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A&W’s newest breakfast sandwich – vegan or not?
On the heels of the outstanding success of sales of the Beyond Meat Burger at Canada’s 925 A&W fast food restaurants in the past half year, the restaurant chain débuted the “Beyond Meat Sausage & Veggie” plant-based breakfast sandwich this week, which is made all without animal ingredients.
In the Vancouver Vegan community, there has already been a lot of confusion about what this new menu item consists of, since the vegan version is not even advertised in the store, and the ad photo shows the Beyond Meat Sausage breakfast sandwich served with dairy cheese and chickens’ egg!
Our host Alison went to speak to an Assistant Manager at an A&W this week, and in the opening of this show, she gives the scoop on what this new plant-based breakfast sandwich entails.
Genesis Butler, 12-year old activist, asks the Pope to abstain from animal products for Lent
For our first interview, we welcome back the amazing, bold and passionate vegan activist 12-year-old Genesis Butler to the show. As the premier spokesperson for the Million Dollar Vegan campaign, which launched on February 6th in 15 countries around the world, Genesis wrote a letter to Pope Francis to ask him if he would consider abstaining from all animal products for the period of Lent, to draw attention to the devastating impact of animal agriculture on our planet. With this ask also came an offer from the campaign to donate $1 million to a charity (or charities) of his choice, should he take on the request.
The open letter to the Pope was published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and other national newspapers, and the Million Dollar Vegan campaign is being supported by some high profile people such as Paul McCartney, Woody Harrelson, Moby, Joaquin Phoenix, Evanna Lynch, Phillip Wollen, Captain Paul Watson, and more.
In this interview, youngest ever TedX talk presenter Genesis tells us more about the Million Dollar vegan campaign and what it was like to travel to the Vatican in Rome to deliver this message. She speaks to us more about how animal agriculture negatively impacts the planet, and shares with us her thoughts on why she encourages the world to adopt a vegan lifestyle, to fight climate change with diet change. (not to mention as compassionate action towards animals!)
Genesis also shares what it means for young people like herself to step up to advocate for animals in this crucial time to save the planet.
There is a Change.org petition you can sign (with over 87,000 signatures so far) to add your name to the letter to ask the Pope fight climate change with diet change. In this interview, Genesis speaks of the importance of signing the petition!
You can see a video version of Genesis’ request to the Pope here:
Christopher Anderson, an Australian born into animal ag, who just completed a one month vegan challenge for February!
Animal Voices host Alison with Christopher Anderson.
Our feature interview is with co-host Alison Cole’s friend Christopher Anderson. Chris was born in Australia and raised in a large family on a wheat and sheep farm, eating a meat and dairy-centered diet where the “values” of making a living off the animal agriculture industry were instilled into him.
Since then, Christopher has immigrated to Canada and now calls Vancouver home, where he has lived for the past 11 years. And fast forward to about 4 and-a-half years ago, when his path crossed Alison’s, and he met and got to know Animal Voices co-host Alison Cole, an ardent vegan activist who has faith in intelligent and caring people to drop their carnist ways by showing compassion for all life, including non-human animals. Alison’s mission was to educate Christopher on the truths about animal agriculture, exploitation of animals in the world we live in today, and how that is all unnecessary if one decides to lead a vegan lifestyle of compassion.
Christopher really enjoys the Beyond Burger, a great vegan find!
Thus, Christopher’s journey to veganism began. After several years of working to teach Chris about vegan issues, at the end of this January, a new chapter was finally entered in his life. Christopher committed to a challenge of living a vegan lifestyle, full on, for the whole month of February! It’s now March 3rd as we record this interview, and Chris is here to tell us about his month-long vegan challenge, and what may lie in the future ahead.