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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast on John Shegerian and I am so honored and excited to have back with us today, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, also known as the joyful vegan. Welcome back, Colleen.

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau: Thanks, John. Thank you.

John: You know, you are such an important person right now, I believe in America, because of what is going on with covid-19, but also just the food crisis that we have. Before we get into all the important work that you do as an animal advocate, an author, podcaster, social commentator and the joyful vegan, which you truly are, tell us a little backstory. What led up to your evolution to becoming this important and critical voice?

Colleen: I do not want this to sound like a sound bite because I have said this before, but I think it is important to say again, is that I often characterized my journey as I did not become vegan as much as I removed the blocks to the compassion that had been inside of me all along. We talked about becoming vegan as if it is some kind of transformation to a different person as if I was not compassionate before I was vegan, and of course, I was. We all are. I grew up as a kid who loved animals, did not want to hurt animals, did not want to hurt anybody, still do not want to hurt anybody. It is a basic principle that most of us hold, right? It is what we are taught and it is what we are encouraged. I was that kid who did not want to hurt anybody but I did not know I was eating animals. I had no idea and my parents fed me animals. When I confronted them with “Why am I doing this?” Wait, I thought we just had these animals in our home or I went to the zoo. I went to the petting zoo or there are images of these animals all over my clothing, their images all over my plates, all over my lunch box, in my wallpaper. All these ways that we encourage children to be connected with animals, my parents did that. When I asked them why, it is the typical response that that is what they are here for, that is how we raised you. We cannot live without them. They sacrifice themselves for us, all the things that we tell ourselves in each other to normalize the consumption of animals. And so, I was that person and you just internalize it and think you are doing the right thing because if you do not do it, then it is dangerous or it is not natural or you are going to hurt yourself or etcetera. When I was able to become a critical thinker and for some, I mean this journey could take… it could be fast, it could be slow, it is the same journey for everybody. I happened to be about 19 or 20 when I picked up a book called Diet for a New America and I just could not believe what I saw. What that meant was I could not believe what I was participating in. And so what do you do when you see something like that? Your natural response is to say I do not want to be part of it. The only way I could distance myself from it is to not buy those products. That started me on the journey of learning more, reading more, making changes in my own life, making changes my own diet, in my own perception, consciousness, and several years later after that. So I stopped eating land animals, continue to eat aquatic animals and certainly eggs and cow’s milk, animals milk. Then I read more books and I read a book called Slaughterhouse, but I do read happy books as well. This is not bedtime reading. It was not an easy book to read but what it did for me, John, it was the most pivotal awakening. It was the most pivotal thing I did that really contributed to the final awakening, which was it does not matter how the animals are raised. It does not matter where they come from. It does not matter if they are on the happiest farm or if I raise them in my backyard. The idea of taking the life of someone who does not want to die, but not even that, it is in an institutionalized way so that you have the slaughterhouses where you have these workers who are desensitized. You have these animals who are scared to death, who do not want to die, they are fighting. What you have is unchecked violence. It is institutionalized violence. When I read that book and listen to this words of the slaughterhouse workers and how they felt and what it did to them and what they did to the animals, it was heart-wrenching to say the least and it was that systemic violence that I just did not want to be part of. That was the moment where, as I said, I did not become vegan as much as I removed all the blocks, all the excuses, all the barriers to the thing that of course was the core of all of that, which of course makes all of us upset. That is why we do not want to read that stuff, which was my compassion. And so I “became vegan” and that was 21 years ago or something and it has been the best, most wonderful experience. That is why I call myself a joyful vegan and I have always characterized this lifestyle, whatever you want to call it. This way of living and thinking and seeing the world as joyful because there is no better feeling than waking up in the morning and manifesting you have inside of you. How does it get any better than that? Right?

John: Yeah. No, you are so right. But it is also great that you coined the term “joyful vegan” because now I am 57 years old. So when I was 17 years old and very sick living in a dorm in Boston University, overweight and living on dorm food, I realized there had to be a better way. So I got lucky I ran into, at a bookstore, Michio Kushi’s book on Macrobiotics. Literally, his original tone on the benefits of eating that way and that started my journey of eliminating, as you would say, the blocks of feeling better. I got better literally right away just living on brown rice and miso soup and vegetables and it just evolved from there. But so many people look at that as a burden, some form of new burden that they take on or cross that they bear that they are eating that way and there is no happiness associated with it. And you have turned that whole concept on its head.

Colleen: Well, I cannot take credit for that necessarily, but that is definitely how I perceive it as well and that is what I try to teach.

John: Where did you then evolved to realized you want to do more than just do it yourself, which is always to me the way to do things in terms of becoming a leader? My favorite poem, which is the shortest poem in the world and the easiest one when I had to remember, when I was a child growing up was by Muhammad Ali. It goes like this, it is real simple, “Me, we” and it is literally one of the most powerful poems and it applies to you. You started this journey 21 years ago. When did you decide it should be “we”? When did you decide there is more to this and that you have got a voice and a message to share that is important that others have to hear and then you started moving forward?

Colleen: Yeah. It was probably even more than 21 years ago because when I was vegetarian, I… so the answer is very quickly because my perception was “I did not know this, now I know this and now this is what I am doing.” So if other people know this, they will make different decisions and I can help them through that transition. I was always very naturally a problem solver and a solution seeker, I should say.

John: Okay.

Colleen: So, even when I was just vegetarian and still eating other animal products, I immediately wanted to learn more “no more” and teach others. And so I have these memories of when I had my little— I do not know, first Macintosh Apple computer with a clip art and I was making my own brochures and flyers about puppy mills, about vegetarianism, about vivisection and testing on animals, and I just immediately started doing outreach. I was always very inclined toward that. When I became vegan, it was stepped up tenfold because the passion and the response you have, it is just true when you eliminate all of it, I think you just feel more able, freer, more liberated because you are not connected to the violence anymore. When you are vegetarian, you are still kind of are, you are still making excuses. I did. I made excuses. I ate whatever you call it, humane milk and humane eggs and free-range this, because you still want to perceive yourself as a good person without having to make too many changes.

John: Of course.

Colleen: That is what I did. But when you become vegan, it really is the step into “I am completely awake. My eyes are wide open. What I know now, it is horrible and painful to hold but I am not part of it and I can just feel a lot more free.” And so when you become vegan, that is why there are a lot of passionate vegans because you are just so awake and aware and you want to shake everybody and you want everyone to see what you see. That is why it stepped up for me tenfold when I became vegan and I quite literally did that. It has always been outreach and education for me and kind of framing this all in a way that is accessible for people so that it taps into their own compassion. I always say that I am not asking anybody to live according to my values. I am urging people to live according to their own values because most people, whether it is health or ethics, it does not matter. It can be both obviously, but if you are not living according to your deepest values every day, we are off. Something is off and we are not connected to that. That was for me, it has always been about education and outreach. I started leafleting. I know that sounds so dramatic, but it was wonderful. I actually really enjoyed this part of my advocacy. I used to do Street TV. I used to stand on the street and show slaughter videos and hand out “why vegan” pamphlets and have these wonderful conversations with people who would be in tears and trust me with their pain and trust me with their questions. That was when I realized I really love this role. I really love being able to help people through that and answer the questions about protein and about eating out and about traveling and about protein and about cooking and making lunches and about protein and all of the things that we still get. I loved it. And so that just kept me going. Okay. What else? What is next? Oh, people do not know what to cook. Okay. With my masters in English literature, let me teach them how to cook. Right? Whatever I could do to give people the tools they needed to live according to their values. That is how it happened for me. It was very organic, but it has always been toward “How can I give people the tools they need to do the thing that they feel strongly about?”

John: Well, first of all, let us go back to the protein issue because I just got to ask you the question that I am sure you have been asked more than any other question. Because veganism, you cannot get enough protein, how many people do you know or have you met or that have died of a protein deficiency? Because of course, we know that you cannot get enough protein as a vegan, isn’t that correct?

Colleen: That is right. That is right. That is really the gist and that is the gist. I mean you said it, diseases that we are suffering from in industrialized and Western countries and Western areas. Their diseases are excess. They are not diseases of deficiency. I do not know anybody with Kwashiorkor, which is the scientific term for protein deficiency. I do not know anybody with Scurvy. I do not know anybody with rickets. Those are diseases of deficiency, and that is not our problem.

John: Right.

Colleen: What we have are diseases of excess, which is the heart disease, the cancer, the diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. Those are diseases of excess. That is why you will find cardiac specialist and cardiovascular wards in hospitals. You will not find Kwashiorkor specialist or Scurvy specialist in the United States or in Western countries. And so, of course, but that is what we have all been fed. That is what we have all been taught.

John: For our listeners who are just joining us, we have got Colleen Patrick-Goudreau with us, a.k.a the joyful vegan. To find Colleen and her amazing work, which we are going to get into right now. You can go to www.joyfulvegan.com. Colleen, go back to English literature. You went from that as your classic education. How did you become not only the social advocate and this animal advocate, but even more specifically you became an entrepreneur maker? You are no longer a taker, you became a maker. How did you go from English Lit to becoming a prolific, not only writer, but cook? I mean, did you have any cooking in your background for our listeners out there? Just listen to this. Seven best-selling books: The Joy of Vegan Baking, The Vegan Table, Color Me Vegan, Vegan’s Daily Companion, On Being Vegan, The 30-day Vegan Challenge, and now also The Joyful Vegan: How to Stay Vegan in a World That Wants You to Eat Meat, Dairy and Eggs? I mean, English Lit I can see helps you become a writer, but I mean cooking and all that experience and making and having the guts to make? Most people have lots of dreams, but becoming a maker and entrepreneur, whole different skill set.

Colleen: That is really lovely. Thank you. That is really lovely to hear that.

John: Sure.

Colleen: That is that is lovely. Thank you. I get that I am stubborn. I am driven. I am a doer. I used to joke that on my headstone, it would be just “she got stuff done.” I just am a doer. I do not do everything perfectly. I mean there is lots that I do not do well. I mean, I do not feel like I have a head for business etcetera, but I can write and I can use the skills that I have. That is what I have always held onto. What are you good at? What do you love? What is my contribution? And the answer was communication. I mean I would say even more broadly than just… writing has always been my passion, but the higher categories really, communication. So even teaching the cooking classes, even though I am writing the recipes and the cookbooks, I will be honest. A lot of that is communication, because you have to anticipate the reader. That is about communication. When I am writing a recipe, I am thinking about who is reading this. Writing recipes, teaching cooking classes, writing books, obviously writing a sentence, writing podcast, whatever I am doing, it is about communication. I think the thing that characterizes all of those things, the thread that runs through all of them certainly is my passion, but it is also my ability to communicate this information in a way that will empower people and inspire people. So the answer is I love finding ways to frame this information or any information in a way that people can walk away saying “I never thought about it like that or I can do that or that is an interesting way to look at it.” That is my goal. I want them to feel, the reader or the listener to feel inspired, to feel empowered. The cooking part, again like I said, I do think some of that is communication, but I know I was not trained ever at all in the culinary arts. I always loved to cook and I have always loved to share food with people and as an offering quite literally as a gift. I think it is a gift to be able to share food with people and give them good, healthy food. I have always loved that but I could tell you right now, you asked me when I was 10 or 20 or 30 if I would be teaching cooking, and that is not all I do obviously, but I would have said you are crazy. That is not on my list at all. I see it for me as a means for communicating the values and the issues of compassion and wellness. I see it a means to the end as opposed to the end in itself.

John: That is fascinating, but also your making is gone way beyond. Now you have this website joyfulvegan.com and you do weekly live and on-demand cooking classes. Can you share with our listeners what that looks like and feels like and how that is working for you?

Colleen: Oh, it has been so wonderful. I am so thrilled. I used to teach cooking classes. I taught them for 10 or 15 years. I taught my own for about 10 years and then I was teaching for Dr. McDougall and some other folks.

John: Wow.

Colleen: Yeah. For a long time. But about five years ago, I think now I stopped because it is a lot of work, John.

John: Yeah.

Colleen: It is a lot of prepping and shopping and lugging all the food and driving and setting up, doing the teaching and then setting everything up, breaking everything down and do all the dishes and bringing everything back home. It is a lot of work and I wish I could do it. I love teaching live. However, because it was too much work and I do not have my own cooking studio and I am not planning on doing that. When covid happened, it was a really interesting thing. It was not because of covid, I was teaching, I was hosting conferences in person here in Oakland. I was calling them compassion and action conferences and we did three years in a row and then when it was time for the next one with the book coming out, I just did not have the bandwidth to do it. So we decided to host it online and a very good friend who is also been an assistant to me over the many years. She trained me on everything I needed to know for Zoom, to do conference online. That one in February and that was very successful and after covid. By April, when I realized that people are locked down. We all need some joy, we all need some food, we all need some kind of practical skills. I just said “Wait a second. Why don’t I just offer a cooking class? Do it on Zoom and see if anybody signs up. Because at least with this kind of cooking class I do not have to first reserve the space and see who is going to come and how much it is going to be to rent the space and how many people I need to make that money back, whatever. I could just say “Hey! I will just put it out there and see if people are interested.” Now, it is September and I have classes scheduled almost to the end of the year. I am working on those, but I have been teaching them weekly now since April and clearly people are interested and clearly, people are looking for these kind of things. It has been amazing.

John: You know, you are not only a prolific writer, a best-selling author and now all also doing these classes on your website, and again for our listeners, it is www.joyfulvegan.com. But also on your website is your great important podcast Food for Thought. Share a little bit about that platform and the voice that you share over that platform for our listeners who are interested.

Colleen: Well, the podcast is very close to my heart. It is something I started doing 14 or 15 years ago now.

John: Wow.

Colleen: So it is kind of old school and frankly, I am probably old school. There is lot more sleek, modern, hip podcasts out there, but I started doing mine really is not an essay. I mean my podcast have always been me speaking. It surprises a lot of people, especially those who listen because you do not think, I mean, I hope and this is what I have been told that you cannot tell that I am reading, but I write out every one of my episodes before I record.

John: Wow.

Colleen: What that means is these are basically essays. I have a thought, I want to convey and I want to do it in the clearest way possible. And so I start from the beginning to the end like you would write an essay and I take my listeners on a journey with me. For 15 years or 14, it is going on 15 years next year, people have been sticking with me and loving it. Yeah, I tackle everything related to living compassionately and healthfully, whether it is food, whether it is myths about veganism, whether it is nutrition, whether it is animals, animal advocacy, communication and just living a good life. That is really what the podcast is about. So, I love my podcast and I cannot imagine not doing it. The classes have been taking a precedence right now just because there is so much of it weekly.

John: Right. Given that we are all living through this very difficult period of covid-19, do you feel that when we get to the other side of this, Colleen, and we go to hopefully some form of new better, are people going to now be taking care of their health more than ever? Because it has become obvious statistically that those who have the worst results from covid-19, if they are infected by it, have comorbidities that are tied to diet; heart disease, diabetes, overweight and other of those comorbidities have given the worst results. Is this a bellwether for the future that people are going to now use this as a wake-up call or do you feel otherwise?

Colleen: I wish that were the case. I wish everything were the thing that we receive should be the bellwether for the change that needs to happen. It will be the case for some. It will be the case for some and it will not be the case for all but something else will be the case for others. This is what it looks like and this is why you have to keep doing the work. You are doing and I have to keep doing the work I am doing because there will be some people who make that connection and seek out resources to make the change.

John: Right.

Colleen: It will be this that compels them to do. So just like for you, it was the feeling you had and the book that you read, and for me it was the feelings I had in the book I read. For others it is covid, for others it is going to be a heart attack, for some people it is going to be seeing an animal suffer. For some people it is just going to be meeting a vegan. It is just different for everybody and all we can do and to not go insane, all we can do as the people doing our work, is to do our work and not be attached to who is going to respond to it. That is the way I have kept saying as an advocate and as someone who does this work is when people thank me for doing this work. Honestly, the gratitude is to the people who find my work. It would be nothing if I did not have listeners. My podcast would mean nothing if people did not listen.

