen House:

Bringing together the worlds of homestead farms, veganic farming, and the regenerative vegan movement
How sanctuary animals have become partners on SHO Farm
How everyone at SHO learned to love rats
Why Melissa and Shawn are expanding the types of crops they’re farming to include annuals as well as perennials
Mushrooms!
What Melissa is currently hard at work doing in the onsite food lab (it has something to do with mushrooms!)
Plans to invite farmers to SHO to learn veganic techniques
Why Shawn is working on drafting the first-of-its-kind conservation easement and how she envisions it helping other ethical vegan farmers and landowners and the animals who call their land home

Connect with Melissa Hoffman and Shawn Smith: