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297- Ex-vegans and the appeal to nature: The Gaz Oakley and the river-based washing machine...
81 Plays17 hours ago
Big sighs abound as a one-time 'vegan' departs stage left, muttering about vague health issues, invasive species and the "it's natural" argument. In this episode Paul, Kate & Shane examine the 'back to nature' argument, with specific reference to an article written by Ed Winters (https://earthlinged.substack.com/p/gaz-oakley-and-the-appeal-to-nature-fallacy)
As ever, we love hearing your views on the topics under discussion (or anything else!) so do drop us your thoughts via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com
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Enough of the Falafel is a community of people who love keeping on top of the latest news in the world of veganism & animal rights. With the Vegan Talk podcast, we aim to develop listeners' (& our own) thoughts around key issues affecting veganism & the animal rights movement; giving our opinions, whilst staying balanced; remaining true to our vegan ethics, whilst constantly seeking to grow & develop.
Each week we home in on one topic in particular and pick it apart in more detail. If you have a suggestion for a future show, do get in touch via enoughofthefalafel@gmail.com.
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Thanks everyone for listening; give us a rating and drop us a message to say "hi"; it'll make our day!
Kate, Shane & Paul
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Transcript
Introduction to Vegan Talk
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Our ancestors ate meat. Other animals eat meat. Isn't it natural to do so? I'm Shane, and for this episode of Vegan Talk, I'm also joined by Kate and Paul.
00:00:13
Speaker
So I think vegans go looking for trouble even when they're not looking for trouble. That's not what butt is used for. Brrr! Take your flour-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida.
00:00:25
Speaker
Should I call the media and say, hi, sorry? True education. younger generation are getting to know how brutal these practices are. That leaves a lot of pizza delivery companies in problems with things.
00:00:37
Speaker
What this? What kind of movie is this? It's comedy, gobbled, maybe. Any form of social injustice has... another as long as you don't get the wee brunions with the horns you'll be all right does veganism give him superpowers
00:00:56
Speaker
i cannot fly around the city i don't have laser vision hi everybody thank you for being here my name's kate welcome this is an episode of vegan talk thank you so much for being here Hello everyone, this is Paul.
Are Meat-Eating Tendencies Natural?
00:01:12
Speaker
As Kate said, this is Vegan Talk and this is where we delve into a particular topic more deeply. So they're sort of more timeless than the news ah news sessions that we do. And we've got loads of them online that you can go back and look at and that we've had probably hundreds now, I imagine. Please feel free to go and check those out. So every day we're bombarded or vegans are bombarded by people telling us that eating meat is, quote, natural.
00:01:41
Speaker
And furthermore, some people who have been vegan for a long time then just stop being vegan. And they often seem to revert to this argument about what's natural a lot.
Ed Winter vs. Gaz Oakley's Veganism Debate
00:01:55
Speaker
So today we're gonna be discussing an article by Ed Winter titled, Gaz Oakley and the Appeal to Nature Fallacy. And in case you don't know who Gaz Oakley is, he's a chef and a cookbook writer who's written several vegan cookbooks. And then Ed Winters, you probably going to know him better as Earthling Ed, and he's a vegan influencer on TikTok, and you'll see him on Facebook and Instagram and all the socials as well.
00:02:21
Speaker
So if you haven't read this article, it's basically a response to Gaz Oakley's announcement that he no longer identifies as vegan, and he is open to eating certain wild animals, such as invasive species and game. and he's But he's em for emphasizing the natural, local, and regenerative regenerative living aspects of his new identity.
00:02:49
Speaker
So Paul, I'm wondering, just just briefly, and then we'll go into in more depth, but what stood out to you in this article? And then Kate, ah same question to you. Yeah, I suppose to start with, obviously, Ed Winters, I think probably a lot of us like him because he writes very calmly. He's got a very calm demeanour when you sort of see him talking normally.
What Does Returning to Nature Mean?