John: Right.

Colleen: My books would be nothing if people did not read them. It is because people seek out the information that I am able to do it. It will always be some but it is not going to be all. I am hopeful but I do not think it is going to be a panacea.

John: Hmm. I love the title of your new book, The Joyful Vegan: How to Stay Vegan in a World That Wants You to Eat Meat, Dairy and Eggs. For our listeners out there, you can find all of Colleen’s books on her website on amazon.com and at a good bookstore around the United States in the world. Listen, Colleen. The title is important. I want to go into the importance of what you wrote about in that book. Talk a little bit about the push-pull of writing that book and the pressure that you were under from big industry, big business to eat the junk that is out there, but also talk of concurrently about since we have spoken last, the rise of possible burgers beyond meat [inaudible], the most delicious vegan cheese’s I have ever tasted in my life and the rise of that new industry. How is that all weighing out? Is it easier to be a vegan today than ever before or is it more difficult because of the social, peer and business pressure that we are under the title of your book?

Colleen: So I wrote this book because I know how good it feels to make a change like this and I also know that people struggle. I know that people struggle staying joyful, but also staying joyfully vegan or just vegan. One of the reason they do not stay vegan is because, I would argue, is that because they are lacking some joy. I wrote this book because I really wanted to put my finger on why do people struggle, why do people stop being vegan. What are the warning signs, the danger signs, and how can I give them tools to be able to stay vegan? And again, I am just going to say it. How can I give them the tools to continue to reflect their deepest values in their daily behavior? Because that is what it is. Being vegan is not an end in itself. It is not a club to join. It is not a badge to wear. It is the means to an end, and that end is unconditional compassion and optimal wellness. So, how can I give people the tools so that they can continue to feel empowered and emboldened to live according to their values without being shaky, without being threatened? Those threats come from the inside, it comes from us and those threats come from the outside. One of the outside sources you named already is the industries that have money to make, but I am just going to say it before I answer the second part.

John: Sure.

Colleen: That it also comes from us. If we do not feel confident enough to stand up for what we believe in, if we did not learn the communication skills to be able to convey the values that we have, to be able to say “Yes, I am vegan and I love it because I do not want to hurt anybody” without feeling like we are going to step on someone else’s toes because they are going to feel guilty that we are vegan and they are not. If we are hung up on all that stuff, we are not going to be able to just be settled and content. All our own internalized struggle, it is getting the pushback, it is getting jokes, it is feeling like we do not belong, it is feeling out of place, it is traveling and feeling like where am I going to eat? There are all these internal struggles that if we do not feel confident and embolden and empowered just being a little different which we are, it is kind of going against the norm, not conforming to eating animal products. Then we are not going to stay vegan. Some of the struggle is not just from the external, it is from internal. It is the pressure we feel and that includes how we internalize the messages we are getting from big business. That is still on us, right?

John: Right.

Colleen: That is really what all I can do is say “Here are some skills to be able to withstand all of it, whether it is coming from friends or family or social pressures or media or marketing or the big business, or your own discomfort.” The only thing we can all do is how we handle it individually. That is what this book is about, is the kind of these common threads that we all experience when we have this awakening, whether we do it for health or ethics, and then how to make sure that we feel secure in staying that way. As far as your question “Is it easier to be vegan with all of the wonderful plant-based commercial products out there?”

John: Right.

Colleen: I would say actually, my answer to that would be “I do not think it is easier to be vegan. I think it is easier for non-vegans to eat these foods as opposed to eat “vegan food.” Now vegan food has been around for thousands of years. They are called plants. The idea that now there is renaissance of vegan, we have had vegan food, it is called plants. And so, we always had opportunities to eat. It is about convenience. Now there is more convenient plant-based foods and they happen to be pretty processed. Now I am not someone who is anti-processed food. You take a peanut, you make peanut butter. That is a processed food. So I am not opposed to processing our food. There is little processed and there is highly processed and we can talk about that. So for me, it is more that there is the availability of convenience foods that non-vegans and vegans alike can have access to and the real trick, the real golden key is making them as affordable as animal products. The problem is the subsidies of the… it is mostly the grain. It is mostly the grains that is fed to the animals. It is the grazing land that the government allows ranchers to use. That is actually tax-supported land etc. Because all of those things that make animal products cheap, there is the perception that anything that is not an animal product, if it is a plant food whether it is a whole plant food or processed, commercial vegan product that it is more expensive. The thing is that is not more expensive, it is that meat and animal products are so artificially cheap. Are we going to change the public’s view on that? For some, yes, but not for all. In the end, they are going to want convenience and they are going to want low cost. The onus now is unfortunately on these vegan companies or I would say the companies who are making these plant-based products. They are not all necessarily vegan companies, which is fine.

