Is Wool Just a Haircut?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 75. I'm the Muscle Deficient Vegan here with the Protein Deficient Vegan. Do you want to say hi? Hi! Hi, everybody. So this week, we're going to talk about wool and also down. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:13

New news!

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:15

First piece of news we have is that Juicy Marbles, a company that makes some plant-based meat stuff, has put out a turkey-style Granny's Roast for Thanksgiving.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:23

Granny's Roast? What? I've never heard anything called a Granny's Roast before.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:27

I hadn't heard of it either. To me, it looks like a long cylinder of protein, almost like sausage shape, but bigger.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:34

Yeah. It kind of reminds me of like the Tofurky loaves. Yeah, like a loaf. It's like a loaf. Are they loaves? Loaf? Loaves? A loaf roast? A loaf roast. By the way, I've been looking for that and I can't seem to find it in stores. Maybe it's just not stocked. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:50

Yeah, I looked the other day at all of our stores. I didn't see it anywhere.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:53

And I think I heard that, not that we have a Trader Joe's close by, but I heard they used to have like a holiday roast and that that got discontinued. Yeah. So this could be an option if you're looking for something for Thanksgiving.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04

And if anybody knows where you can reliably find those Tofurkys, please let us know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09

Yeah. That is like one thing I'm not cooking. We don't really do a traditional Thanksgiving, but like I don't really mess with that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18

And we've talked about before, like we tend to prefer the sides anyway. Yeah, yeah. So it's like sidesgiving.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22

We're already doing Sidesgiving. We do Sidesgiving for like three weeks straight while I come up with recipes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:28

It's awful. Uh, next up is Starbucks has dropped their Impossible sandwich at the locations they did have it at in the U.S. So now there are not any plant-based meat options on the U.S. menu.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:41

It's pretty disappointing. Though this one, I think, still had non-vegan cheese on it, which was kind of weird.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:46

I've seen a lot of places have, like, a sandwich that has a plant-based option, but they have real cheese on it. I don't know why you wouldn't just go ahead and put plant-based cheese on it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:53

Yeah, it's pretty weird. Yeah. Well, hopefully, maybe they'll roll out something else.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:57

Yeah, I think the closest thing they have is a lot of the locations have a spicy falafel type, almost like a sandwich pocket thing. But, yeah, it's not quite the same as a protein.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:07

All I want, okay, is, so I never got Egg McMuffins with meat on them anyway because I was vegetarian when I was a kid. Yeah. I just want an Egg McMuffin without meat. Yeah. Somewhere, like a vegan Egg McMuffin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:20

You have to make one.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:21

I know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:22

We need a protein-deficient vegan Egg McMuffin recipe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:24

I miss being able to go through a drive-thru and be like, I would like a hash brown and an Egg McMuffin without meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:30

You still get hash browns in a lot of places. That's true. But, yeah, no.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:33

Yeah, it's a little disappointing. Like, it'd be nice if someone just threw some of that on the menu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:37

I agree. Maybe one day. The last piece of news is that the Good Food Institute, which is a nonprofit that works to promote and develop plant-based meat alternatives and things like that, they had to lay off six of their U.S. staff and eliminate seven of their roles due to some funding issues.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:52

It's disappointing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:53

Yeah. So if that kind of thing interests you, we'll have a link to their donation page down in the show notes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:58

Yeah. Yeah, I think when we read The Impactful Vegan for our book club, it talked about this organization quite a bit. But yeah, with the recent election results, it'll be interesting to see if maybe this shifts the landscape a bit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:11

They had a statement that said that they thought that, you know, basically the Democratic lean now will help them get funding and support and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:19

Yes, the blue-nami.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:20

We'll see.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:21

Fingers crossed.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:22

All right, let's get into the main segment. So we talked about leather before, and kind of a similar product to that that we didn't really cover in that episode. Well, there's two really wool and down. Yeah. So down is like feathers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:36