00:03:10
Speaker
So he's very much avoiding falling into the trap of personally attacking Gaz and even refers to sort of saying that some people have been upset and, and you know, are angry about him moving away from veganism. as people are about other people that have done this before in the past in the public eye. But he's very much moving that um did the the the sort of his response to one of ah going through and looking at what has been said by Gaz Oakley to essentially break it down and and offer alternative views to it. So I think it's really good from that perspective. It's ah it's a kind of very thorough read.
00:03:48
Speaker
He's primarily talking about things like this kind of return to nature or kind of what that might mean and ah pulls that apart I think quite quite well um I mean it's probably a question you hear about yeah what does it actually mean about living in in synergy with nature or kind of returning to nature because it means different things to different people, I think. And yeah, his point points out other things about what he said about eating low eating locally um and how the food system is broken and, ah you know, not necessarily disagreeing with some of those things, but I think essentially saying these are all, you know, some of these things are fair comment, but it doesn't necessarily hold or is, has to be held in conjunction with
00:04:31
Speaker
um starting to eat meat again. So it's it's a kind of fairly methodical breakdown of the position that Gaz Oakley's taken and offers some kind of alternative thoughts to that. That's sort my headline assessment of it. Yeah, I i really liked it because, I mean, Ed Winters is like Paul says, he's very clear, very engaging in the way he writes. And yeah, he very methodical, his arguments. I personally haven't really followed Gaz Oakley himself, or should I say Saint Gaz, because looking at the way he's dressed with his white T-shirt and cream chinos and everything, and in his...
00:05:15
Speaker
Garden of Eden. I sound a bit spiteful, don't I? But, you know, I can't help. i Unlike Julie, I am always horribly disappointed when somebody who has been, you know, promoting a vegan lifestyle and has 1.7 million followers on Instagram. suddenly doesn't about turn he says it's not suddenly but you know doesn't about turn and then starts saying oh but you know but this but that but the other and so now i'm not vegan and I'm just i'm just being, you know, kind of totally honest with myself and and all of you lot out there. we I've got to be true to myself. It's all about me me, me, me, me. All about him. and Actually, I have here with me, I've got one of his cookery books. Oh, wow.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, from the charity shop. I'm really glad I didn't pay full price in a bookshop for it now. Yeah. So I've had a good old flick through it as well. It's all lifestyle, kind of lifestyle. And it's a bit kind of, oh, ah I'll talk a little bit about it later. But basically, yeah, I'm just always just horribly disappointed when somebody who's Well, I guess it's because he's been so upfront about it, you know, and now I just feel like he's betrayed us.
00:06:44
Speaker
That's how I feel about about him. And well done, Ed, for being much more cool, calm and collected, unlike me. I felt like Ed did a good job from as someone like me who kind of just saw headlines coming across social media and didn't really know what the whole story was. i feel like I did a good job of saying, well, first this happened and he's, and Gaz Oakley said this on a podcast, and then people were outraged, and then he said this, and then he was pushed further, and then this happened. So he kind of takes us through the whole story. So if you're not familiar with it, this is probably, I don't know, five, eight minute read. So it kind of takes you through what exactly happened.
00:07:22
Speaker
um But as we're all talking about, one of Gaz's main points of why he stopped being vegan was because he wants to be closer to nature. He talks a lot about what's natural in nature.
00:07:37
Speaker
And so one thing that I was thinking about, and i know you guys were too, was do we need to extinguish this romanticism of being closer to nature? or do you think it's possible to have that close connection to nature while being vegan and staying real?
Veganism and Nature: Compatibility Challenges
00:07:55
Speaker
Are vegans not close to nature? I think we are close to nature and ah many of us, some of us are, some of us are not. Some of us are city dwellers and don't care about nature or maybe their nature is a local park and the squirrels and birds and creatures that live there. Not everybody is... um lucky enough to be living in some sort of beautiful cottage in the country with a whole load of land in order to um grow their own food and I think
00:08:32
Speaker
um you know this romanticized ideal of nature if you look well i've got um looking looking through his book there's all these pictures of all you know these fruits and vegetables growing and what have you there's no pictures of all the him like trying to net the cabbages to keep the butterflies off and stop the squirrels from eating all the fruit of his trees and like i have at the minute i have deer trying to eat everything as well you want to be that You know, there is this kind of, oh, if only we could get back to nature, the Garden of Eden. It's a flipping war zone out there if you're trying to grow vegetables, you know. none of that comes across, I don't think. And, you know, that there's the veganic movement where people grow their food without any animal inputs whatsoever.
00:09:26
Speaker
let alone any animal outputs, you know, you know, and I've tried to grow mechanically, you know, you do not need animals as part of the system. And you do not need animals for your protein sources, as we all know, you know, so that's always the thing, isn't it is all you need, you've got to have your meat for your protein or your eggs or your fish, as he's like, he's going and plundering the local stream for fish. it would seem, and getting ah rescue, taking eggs from, I guess, his neighbour's chickens or something. and and ah Is it Ed that points out, or somebody else, that chickens, are rescue chickens are not natural. They have been bred into these creatures that give far too many eggs in a year, detrimental to their their little bodies. So there's nothing natural about that either. So there's nothing natural about chickens being in England either. That's not chickens natural habitat. Absolutely. Good point. So yeah, there's so many holes in this that, you know, it's ridiculous. So Paul, what did you think about this argument about he he wants to be closer to nature? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of main points here for me.
00:10:45
Speaker
One, I mean, i I struggle to kind of buy into it as a thing in general, because I don't necessarily think that as a vegan, I'm particularly doing that on the basis of trying to be close to nature. It's not one of my um drivers. It's trying to be closer to not killing animals unnecessarily, um you know, for food for food and and thriving.
00:11:08
Speaker
I think there is a part of the article that is quite tongue-in-cheek from Ed in a kind of not-having-a-go type way, but he sort of says, well, he's living in a house and he's got his heating, and so there's ah he's hardly living the life of this kind of Tarzan figure, ah you know, that he might be purporting to be, you know, because none of us are really that close to nature. That's the way of society. I mean, there's probably a few people that are, and I'm actually funny enough to know a...
00:11:38
Speaker
guy that used to um live in the woods. He built himself a hut. He was like a carpenter and lived out in the woods for two years and was really, really was sort self-sufficient in that way. But that is a very unusual case. Most of us are living in, you know, and constructed houses. We're buying food from supermarkets.
00:11:56
Speaker
We're surrounded by plastic and man-made materials and social constructs. It's sort I don't really buy into it anyway. So I think, you know, the the crux of all of this for me is that saying something like going back to nature, eating local, organic, it's just like, oh shit, what excuses can I make up to kind of cover...
00:12:17
Speaker
my my choice to go back to eating meat when really i think I'd have a lot more respect to for him if he just said, do you know what? The reality is I was never really a proper vegan because I'd be doing it for the animals. And the fact I've gone back to eating animals just mean I don't care enough about animals to stay vegan.
00:12:33
Speaker
Just be honest about it. na Maybe he was just doing it to sell cookbooks. Possible. I'd hope not. And maybe, you know, maybe at that point in time, he did think he was vegan. But I struggle with I do struggle with these people that go from being vegan to not being vegan, because and I think we've talked about this before on one of the shows in the past. I just cannot comprehend.
00:12:55
Speaker
going back it just doesn't just I can't so and I think you know speaking to other people now just it just it's almost suck it um it's a one way switch you you can't so i just i i struggle to understand how and like and like you say Shane you know you do question the kind of genuineness of the original position that was taken because you think well boom how can you how can you do that it's just impossible in my mind anyway but Well, and I like how Ed points out. So why does going back to nature always have to be, I'm going to start eating animals instead of, oh, I'm going to live without indoor plumbing, or I'm not going to rely on antibiotics if I get an infection. I mean, the why can't you go back to nature that way? Why does it have to be about eating animals? Yeah. And I really, i think it's just an excuse for hunters and carnists, because I think hunters say this too, about, well, how sacred and spiritual hunting is. and And I think it's just an excuse for them to keep doing what they've been doing. And it's not something that's not necessarily moral or natural. It's just false link. Well, yeah. And he's also, I guess, tying it into eating invasive spirit species because Of course, they're not natural. They're not meant to be there, and according to him. And so that's okay to eat them. So i can't even remember what species he says he's going to start eating. It's probably pigeons and crayfish was one of them, wasn't it?
00:14:24
Speaker
Crayfish. I don't remember. Paul, do you remember what invasive species he said? I don i don't see. No, if it says it, to be quite honest. but Oh, right. oh I've got that from somewhere else then. So, sorry. Apologies. I did read the article very quickly, admittedly. yes instead so to to does He does mention invasive species, doesn't he?
00:14:42
Speaker
Yes, for sure he mentions invasive species. yeah But it may be Gaz said what which species and then i didn't summarize. No, I probably made that up. But, you know, is which invasive species, you know, is he is he going to be... ah The most invasive species, of course, is human beings. Mm-hmm. And actually, invasive species are not the the real problem in the Welsh countryside, which is where he is, isn't he? says't know He's in Wales. The worst problem is the sheep, of which there are many, and they are destroying the habitat there. Is he going to eat the stray cats and dogs because they're feral cats eating all the birds? ah you know What invasive species will he be eating? So quite interesting how... You know, you can you can pick and choose, can't you? And like you say, you know, he's he's um he's he's not going to not use his washing machine because I don't know how else he'd get his clothes so sparkly white.
00:15:45
Speaker
And he's not going to be taking them down to the riverside and pummeling them with a stone, is he? Hand sewing them a loom. Well, I was thinking he might be, you know, his, his. So that was another argument, wasn't it? The the clothes, leather and natural fibres. I'm thinking, well, you're going to be weaving your own hemp shirt and your own nettle fibre trousers or something, you know, how natural do you want to go? It it feels like it's only, oh, this is only one step from saying, yeah, but cavemen ah to some degree.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I also wonder, i and as I say, I read it fairly quickly, so I'm quite happy to be informed here, but does it does it say anything about whether he's willing to go and slaughter these animals himself now? No, he's he's not. That's pretty important. Yeah, it didn't say that. Would that not be natural? It did say that he...
00:16:36
Speaker
doesn't agree
Is Returning to Nature Practical Today?
00:16:37
Speaker
with, he doesn't want to eat animals that were factory farmed or something about animals that would be taken to an abattoir that also slaughters factory farmed animals. So Ed mentions how this has to do with, he's not really about the animals then, but about, I guess, the method. was going say, doesn't that leave him open to homesteading and killing animals on their own property, which is good. gruesome and horrendous as well in its own way.
00:17:07
Speaker
So is he open to that? Who knows? And again, if you're talking about nature, i mean, would you not be thinking, well, then that is um consuming animals that have died of old age, natural causes, or or or even I know we've talked about this before, like roadkill, um you know because the slaughter of the animals in any kind of abattoir process isn't natural. That's that's fact. So it i think the trouble is it is the reason that romanticism question is nonsense really is because it's it's too it's too nebulous a thing isn't it nature natural it's just it's you can interpret it how you want really which is why the argument becomes a bit of a mess really
00:17:50
Speaker
And it does depend how far back you want to go as well, because even agriculture isn't natural. That's a ah man-made construct, isn't it? It's like 10,000 or so years are ah old or something. So, you know, hey, just sling out all your vegetable beds, sling out all your F1 courgettes or whatever it is you're growing. Go out and kind of forage for roots, tiny, tiny little vegetables.
00:18:16
Speaker
roots of the original carrot or something which have tiny weeny little roots and it'll be more dirt than carrot root I don't know it's just yeah it's it's it's how natural do you actually want to be i notice he's wearing bare he's got bare feet in some of the photos in my book as well so he's clearly although he talks about leather doesn't he and second-hand shoes um i just think well just go with the bare feet you know what's wrong with that that's natural i feel like he's trying to position himself ah sort of i don't know in in the united states anyway right now we're seeing kind of a rise of this trad wife influencer and i feel like and then there's also you know the the paleo people and you know, who are like, oh I'm going to eat the caveman diet or whatever. And I wonder if he's, and then you see that too with Robert Kennedy Jr. who's, you know, trying to like, we're going to go back to you know, eating beef broth and no processed foods or whatever. And I wonder if he's trying to position himself so that he is in that kind of sphere.
00:19:25
Speaker
you know, now I'm going to do cookbooks about so-called natural eating. Yeah. I mean, that's an interesting one, isn't it? If you if if you're really cynical, I'm not saying you're ashamed, but it maybe you say that the ah ah vegan haters or meat eaters suddenly being able to get a book written by someone who was vegan and doing meat, they'd be like, for them, it might be a bit of like, ah, well, one-upmanship now because this bloke's written a book about meat so going to buy that now and you know hey might sell a few books so yeah possible but well yeah because he's published all these vegan books and now maybe nobody you know the publishers are like oh we're not so interested in that anymore what else do you have and so now he's thinking oh I can move into this emerging thing of of like everybody growing their own food and making their own
00:20:12
Speaker
cheese and having eight kids and living off the land or whatever. And he sees that as a new lucrative venture. Yeah. Yeah. What did you guys think about? So Ed talks about how he he makes these, how Gaz makes these claims about wanting to be close to nature. And then when he was pushed on them, he started talking about that he also had to stop being vegan for his health. So obviously, that we don't know him personally. That's hard to disprove. And it can seem a little insensitive for us to question that.
00:20:48
Speaker
Again, being cynical, Is it possible that Gaz knows that this is a difficult argument for us to question and that he's exploiting that argument of health? Because we see that argument a lot from people who go back to eating meat who are vegan. Well, Kate's probably an expert on this, I suspect. But yeah, I think the, um i think the yeah you're right, I think we do see that as quite often the case. And I've even um historically had friends who were even just veggie and had gone back to eating meat because they said, oh, they they they thought they weren't doing well on it health wise. But I do, again, think it's a bit of a kind of easy thing to kind of point to rather than just saying, oh, I'm a bit, I just want to eat meat again or I'm bored of it or whatever. and So I do think it's a little bit convenient to have that as a case. And yeah it might be insensitive, but I think what we should really be doing is rather than focusing on one person's statement around potential
00:21:47
Speaker
health concerns is look at the wider medical evidence and okay we've talked a lot about that on here but I'm pretty confident in saying that the the the majority of the evidence is pointing positively towards a balanced vegan diet and certainly whole food vegan diet uh then we get into the whole ultra process kind of debate again I know but yeah i I don't think I find it very difficult to believe someone who goes I've got to start eating meat again for my health it doesn't wash I don't think And when it's their third argument after they've already talked about all this other stuff and then when they're pushed, then it's like, oh, but also, you know, that isn't the first thing that he says. Well, my thoughts are, why on earth, if there's something wrong with you, go and see a nutritionist if you think it's your diet.
00:22:35
Speaker
I mean, go and see a doctor. Apparently, so I read somewhere that he's not very keen on health professionals. So he probably hasn't had a blood test to see if there is actually anything underlying. And he doesn't take supplements, which are on a vegan diet, we all know you need to supplement with B12.
00:22:53
Speaker
Well, indeed, and actually even omnivores should really probably, they should get tested at least because omnivores have no idea how much B12 they're taking because if you're relying on animal, eating bits of animal and their excretions, you have no idea how much B12 that is, even though they get supplemented with it.
B12 and Vegan Diets: Necessity of Supplements
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah, Anthony and I were talking on a podcast about um the rates of B12 deficiency in the general population can be as much as they're estimating 20%. And so that's definitely a lot of non-vegans right there.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And if you're a vegan, yeah, take your B12 or make sure you're getting it or in all the the foods. And it's really not difficult. It could be anything. He could he could have he could have picked up some bug or other. or I have no idea. well you know i And i don't wish and him and i wish him well, obviously. But for goodness sake, go and speak to somebody who knows what they're talking about. I can help you work through what it is. Perhaps he is...
00:23:57
Speaker
not eaten correctly in some way. i don't know. But it's really not that hard. It really isn't that hard. But I just find it so disappointing with the number of followers he's got, you would have thought he would have done his research properly. i can't think he has. i don't know that he's really educated himself. But he got all these things that he's saying, there are gonna be a lot of people who are much more time scarce than he is, who are going to start worrying about their own nutrient intake and stuff. And I thought that is, you know, i find that really upsetting. Because he's he's eaten, at the minute he says he's eating fish and eggs, I'm guessing that he's worried about his protein, which is what most people seem to worry about, is their protein. Oh dear, big sigh. But looking at him he doesn't look like he needs to be worrying about his protein because he clearly wear it works out. so I'm guessing he must use a tree trunk of different sizes to to do his workouts from because he won't be using like your kind of,
00:25:07
Speaker
you know, your um usual gym equipment, will he? I don't suppose he's going to the gym and driving in a car to get there or anything like that. So I don't know, it just, it just upsets me that he's, and and as, some this isn't Ed, somebody pointed out that if he's worried about his B12, just have a pond and grow duckweed, because ah duckweed naturally creates B12. You know, if he doesn't want to take a supplement, because he was worried about all the the forests that used to be where all these many millions of B12 factories are, you know, the the forest that's been displaced by them. Just have a pond. He's got room. And he's also worried about, you know, going on about, um you know, how...
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, we eat chia and quinoa all the time. How do you pronounce quinoa, Shane? I said quinoa. Quinoa, okay. i I never quite know how to say it. And probably avocados, he mentions, and oh dear, you know, having to ship them in from across the world. Well, I could tell him that you can actually, you can buy it in the UK, grown in the UK. Chia seeds and quinoa.
00:26:17
Speaker
quinoa as well both of those grow in the uk so he doesn't have any of those worries if if he eats a lot of those things you know there's just so many holes in in his talk and both those things are quite high in protein as well actually aren't they so yeah and but of course it is hard especially when he doesn't say exactly what his health issue is And we don't want to pry. But yeah, well, he's bringing it up publicly. I mean, you know, I guess so. i guess so But yeah, it's just, oh, dear. It's just so annoying. It's just so annoying because it's undoing all the good work that so many health professionals are doing in promoting
00:27:05
Speaker
a healthy vegan diet for optimal health. And like Paul said, all the research is there. There are so many studies that are saying, for goodness sake, go and do a bit reading in your spare time, Gaz, please. Go and talk to some people that know about this these things. I feel like when people start to make these claims about, I didn't feel well on a vegan diet, then it just shows it was never really about the animals for them. Then it was more about health.
00:27:36
Speaker
And um you know what else, Kate, you just mentioned about the local, about how Gaz talks about wanting to eat local. I thought Ed made really good points in the article about how just because you're eating something locally doesn't mean it's more sustainable or climate friendly. And in fact, sometimes it might be better for the environment or better to eat not locally I thought that was an interesting argument absolutely yeah absolutely beef being a prime example that there if if he ever starts eating beef again i don't know what is what where where does he where's he gonna is he finds a dead cow in the field is he gonna eat that as well I wonder I don't know And honey as well. Honey. Yeah. He's right with honey medicinally, inverted commas. You know, I don't know what medicinal benefits there are in eating bee vomit. You know, I've got no idea. But, you know, bees, honeybees, they are really, really, they aren't, they are not, they're an invasive species. That's exactly what Ed was talking about, right? Yeah.
00:28:43
Speaker
They are. that they are ats They are helping drive other insects to extinction and the wildflowers that depend on them. So go and read a bit, Gaz, please. and educate yourself. I was wondering what would be really nice is to see Gaz being interviewed by um Michael Greger, maybe, to talk through some of this stuff, ah just to kind of walk through, because that's kind of...
00:29:10
Speaker
where someone who's got a better view of more global health challenges and how veganism can help help those would be yeah would be useful, perhaps. So and another argument that Gaz Oakley then makes, I guess when he was getting pressed, he says, you know, well, hey, um I didn't ask for any
Gaz Oakley's Vegan Influence and Motivations
00:29:29
Speaker
of this. I never meant to be, you know, see it as an expert or an influencer. What was y'all's take on that? Big sigh. they You know.
