12 minute read
Think Like A Vegan
Emilia Lease, co-author of ‘Think Like A Vegan’ with Eva Charalambides, talks to Força Vegan about the latest in the ‘Think Like A Vegan’ series - a podcast of the same name. 8 episodes in, and it’s already clearly a great success.
‘Think Like a Vegan’ – your new book – successful?
I’m absolutely delighted with it. It’s all been a tremendous amount of work: researching, writing, finding a publisher (hello, Unbound!), editing, promoting (especially during lockdown) and then, most recently, making a podcast. And it’s been such a learning curve. The feedback, reviews, reactions, comments and all we’ve heard back during author events have been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. It’s wonderful and very satisfying how people are responding to our work. We couldn’t ask for more. This book has always been about spreading the message of veganism as basic fairness, making ethics accessible and giving people the tools to explain this to themselves and others. And we’re doing that and it’s been 100% worth all the effort.
Some of the things we’ve done have been wild! We’ve been on BBC Radio a few times and BBC World News; on a variety of podcasts, including the Vegan Society Podcast, the Bloody Vegans Podcast, the Bluedot Festival podcast where Moby was also a guest and Sustainable Dish; presented in a variety of venues and events, such as the Nairn Book & Arts Festival, the National Library of Scotland, Global Vegfest, Timber Festival and Keats Library; Marc Bekoff interviewed us for Psychology Today and we’ve been in magazines, such as Brightzine, Green Queen, Closer, and Best; and TLAV was included in a sustainability exhibition at the Alfred Nobel House Björkborn, in Karlskoga, Sweden. And it’s all been fantastic.
The book is available worldwide wherever books are sold and there’s even an audiobook available on all the major audiobook platforms. We also encourage everyone to request their local library to carry a copy. We’re fortunate it’s available via the major book distributors, Gardners and Ingram, so any library and shop can source it.
And it’s co-written – could you tell us a little about your co-author?
Eva Charalambides and I collaborated and wrote TLAV together. Eva and I met in 2016 at a vegan conference on Berkeley campus in California. We knew we’d be friends forever when we shared vegan doughnuts during a macrobiotic cooking class. Perfectly reasonable!! From that moment, we were fortunate to be able to see one another in North America in various cities during the Vegandale festivals, which she helped organise, and where I answered all sorts of questions in the Why should I go vegan? tent.
After the 2018 festival in Toronto, we got the idea to do something more with our writing and organising, so the idea for the book began to develop. Eva is a photographer, vegan and disability advocate. She has also written for the vegan lifestyle website Ecorazzi and the disabled creatives magazine Not Your Monolith. She lives in Ontario.
People might have noticed I’ve been flying solo a bit with events and hosting the podcast. The reason is Eva lives with a chronic illness. Originally, we planned to do everything together, including the podcast, but that’s not been possible. So, hearing the perspective of chronically ill vegans is something important per se and for us personally. Eva has been speaking out and writing more about her perspective on life with a chronic illness. That takes courage and I admire that. I’m proud of her for doing so and I encourage you to go find her work on her Instagram page, @eatinworkout.
What were the driving motivations behind writing the book?
Eva and I wrote TLAV because we wanted to show animals aren’t objects to be used and basic fairness requires we include them in moral society. Our book provides vegans and non-vegans a tool to understand this ethical basis and how to apply it everyday. We don’t need to be scholars or experts in basic fairness and we want to show how everyone can understand veganism.
We’ve set up the book to be a conversation. We present topics through essays, have thought experiments throughout the book and a chapter at the end dedicated to scenarios (all of which are real) to help people put the concepts to work, so they can think through how they’d work on a daily basis.
Above: Emi speaking at the Nairn Book & Arts Festival 2021
Are there any people who have influenced your work?
Oh yes, and we acknowledge them in a Further Reading page in the book: Tom Regan, Gary Francione and Anna Charlton, Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf, David Nibert and Carol J. Adams. And on thinking about social justice and fairness in general, that’s a long list, but some of the people on it are Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Stewart Hall, bell hooks, Calo Levi, Primo Levi, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Ida B. Wells, Mary Wollstonecraft and Malcolm X.
Why is it important to ‘think’ rather than just ’act’?
The two are always present, it might be a question of how much we do of both or what we believe is more important. Fully understanding why we do something is critical in guiding how we choose what to do and to apply that understanding consistently in everything we do.
In 100 words... how would you best describe veganism to someone new to it all?
We have a chapter in the book where we summarise the major points in our book and provide an elevator pitch, which when you speak it, it takes about 20 seconds to say… It starts with “Like us, animals aren’t things” and it goes on from there. I’ll let your readers pick up or borrow (ask your library to carry Think Like a Vegan) a copy of the book and read the rest for themselves.
...And the concept of Animal Rights – which is often misunderstood.
We owe animals the same moral treatment as people, unless there’s a morally relevant reason to justify treating animals differently.