Wool is going to start fights. Yeah. I just know because leather started. So like we got so many fights and stuff. Leather and honey. Yeah. Episodes seem to cause the most fights so far, and I feel like wool is going to be close behind that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:50

Yeah, wool is a big topic of debate because it doesn't necessarily kill the sheep. And there's a lot of arguments about the sheep needs to be sheared. They get really hot and uncomfortable if they're not sheared and things like that. And then with down, down mostly comes from ducks. And it's another thing where it's like, well, they're killing all the ducks to eat ducks, so they might as well use the feathers. It's a byproduct. I don't think that's quite as contested, but I think you're right about wool being kind of a gray area because it's basically just like a haircut is what people think.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:20

Yeah. And I think also a lot of what wool is used for is for like things where you would maybe normally use like acrylic. Yeah. Or like some kind of a plastic or something or maybe anyways, it's often seen as more environmentally friendly. So we'll get into that kind of stuff too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:38

Yeah. So a couple of pieces of terminology before we get into it. So there's something called Merino wool that is basically a special sheep bred for their wool quality. Um, those are mostly in Australia now. Australia grows about 70% of the merino wool. Um, there's something called mulesing, I think is how you pronounce it, where you basically cut some of the skin off of the lamb, um, so that it heals in a way that doesn't grow wool and prevents like a particular type of fly infestation. Australia is actually the only country that still does that now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:13

Yeah, but like you said, if Australia grows 70% of merino wool, then like the likelihood that your wool would have this going on is high.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:22

Yeah, definitely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:23

Which I had never heard of this before. This sounds very barbaric.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:26

Yeah, I hadn't either. I guess it's specifically to combat a particular type of fly infestation. And then there are a couple of different types of wool as far as like industry terms. There's greasy wool and clean wool. Greasy wool is just wool that comes right off the sheep. Like it still has all the dirt and stuff in there and oils and things like that. Clean wool is basically you washed out all that grease and dirt. And the grease is like lanolin, basically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:50

Right. Which, if you didn't know, they use lanolin in a lot of cereals. Yeah. When they're, I think it's for vitamin D,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:57

Right? Vitamin D3, I believe. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:59

So that's something to keep an eye on if you're like new to veganism or maybe you hadn't heard that before. If you see lanolin on a label that is sheep derived and it is not vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:07

Yeah. And, you know, there's about a million tons of clean wool and about 691,000 tons of down and feathers harvested every year.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:15

That's a shit ton.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:17

Another thing that those animals are used for is meat. So in 2024, there were 704 million sheep and 4.2 billion ducks that were slaughtered for meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:29

Those numbers are insane. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:31

Yeah. Anything bird related tends to be an extremely high number and ducks are no exception to that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:37

Love lambs and ducks. They're so cute.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:39

I know. They are cute. Let's get into wool a little bit. So one of the main excuses you'll hear basically is that sheep need to be sheared anyway. And shear is just the term for cutting the hair off.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:48

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:48

That is true that now the sheep that are on the farm do need to be sheared, but that's because we bred them that way. It's not like the natural way that a lamb or a sheep was.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:58

Yeah, it's a very similar argument to like, oh, we need to milk the cows or they're in pain. It's like, well, why are they producing so much milk? Because we genetically bred them to overproduce milk. And same with this, we have bred them to overproduce wool to where it's like, different than they would have been in nature and it can be

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:16

Uncomfortable well yeah not only overproduced but actually wild sheep shed every year so they naturally shed the extra wool or extra that's interesting and uh but the ones who are bred for wool they basically never stop growing their fleece you can't.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:30

Have them shedding their wool everywhere and then they'd have to go pick up the

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:34

Wool yeah yeah there was there's an example um of a merino sheep named Shrek who was not shorn for six years and had 27 kilograms of fleece, so it's like almost 60 pounds.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:47

Jesus, that's insane. That's got to be so uncomfortable, right? Okay, we're looking at Shrek. Shrek, he's adorable. He's so cute. Aw.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:58

Yeah, he avoided being caught and shorn for six years.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:01