00:29:40
Speaker
No, but clearly there are people who have helped him along the way. And clearly they have taught him stuff. there's They've taught him how to, like looking in my book, ferment kimchi and burnt courgettes and whipped tofu. Yeah, charred kimchi. Somebody's taught him how to make kimchi. somebody's some He's been supported. he was while he was where I'm not sure where he lived. Was it London? Was he a chef in London? People came to, obviously, his restaurant. they they they've like They've been there for him. They've helped ensure that he's made a whole load of money can have this this lifestyle now. And he's been putting out this. Nobody asked him to put out all this information and stuff. And people look to influencers because, you know, they don't have time necessarily to do all the the research into things themselves. Yeah, like say, nobody asked him to do it, but he's been doing it anyway. So I don't know, just just makes me, yeah, makes me crass. I think in line with the health concerns and him saying, or pity the man who's made success and money out of um these cookbooks, is this sort of victim is of playing himself as the victim here, ironically, by creating victims in the animals. So it's it doesn't it doesn't um ah it doesn't frame very well, really. It's a bit too pity pity me and my, you know,
00:31:18
Speaker
challenges here when you're just like, it's not about you, mate. It's not about you. so Well, and also you don't accidentally write a cookbook, go to a publisher, get a contract, get paid in advance, take pictures of the food, have it published, do a press tour, do a blog, you know, whatever he's doing. This is not, and none of this is accidental. He didn't fall into it. He's curated all of this. He's cultivated all of this. And And I think people are right to be angry and say, oh, you presented yourself as a vegan and you're not vegan. You never were vegan. And so I can understand why people are upset.
00:31:57
Speaker
It's like, don't know, I've said before, when I've when I've gone along to a ah vegan fair or something and. You know, there's a company there and they're selling like vegan dog biscuits or something. And and you start talking to them and chatting away and then you find out they're not vegan. it's like, what?
00:32:18
Speaker
What are you doing? It's just like, yeah, it's it is like he was never authentically vegan he's like it's it's like can we trust that he ever ever had his heart in the right place and for the right I mean Alex Gauthier I don't doubt him for a second he's vegan for the animals who is who is Alex Gauthier Oh, gosh, do you not know Alex Gauthier, Shane? No, I don't. He's he's a great restaurant.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, amazing. He's got two restaurants, I believe. one in ah they might both and say i've actually I've been to one of them. Have you been, Paul? I've been to all of them, yeah. I've been to the one i been but to the sushi one, the one in the cinema, and the and the um or the one that's closed that was in the... um fenix and uh yeah and the main one that's in central soho that's the kind of upmarket one yeah which is lovely as well yeah the you yeah lucky you fight i've been to the sushi one and that was absolutely amazing but the thing is he yeah he's french originally and um
00:33:29
Speaker
a Michelin star chef, and was getting activists um standing outside his restaurant with placards and stuff. that Wait, wait, then did he go out and talk to them? and i I heard an interview with him on a podcast. Yes, yes, yes. and So he listened to them and he actually changed. Yes, and he stopped doing...
00:33:56
Speaker
foie gras. And then, yes you know, he started looking to all the rest of it and thought, i cannot support this anymore, even if we take a hit. And he did, didn't he? Lost to all his, well, the majority of his clientele. Overnight, they stopped coming to his restaurant because he he went he turned it vegan. And then they actually they started getting people coming who were vegan or vegan curious, and they realized that the food was delicious. But he's always putting out stuff that is pro-vegan, pro-the-animals.
00:34:33
Speaker
calling out other chefs and stuff. And I i heard him speak at, is it Vegan Camp? don't know if it's last year. And he was basically, so he was absolutely brilliant. He's so fiery. And he was like saying, basically, he says to other chefs,
00:34:50
Speaker
If you know that i ah animals are suffering, that they can feel love and feel pain and love their families, and you're still going to eat them, you are a monster. and' and he said that in his brilliant French accent as well. I just thought, oh, my God, you're amazing. So, you know, he's like he's like the icon, I think, to hold, or one of the icons, but an icon to hold up, I think, is a,
00:35:21
Speaker
as a vegan chef who loves his food is an amazing cook and you know his food is amazing isn't it Paul it's amazing it is it's it's really really good and of course he won his Michelin star when he was still cooking meat and it would have been very easy for him to carry on in that line and and you know you know I don't know what his sort of wealth position is but he's Obviously being touched by this kind of ethical kind of light bulb moment and just gone, no, and I'm now going to carry on producing ethical food.
