What Happened To The ChickPeeps?

Everything was going so well… It was Spring of 2021 and life was returning to a semblance of normality. We were leaving our lockdown caves for work, spending more time outdoors than in deep inner turmoil, and a new ChickPeeps episode dropped every Wednesday, sometimes even on time. We were having complex conversations about vegan capitalism, food equity and greenwashing, and things were getting a whole lot more interesting when, suddenly, season 3 came to an abrupt halt. The ChickPeeps promised to return in Autumn 2021 with a brand new season. But when the vegan world needed them most, they vanished…

Hello, sweet ‘peeps! It’s been a hot minute and we appreciate we left a ChickPeep shaped hole in many of your lives, promptly plucking the podcast from the orbit just as we were hitting our stride. Call it an Irish Goodbye, or a French Escape, call it just plain rude and disorganized, whatever it was, this unprecedented hiatus and echoey silence from Team ChickPeep left many of you citing the constant refrain: ‘What Happened To The ChickPeeps?’, ‘Anyone still read these emails?’ And, most piteously, ‘Are you guys ever coming back? :,( ‘

We’re still here, and we hear you, so we’ve come together to answer all these questions and more. In this episode…

  • ChickPeeps Catchup - a lot can change in two years! Robbie models a surprisingly wholesome t-shirt and spiritual growth, Momo discusses her ADHD diagnosis and leaving social media, Tylor is a magical cookbook author and Evy comes out as not-an-activist.

  • MoJo; we ship it.

  • ChickPeeps Rewind - listen and cringe-a-long as we listen back to our younger selves set intentions for the podcast and evaluate their success.

  • The future of ChickPeeps … Is the podcast ending?

  • Because it wouldn’t be a ChickPeeps episode without a ridiculous scenarios game, we make some educated guesses on where each host will end up in the next 10 years in: ‘Who’s Most Likely To…? -’

  • First Official ChickPeeps Meetup Announcement: will Momo and Tylor finally get to meet in person at Robbie’s sanctuary or outside Tylor’s prison cell?

  • An uninvited past guest makes an uncomfortable reappearance.

  • Snip snap, snip snap - one of us shares their personal reasoning for choosing to undergo sterilization.

  • Is a ChickPeep hole shaped like a Chicken or a Chickpea? (jk, we don’t get round to this)

  • The hosts share some resources that have brought insight, support and joy to their vegan lives.

Robbie: Visit a Sanctuary to connect with rescued animals! Check out this link for a comprehensive list.

Tylor: PETA, The PETA Podcast, The Animal People, The Cranky Vegan and Tylor’s podcast Radicals and Revolutionaries.

Momo: Subscribe to a printed vegan magazine such as Vegan Food & Living or VegNews

Evy: listen to Evy’s other podcast, Just Beings, cohosted with Dr Melanie Joy. Also, a vegan brownie subscription.

Keep up with Momo, Evy, Tylor and Robbie on their personal pages.

Season 3 Finale!

This season of The ChickPeeps is brought to you by our friends at Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your first order at vivolife.com.

Yes, dearest ChickPeeps, here we are... The final episode of season 3. This has undoubtedly been our best and most spangly season to date and we’re so grateful that you’ve shared it with us! In this episode all four ChickHosts sit down for one last chat in which we recap our favourite moments from the season, answer our own quickfire questions and play a final, epic game of Vegan Troll in the Dungeon! Also in this episode…

  • We reflect on the moments and guests of season 3 who changed and challenged our veganism.

  • We set intentions for our dream season 4 guests!

  • “If you could give one animal species the power of speech, who would it be?” A seemingly innocuous question that elicits some ridiculous answers and heated debate!

  • Evy introduces us to Orpheus, a talking cat with a plan to overthrow human supremacy, who poses a conundrum to the gang.

  • Tylor teaches us about a ‘freegan’ diet!

  • Listener, Maurice, issues a public apology to his mother!

  • Momo finally does her much anticipated Essex accent and folks, it is worth the wait!

  • Evy’s veganism gets put on trial and Robbie enjoys it faaaar too much.

Links:

An amazing video about blue whales!

A few other vegan pods to tide you over until season 4:

The Vegan Life Podcast

Main Street Vegan

Our Hen House

The Exam Room Podcast

Get In Touch:

Bonus Content: ChickPeeps Patreon

Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod

Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast

S3, Ep22: ChickPeeps x Mugglecast Crossover!

This season of The ChickPeeps is brought to you by our friends at Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your first order at vivolife.com.

This week we have a very special crossover episode with Wizarding World podcasting masters; the hosts of MuggleCast! Created in 2005, to talk about all things Harry Potter, MuggleCast has produced over 500 episodes is still going strong. This week, Tylor and Evy are joined by Andrew, Eric, Laura and Micah to get their take on animal rights in the wizarding world, and to discuss how to make the wizarding world more animal-friendly. We also play a very lively round of ‘Vegan Troll in the Dungeon’ with a twist...

  • Evy shares which one of the MuggleCasters is also an integral part of The ChickPeeps team and - to be totally honest with you, peeps - we couldn’t do the show without him…. Which MuggleCaster is it? Listen to find out!

  • The MuggleCasters reveal their respective Hogwarts houses and Andrew explains why he chose to renounce Gryffindor!

  • BREAKING NEWS: Our host, Tylor, has a huge announcement to share from his organisation The Protego Foundation about a victory achieved for animals in the muggle wizarding world, in association with Warner Bros.

  • Our guests muse on what species of magical creature they’d most like to meet in the muggle world.

  • The gang discuss the news that HBO are planning a Wizarding World TV series and what changes we’d like to see from a vegan perspective.

  • Is it cruel to liberate house-elves, and how would we personally handle a house-elf we ‘inherited’.

  • Plant-based Hogwarts feasts: an oxymoron or a creative culinary challenge?

  • We devise more secure, ethical methods of letter delivery than owls, and talk about their role in wizarding society.

  • Oh great, the ‘Voldemort is Vegan’ theory is back… Tylor tries to convince the Mugglecasters.

  • A ghostly presence graces the pod with a non-corporeal conundrum...

Links:

Protego Foundation

MuggleCast website

MuggleCast Instagram and Twitter

Get In Touch:

Bonus Content: ChickPeeps Patreon

Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod

Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast

S3, Ep21: Disrupting the Dairy Industry with Refarm'd

This season of The ChickPeeps is brought to you by our friends at Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your first order at vivolife.com.

In this episode Evy and Robbie interview Geraldine Starke, founder of Refarm’d. Refarm’d is an organisation devoted to helping farmers transition their businesses from the production of cow’s milk to producing plant-based milks and convert their farmland to animal sanctuaries. Having already piloted their scheme with a number of ex-dairy farmers, including Katja & Jay Wilde, whose story was covered in the 2018 documentary 73 Cows, Geraldine joins us to talk about how Refarm’d is disrupting the dairy industry and what is next for the organisation.

Also in this episode…

  • Geraldine speculates on the limitations within the current model of animal sanctuaries and explains why dairy farms are perfectly equipped to become animal sanctuaries.

  • “There is really a war between farmers and vegans” - Geraldine talks about wanting to heal the animosity between the farming and animal rights’ communities and how she intends to help farmers and animals with one organisation.

  • “Finally, we’re helping the farmers. The future is with them, not against them” - Geraldine describes the reaction of vegans to the work of Refarm’d.

  • Geraldine tells us all about the Refarm’d model for helping farmers transition from dairy production to plant milk production - and why they only work with farmers who commit to keeping all of their animals.

  • How profitable is producing oat milk vs dairy milk.

  • How you can patronise and support the farmers new oat milk businesses!

  • “We want to create a whole network around Refarm’d where we can connect farmers with other experts.” - Geraldine shares her vision for the future of Refarm’d, a system that is local, sustainable and ethical.

Links:

Refarm’d Website

Refarm’d Instagram

Documentary 73 Cows on Vimeo

Get In Touch:

Bonus Content: ChickPeeps Patreon

Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod

Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast

S3, Ep20: Anti-Poaching & Female Empowerment, with Damien Mander, the Vegan Ranger

This season of The ChickPeeps is brought to you by our friends at Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your order at vivolife.com.

This week on the show we’re talking to the founder of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, Damien Mander. Damien is a former Special Operations sniper who traveled to Africa in 2009, after leaving the military, in search of a new adventure. Instead he discovered “a purpose amongst chaos” when he saw the body of an enormous bull elephant that had been brutally killed for his tusks. In that moment, Damien’s life changed forever and our movement gained a powerful, passionate and highly skilled animal advocate. In this interview Damien talks to Robbie and Evy about his vegan journey, founding the IAPF and about Akashinga, Africa’s first armed, plant-based, all-women anti-poaching unit.

We conducted this interview while Damien was at one of the IAPF reserves in Kenya. The sounds you can hear in the background of our conversation are the authentic noises of the Kenyan wildlife at night!

Also in this episode…

  • Damien identifies going vegan as the single most important thing he’s done with his life.

  • In pursuit of adventure, Damien talks about his initial motivation to visit Africa, having heard about the anti-poaching world years earlier.

  • “These guys are defending the heart and lungs of the planet.” - Damien talks about seeing the work of rangers for the first time, and how it made him see past his ego to reevaluate his life and the kind of person he wanted to be.

  • “Having hunted [animals] before Iraq, I never hunted after Iraq because I knew what it was like to be hunted” - Damien talks about how his perspective on animals was radically shifted by his experiences serving twelve tours in Iraq.

  • How the world of anti-poaching gave Damien a purpose that had previously eluded him.

  • Damien shares how he repurposed his skills as a sniper in the army to set up the International Anti-Poaching Foundation.

  • We learn about Akashinga, Africa’s first plant-based all-female anti-poaching unit and Damien shares why he believes women are innately predisposed to be able to protect wildlife and de-escalate conflict.

  • “The women are survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, AIDs orphans, single mothers, abandoned wives and when we set this up we thought, ‘lets give an opportunity to some of the most marginalized women, in the toughest positions’ - what we didn’t realise is we were getting the hardest women there were” - on the all female Akashinga rangers.

  • “There’s two types of conservationists. Vegans… and those that don’t like to take their work home” - Damien pulls no punches when talking about his stance on veganism as a conservationist.

  • Damien has a fresh definition of the alpha male.

Links:

International Anti-Poaching Foundation

Damien’s Modern Warrior TEDtalk

Phillip Wollen: Animals Should Be Off the Menu

Akashinga: The Brave Ones

The Game Changers

Chef Cola’s Instagram

Get In Touch:

Bonus Content: ChickPeeps Patreon

Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod

Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast

S3, Ep19: Food Equity & Justice with lauren Ornelas of Food Empowerment Project

This season of The ChickPeeps is brought to you by our friends at Vivo Life! Use our code 'chickpeeps10' to get 10% off your order at vivolife.com.

Our guest this week is the founder and president of Food Empowerment Project, lauren Ornelas. An animal rights activist of over 30 years, we talk to lauren about F.E.P.'s mission to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one’s food choices. In addition, lauren takes us through her beginnings as an activist, why she founded F.E.P. and why her activism doesn’t stop at veganism.

Also in this episode…

  • lauren talks about the culinary trials and tribulations of going vegan in the 1980s. Seriously folks, we don’t realise how good we’ve got it!

  • “I find college [activism] organisations to be some of the most impactful organisations that are out there” - lauren tells us about her earliest experiences as an activist in high school and college.

  • “In one of my investigations I basically collapsed afterwards just because of the overwhelming nature of how many animals were suffering” - lauren shares her experiences as an undercover activist working with the animal rights charity Viva! USA.

  • Lauren discusses the brutal working conditions in the cacao industry and why, in her opinion, many vegan chocolate companies are not truly vegan.

  • Is veganism a privilege or a moral obligation?

  • “Veganism has given me every purpose I’ve ever had in my life”

  • Tylor is shocked to learn about a company that is enforcing a food apartheid in a community he knows very well.

  • lauren gives us an example of a vegan phrase that should be retired and tells us why.

Links:

F.E.P.’s all-important Chocolate List.

lauren’s Tedx talk, The Power of Food our Food Choices.

Food Empowerment Project website.

Food Empowerment Project Instagram and Twitter and Youtube.

F.E.P. ‘Eating on a Budget’.

Get In Touch:

Bonus Content: ChickPeeps Patreon

Instagram: @ChickPeepsPod

Facebook: @ChickPeepsPodcast