John: Right.

Colleen: …to not only make them taste great, not only to have great marketing, to have great distribution, but also to get the cost down. That is a lot of pressure for these companies. What I am seeing and I know you are seeing it as well, you are seeing the large animal product companies, the meat and dairy companies, purchase or invest in big companies because they are thinking “Hey, wait a second. I could make products that are going to be better for the public. I can market them in terms of them being better for the public.” Look, there are CEOs of these companies who do have scruples. They are not all evil people. They are making animal products because that is what they have always done or known. They are on their own journey as well. I think their products are awful and it is horrible and it is creating a violent system that is hurting animals and people. My point is that when they buy these vegan companies, they are doing it because it could make money.

John: Right.

Colleen: They are seeing that there is money to be made in vegan products. So that is one of the ways we are going to see these company, these products go down in price, but you are still competing against a subsidized system. But there is hope, there is so much hope and I am excited about that. Now, I have been vegan for a long time. Do I like those products? Absolutely. I love them. I support them. Do I eat them a lot? No, mostly because I just really like whole foods, but that is just me.

John: Got it.

Colleen: It is not like I am not against them. I want everyone to have access to them. I hear vegans complain about them for this reason. I hear plant-based people complain about them for that. Just everybody embraced the change that is happening and it is a good thing and let us celebrate the fact that they are not animal. That is a good thing.

John: Before we say our sign off for today, I want you to share any message about the future where you want to take. You have such an important and critical voice. Listen, I have been a vegetarian 40 years of vegan or so, 12 to 15 years and I believe so much and I vote with my pocketbook. My wife and I vote with our pocketbook. We have invested in vegan restaurant chains and other things because we believe. We want to live our ethos and like you do as well. When people show an inkling of interest in veganism or just living better or healthier, I send them to your website. You are, to me, one of the most important voices of the Health, Nutrition, Wellness in America right now, and I do not see that stopping. I always see that growing. Where do you want to take the important platform that you have built and take it into the future? Where do you see you going next?

Colleen: Gosh. I just want to just keep spreading the message of… again, I want people to listen to their own conscience. And I want people to listen to their own hearts and their own desires, and to feel empowered and to not be beholden to the past, to not be beholden to who they were before, what they did before, what others are telling them, but be beholden to what you know to be right and what you know to be true and you can never go wrong. You can just never go wrong. This concept of compassion, self-compassion, compassion for others is as old as the hills. This is nothing new. My message is not about some newfangled philosophy. We talk about veganism like it is some kind of new-fangled modern-day friend. This is compassion and it is about wellness and that is what I just want to keep conveying to people is that, again, manifest your deepest values in your daily behavior and you will reap benefits you cannot even anticipate. That is my hope for the future.

John: Thank you and you are always welcome back on the Impact Podcast to share any message, talk about one of your new books, podcasts or anything you have got going. This is why I do this as a mission, and it is so important to get your voice out there as much as we can. So thank you for all the great work with you. For our listeners out there that want to find Colleen and her great work and important work, please go to www.joyfulvegan.com. You could find her weekly live and on-demand cooking classes. You can find her podcast and you can find her new book, The Joyful Vegan: How to Stay Vegan in a World That Wants You to Eat Meat, Dairy and Eggs on amazon.com, on her website. Colleen, you are truly a gem of a human being. We need more of you in this world. I wish there was more of you. You are making an impact and making the world a better and healthier place. And for that, I am grateful. Thank you for joining us today on the Impact Podcast.

Colleen: Thank you, John.