00:35:54
Speaker
I got to know him because so in lockdown, he, in order to kind of keep the business running, he did a um food by mail. So every week he would have a menu and it would be from different countries around the world. Yeah. And i mean, it wasn't cheap, but when you're in lockdown and you needed something to kind of cheer you up, um I was getting through quite a few of those and it was great. You had to kind of make them up a little bit yourself, but it was some fantastic stuff from all the way around the world, all
Profitability vs. Vegan Commitment
00:36:25
Speaker
sorts of stuff. and He started doing that again now and he's restaurants kind of going, you know, we're going to focus on and not not just obvious stuff, but kind of cultures that probably haven't tried the food before, know much about it. So yeah, really interesting stuff. So I feel like maybe it's fair to say that for Gaz Oakley, that when it wasn't profitable or popular for him to keep being vegan, he stopped being vegan and maybe he wasn't ever really vegan.
00:36:51
Speaker
yeah Yeah, sounds like it. Anyway, listeners, we'd love to hear what your thoughts are. If you read the article, let us know. Thank you to Paul and Kate for sharing your thoughts and for being on the show today. And as much as we love Paul and Kate, dear listener, maybe you disagreed with something they said. Maybe we missed something. Maybe you want to tell us that we're great or you know something about Gaz Oakley that we don't or you know something about Paul Gauthier that we don't. So we're always thrilled to hear your opinions.
00:37:21
Speaker
And the best way to do that is through email. Paul, tell us what our email address is. So our email address is enoughoftheflaffle, or one word, at gmail.com. And just as a reminder, we read and respond to each email that's sent by listeners, and we will look to feature them on our mailbag shows, unless, of course, you would like us not to do that. And if you would like to help the show, you can always contribute to our Ko-Fi account. And that website is linked on the show notes. You can help ah fund our efforts to get better equipment, which is going to make the show better for everyone. You can donate as little as one pound a month.
00:37:58
Speaker
That's right. So you can also rate us and or leave a review on your podcast player. and You can subscribe to the show and that tells your podcast player that we're great. yay we're a great show. And as well as giving you alerts when you new podcasts drop and you can tell people about the show and you can share it. please do thank you everyone for listening we're now actually going on a mini summer break not all of us together we're not kind of packing the bags now uh where a couple of the shows coming out will be a bit different to normal um however you can expect two new shows each week still as usual um the next enough of the falafel episode coming out will be one of our going vegan shows and that will be available from monday after this show and that will feature david talking to anthony about his vegan journey Yeah, I love those um vegan journeys ones. They're really great, aren't they? Yeah. and you Anyway, that's enough of the falafel for this episode. Thank you so much, Shane. And thank you so much, Paul, for your absolutely wonderful contributions. I really enjoyed chatting with you today. And thank you, every one of you out there who are listening to us. You are amazing. And we really do appreciate you.
00:39:18
Speaker
I've been Kate and you've been listening to Vegan Talk from the Enough of the Falafel Collective.
00:39:29
Speaker
This has been an Enough of the Falafel production. We're just a normal bunch of everyday vegans putting our voices out there. The show is hosted by Zencaster.
00:39:39
Speaker
We use music and special effects by zapsplap.com. And sometimes, if you're lucky, at the end of an episode, you'll hear a poem by Mr Dominic Berry. Thanks all for listening and see you next time.
00:40:10
Speaker
This episode may have come to an end, but did you know we've got a whole archive containing all our shows dating back to September 2023? twenty twenty three That is right, Dominic. There's over 100 episodes on there featuring our brilliant range of different guests, people's stories of going vegan, philosophical debates, moral quandaries, and of course, around a dozen news items from around the world each week. So check back on your podcast player, to hear previous episodes. And remember to get an alert for each new episode, simply click like or follow and also subscribe to the show.
00:40:46
Speaker
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