Attaboy, Shrek.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:03

Apparently, he avoided this by hiding in caves around wherever his farm was. They did eventually find him.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:09

Aw. Mm-hmm. I'm always rooting for, like, the little rebel animal that, like, hides or gets away. Yeah. I think we all are, which makes it so interesting to me. Yeah. It's, like, even non-vegans are rooting for the animal that, like, gets away.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:23

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:24

So wouldn't you want them all to get away?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:26

Yeah. And as far as the actual shearing, like, a lot of the time it is effectively just a haircut. But even when it's well done and there's no, like, harm or damage done, it still means they're, like, in restraints. They're super stressed out. They're very cold because obviously the fleece is there to keep them warm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:41

They're never supposed to be fully without their fleece, right? And they're living in climates where they probably need it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:48

Yeah. And, you know, the people who do the shearing, the shearers, are paid per sheep, which is like $4 a sheep in Australia. So they're incentivized to just get through it as fast as possible. So they're not, like, taking a lot of detailed care with the sheep most of the time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:02

$4 seems kind of low for what I would expect. I mean, that kind of like kind of tells you everything you need to know that they're doing it quick,

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:09

Right? Yeah. I mean, you've got to get through a lot of sheep in a day to justify only charging $4 for sheep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:13

And sheep are pretty big.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:15

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:16

I'm just thinking like a dog haircut, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:18

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:19

Or a human haircut. Right. I don't know. Seems very cheap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:24

One interesting point is that the animal sanctuaries do have to shear their sheep as well because they basically have this type of sheep that will just keep growing, you know, the wool forever. but the biggest difference is they let their sheep grow to like get old and die of natural causes and they're also very careful with the shearing because they're not trying to maximize like profits or like how many sheep they shear they're.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:45

Trying to keep the sheep comfortable not try to make a bunch of money off of them and the other thing is like you know wool production eventually drops and it's not like they're not going to kill their sheep at a sanctuary just because they aren't producing as much wool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:59

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's like the argument is not necessarily that the act of shearing a sheep well and carefully is like the worst thing for it. Yeah. But even in those cases, it's still pretty stressful because that's not what they naturally do. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:13

And like while we're talking about sanctuaries, I think specifically a vegan sanctuary would not sell the wool they have because they're against commodifying animals right? Right. So some of the things that like a good ethical sanctuary will do with extra wool would be um Sometimes they will repurpose it by, like, leaving it out in the pastures or fields for local birds and stuff or other animals to make nests out of. I think that makes sense. You know, that's probably what would have happened in nature if they were shedding it naturally. They also could maybe donate it to a wildlife rehabilitation center for those animals to make bedding out of it. Or use it in the garden as mulch, frost protection, compost pile. Apparently, some will also donate it for oil spill cleanup projects. Which kind of makes sense. But yeah, I would say like if now I don't want to like shit on a sanctuary that is maybe selling wool, but I think it's a little questionable if you're buying wool from a quote unquote sanctuary, because most sanctuaries aren't trying to make money off of the animals they've rescued. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:18

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:19

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Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:27

Yeah. So something else that happens with the sheep is what I mentioned before is the mulesing. Is that how you say that? This is done to merino lambs specifically at six to 10 weeks old to prevent that fly infestation that they call fly strike.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:42

Well, they're just little babies and they're like peak cuteness.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:46

Yeah. I think the issue is where they tend to have like wrinkly skin, I think, near the tail and some other spots there. But that skin is part of how they were genetically bred to create more wool also. Right. So this is only a problem for the type of sheep that we have bred to produce more wool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:06

Basically, humans cause problems again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:08

Yeah. And then we try to fix them. And also it's a horrible solution. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:11

Yeah. And like the sheep have to pay the price. Yeah. Always.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:16

Yeah. So what mulesing is, is basically they're around the butt of a sheep. There's a lot of wrinkly skin that can collect like their waste and urine and stuff like that. And that attracts flies pretty badly. What they do is they take off a layer of the skin so that the wool won't grow back there anymore, so that there's nothing to collect all that. And so it won't attract the flies.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:38

That's very sad. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:39

And it's, I mean, it's pretty painful for the sheep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:41

I'm sure it's painful because they have to poop out of that hole still. Like, I'm sure it's incredibly uncomfortable until it heals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:50

They do some pain relief after not everywhere even does the pain relief, but it's still like not painless at all for the sheep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:57

Right. I don't even know how you could make that a pain-free situation with the healing and everything.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:02

Yeah. It's fucked up. Yeah. I think in Australia, 60% of merino wool came from sheep that had had this done in 2025 and 2026.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:14

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:15

So it's a very high prevalence for merino wool specifically. The industry actually promised to stop that back in 2010, but then back in 2009, right before the deadline, they got rid of it. Almost everywhere, though, has stopped doing this. It's only still in Australia, but those are the parts that are producing most of the merino wool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:32

Right. Yeah. Yeah, the other places can stop doing it because they're not the major producers of this wool, right? So we need to get back on Australia's neck.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:41

So, yeah, that's, you know, and that's just one example of like how harm, like actual harm is still directly done to a sheep that is just producing wool. And this isn't even considering the fact that it might be sold for meat later.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:53

Right. Yeah. It's six to ten weeks old. They're just babies.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:57

So because so many sheep do end up as meat, you might think like this is one of those situations where we're growing the sheep for meat anyway, and the wool is just a byproduct. But actually with merino wool, which is like the higher quality and most sought after wool, those sheep are specifically bred to produce merino wool. The wool will get sold every year, and then they will eventually get sold for meat. But that's just when they stop producing enough wool to still be viable.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:23

Right, which I think I read is like around, what, seven years of age?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:26

Yeah, typically.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:26

Is normally when they do kill the sheep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:29

Yeah. And this is another situation where like if they don't sell it for meat and if they do the shearing perfectly and it's like nice and comfortable, they're still killing the animal at seven years old. So no matter how well you treat it during life, if you're cutting its life short, this is still a problem, obviously.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:45

I think we've talked about this on a few other episodes, but you kind of get into, I think we talked about it on the egg episode. But it's like it becomes obvious when things are not people use like, oh, well, they're uncomfortable. We have to shear their wool. Right. So they're comfortable. And I think you can really tell like. If that is true, do they actually care about the animal or do they care about the profit based on what happens at the end?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:11

Right? Because when they become less profitable, they're producing less wool. Once they get older, you're not letting them live out their normal life. So it was never about the sheep in the first place. That's just like a bedtime story we tell ourselves to feel better. Yeah. Right? Like, you know, and maybe that's different at a sanctuary where it's like, yeah, well, once they stop producing the wool, we still let them live out their normal lifespan and they have a good life.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:31

And I will say, you know, like for the sheep that are raised primarily for meat, like British sheep, their wool is actually not that valuable. And sometimes it's like it even costs more to get a sheep sheared than you can sell the wool for.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:42

Oh, that's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:43

So those are treated more like a typical cattle or something where it's just being raised for meat, just going for slaughter, et cetera. And like maybe they'll occasionally do wool as a byproduct.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:53

Yeah. And I do think they use their skin for leather too, right? Like sheep skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:59

I've heard of sheep skin.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:01

I think that's what Uggs are made out of.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:02

Okay. Yeah. I'm not sure how prevalent that is, but I definitely know there are sheepskin things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:07

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:07

So, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:08

So, like, double fucked up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:09

Yeah. And then if we get into talking about down, which is feathers, again. Okay. Yeah. But, yeah. So, in the best case, this is, like, a byproduct of birds that are raised for meat, mostly ducks. Most down does come from ducks. Even in that case, the bird is still being slaughtered for meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:27

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:28

Yeah. This is pretty similar to leather, really. And also, there are some bad practices here, mostly in geese, like live plucking is an issue.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:37

Okay, that's severely fucked up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:39

Yeah. I guess there was footage from a bunch of Polish goose farms back in 2022 that showed almost half of those goose farms doing live plucking.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:46