Who else is impressing you in vegan circles – we’ve noticed you’ve already had some great guests on the podcast?
Oh my podcast guests have been brilliant and their talks have been mind blowing. I’ve structured the podcast as succinct 20-or-so minute mini-lectures, where the guests (or myself) talk about a specific issue or their work.
I’ve had on: Prof Jason Hannan on the rhetoric of the meat industry from his Meatsplaining book; Prof Maneesha Deckha on animals as legal beings (and her eponymous book); Prof Sherry Colb talking about reproductive rights and animal rights; Dr Aysha Akhtar, co-founder of the Center for Contemporary Sciences speaking about replacing animal experimentation in medicine with something that actually works; Geertrui Cazaux on why veganism isn’t ableist; Benny Malone on his top five favourite fallacies against veganism and I’ve talked about using graphic images and the matter of consent, how veganism is for everyone and so is activism and my top three strategies for talking to people about veganism. The podcast is available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple.
And some rather exciting news about New York coming up soon?
We had a very fun - and in-person - US launch party in New York City at the offices of Rose Street Capital, who generously donated their space for the event. And author events in Asbury Park, the Monmouth County Library System and the Kent Place School in New Jersey, with more US events coming later this year and next!
Are we going to see a vegan world any time soon?
Not likely, but who knows! We are living in very changeable times. There’s certainly a growing interest and a massive need for it.
What do you think we should focus on to get us to that point?
A few things. Education and advocacy, especially around the issue of whether we should be using animals in the first place. That issue arises before we get to whether we’re treating them well. There are still so many whose idea of veganism is quite fuzzy or simply misunderstood. This is despite the growth in vegan products, visibility of vegans in popular culture and even the growing familiarity with the word vegan, people may have heard it, but they often have no idea what it means. We need everyone doing whatever they believe they can do.
I don’t believe there’s any value in arguing whether this action or that is the right and only way. It’s important to discuss and analyse, but people will do what comes naturally to them. Historically, no political/social justice movement has ever been monolithic and especially at the beginning - which is still where I believe we are, despite the idea of animal welfare existing for about 200 years.
Ewa Hector Agorelius, organiser of the exhibition at Alfred Nobel House Bjorkborn (Photo credit: Johan Agorelius)
Get as creative as you like and go for it while always keeping in mind it’s not about us or about how animals are treated. It is all about the injustice of using animals. That’s a deeply uncomfortable question for most people because it’s been the way of humans for 10,000 years since agriculture began.
On activism and advocacy, think about what it is you like to do, how you like to express yourself, what you can handle, what do you want your activism or advocacy to look like for you. There’s no one form of activism or advocacy. There is no one formula or action. Sometimes just existing as a vegan is all the activism or advocacy we can handle.
Just remember, focus your thinking on what is happening to the animals to keep you grounded.
Picture their plight as the hub of the problem with all the related issues, even the ones related to people, coming out from that. In TLAV, we talk about not “compromising down” when it comes to veganism and animals. If you’ve got to compromise, then lift them up with that compromise to better their position. You wouldn’t want someone who’s advocating on your behalf to sacrifice you or your needs in the compromise. Or to use your problems for their own benefit. So, do the same for the animals.
Do your thing, focus on the ethical principles, understand why you’re doing it and how it fits into the larger picture of our world, find people who are interested, educate yourself and others and let’s make as many vegans as possible.
What’s holding us back?
The biggest thing is the simple reality of the overwhelming majority of the world isn’t vegan and has no idea what that even is. Everything is stacked against the animals. There are alot of systemic issues in terms of justice and fairness towards people too. These are all big hurdles to overcome. I don’t let the magnitude stop me though.
Hope for the future?
If we don’t act, we’ll never know what effect or change we could have made. So even if the odds are long, that doesn’t bother me. It’s not my problem. My problem is here and now. As long as we’re alive, we can keep putting one step in front of the other and do our thing. The future will come. It’s what we do everyday that counts the most.
Where can people find out more about the book, events and what about social media?
We update the website for Think Like a Vegan regularly. People can also follow the book on social media @ thinklikeavegan. They can follow me at @emisgoodeating and emisgoodeating.com. And Eva at @eatinworkout.
Thanks Emilia - well done to you both on an excellent book and we wish you every success.
‘Emilia A. Leese writes essays on life, travel and veganism for a variety of online publications, including her personal blog Emi’s Good Eating. She regularly hosts benefit supper clubs and speaks about veganism at events and festivals. She’s also the host of Think Like a Vegan: The Podcast and is closely involved in Birchfield, a rewilding project in the Scottish Highlands. Emilia lives in London and the Highlands of Scotland.’
You can pick up a copy of ‘Think Like a Vegan’ in all good bookstores & online at Bookshop.org & thinklikeavegan.com. It’s also available on Amazon and as an audiobook via Audible.