Why? Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:49

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:50

I imagine that has to be pretty similar to feeling like getting your hair pulled out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:55

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:56

Right? Like, maybe worse. I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:58

I'm not sure how much it hurts, but it's not great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:00

I'm sure it doesn't feel fucking good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:02

And also, there was an issue with Patagonia back in 2011 that said that some of their down came from geese that were basically being raised for foie gras.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:11

Well, that's where they're force feeding geese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:14

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:14

Yeah, which I guess we should have mentioned this in new news, but there were actually a couple of cities that passed foie gras bans during the recent elections in the U.S.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:24

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:25

Washington, D.C. was one. I think there might have been one more.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:27

Yeah. While we're mentioning things like that, I guess it just came to my mind. This is not necessarily related to the election, but I saw New York just passed something or is passing something in their horse-drawn carriages.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:38

Oh, yeah. I saw that, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:39

So I'm not sure of the details there, but keep an eye on that. Yeah. And then, you know, most down, like 86% of down does not carry like a welfare label on the packaging or the product or anything. So it's hard to tell if your down was like live plucked or came from geese being force fed for foie gras or something like that. Or if it was just like a byproduct from a duck or a goose being used for meat. But I mean, either way, the animal is being slaughtered in the end because they are primarily for meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:08

Right. I mean, I think for me, all I need to know is that If the duck feathers are in a jacket, that means the duck isn't using them and they're not alive. So why the fuck would I use that? Right. Why would I buy that?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:23

There are some alternatives for down, especially. There are a lot of alternatives. Yeah. Synthetic fill and then you can also have like polyester for wool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:32

We don't really, in my opinion, need down for anything.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:34

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:35

In fact, I think coats are the big one that I see because down, I think, is warmer.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:41

But I can't remember what the – I bought from this Canadian-owned vegan coat company that has, like, very low-temperature outerwear or whatever. Because, like, Chicago gets cold. Oh, yeah. Like, really cold and so windy. And I got this one – coat from there that's basically like a down alternative and it's like fully vegan and it is so freaking warm yeah and they have like a lot of really good stuff kind of expensive but like we can do without I think down's expensive so I've never

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:13

Owned anything down in my life clearly it's not something that's required.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:18

Yeah well you did spend most of your life in Kentucky where it doesn't get super cold but but yeah I mean there are definitely winter jackets you can get that don't need to be down and they can still be warm or you can like layer yeah you know

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:31

Yeah for wool you know a lot of that stuff is like mostly polyester alternatives things like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:36

That yeah and I mean I think um so I knit and I've also recently learned crocheting oh have you yeah no it's like all I've been doing actually genuinely I don't I haven't really done anything else to be honest but um what I will say is like I had a couple of skeins of wool yarn before I went vegan yeah and uh basically I've just been like knitting those into shit and getting them out of the house yeah but like now I'm crocheting and I'm using different yarn than I was when I was knitting because I can only knit in straight lines which means I only knit blankets and scarves yeah But now I've been like crocheting different things, like little stuffed animals, all kinds of weird shit. But I've been using like a lot of acrylic yarn and they have like different textures and stuff. And like you don't really need wool to find like a good, nice feeling yarn. Like all the yarns that I've been showing you that I'm making stuff out of are I think mostly acrylic. Some of them are cotton. Like, yeah, they make cotton and bamboo yarns too that are really nice. And when I was buying yarn, this was like 10 years ago probably. probably I ended up with like I think two skeins of wool and I didn't even know it was wool because it was mixed in with all the acrylic yarns but now Now I pay a lot more attention to it. Plus, like a lot of the places have like a wool section now. So you can kind of just like avoid that entirely. Pretend it doesn't exist.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:00

Our craft store basically has an aisle for wool and then an aisle for acrylic. So it's pretty easy to avoid. Also, down, you know, I think one of the reasons people like down is because it's a lot lighter for the same warmth. Not necessarily that it's warmer in a lot of cases, but it's lighter for how warm it is. Yeah. But that's mostly when it's dry. for something that is going to get wet. I think a synthetic actually performs better there. And also synthetics are way cheaper. Yeah. So, you know, kind of a win all around if you are going to be anywhere wet or if you just don't care if it's a little bit heavier, you just go synthetic.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:34

I don't know. I worked at some pretty cold refineries where I was outside all day in like negative weather, right? Like Fahrenheit. Right. Right. But like... I don't know. They gave us Carhartts and it was fine. Like those are pretty fucking warm. Yeah. They're not very cute, but I was out there in my coveralls and my like super heavy Carhartt jacket.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:58

Apparently Carhartts are trendy now, which is funny to me.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:01

Really? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:02

I've seen a lot of TikToks where people are talking about like actual people wearing Carhartts for like work versus like people trying to find like Carhartts at vintage stores and stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:10

That's so funny to me because uh yeah I have had to wear coveralls like you know like FR coveralls and like FR Carhartt jackets and shit for most of my adult life yeah and I don't like it

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:24

It's funny to me it's like Champion I always remember growing up Champion was like the cheap brand of yeah it's like the only brand I could get but now it's like a trendy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:32

Brand Champion's a trendy brand now it

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:34

Was like five or six years ago I don't keep up with trends.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:37

But you're telling me Carhartt is cool now though Carhartt and Champion that's so funny I know that my dad was like always my dad worked like he was a carpenter yeah so yeah he was always like Carhartt Carhartt we love Carhartt yeah that's hilarious I do make

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:52

Good stuff I've got a couple of Carhartt hoodies and.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:54

They're so warm they last forever those like they're

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:57

Warm those hoodies are warm as hell.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:59

So are their jackets I don't know why you'd never need wool because like go buy a fucking Carhartt jacket those things are so fucking warm honestly so are FR coveralls and okay tangent but I really liked my FR coveralls because it was like I could wear it to work and I could just like wear almost literally pajamas underneath yeah and it was just like wearing daytime work pajamas yeah and I didn't have to worry about like what am I wearing today I just was like oh I'll put on like some yoga pants and a band t-shirt and then wear my coveralls over top of it and I work in a refinery so I can just do that every day. There you go. It felt like a pajama party every day showing up in those. Is that weird?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:39

No, I don't think so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:41

The steel-toed boots took away from, like, the full coziness of it. Yeah. Because those things are heavy as shit. Yeah, not cozy. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:48

It's one of the benefits. Yeah, so... If you're trying to get away from down or wool, or maybe you have some and you don't quite know what to do with it, again, kind of similar to the leather situation, stuff that you might already own, you kind of have to decide what to do with.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:04

Yeah. I think if you're someone who does fiber arts and you happen to have wool yarn or felt or something, you could like donate that to someone else. Or I've heard of people making scarves or something and donating it to maybe like people in need. Or you could give it away as a gift, stuff like that. I think I might have one more that I'm probably just going to give to my mom because she's always looking at my yarn collection. so

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:31

Yeah yeah that that brings up an interesting point actually for wool specifically not really an issue for leather or down but for wool you might have some stuff that was like handed down to you or like somebody made for you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:43

That's true like hand knitted or something yeah yeah yeah so that's kind of tricky because it's like yeah I have I had a lot of people in my family that knitted and stuff or crocheted or whatever so like I have all those blankets but I don't think None of them are wool. Yeah. But I think, like, if my grandma had, like, hand crocheted me a wool blanket, I would probably keep it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:07

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:08

Do you know what I mean? Like. Right. What else am I going to do with it? So I think that's fair.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:13

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But it is something that some people might not feel comfortable with.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:17

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think I'd feel much different like giving away a jacket or something than like a handmade item. Yeah. But I mean, I would say like, okay, so now you're vegan. You might want to just like mention that to people because I do think people for they just don't realize they might they really don't even realize the leather thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:37

Yeah, I don't even think they think about it. they're just like oh here's a jacket here's a shirt yeah there's like oh warm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:42

Yeah especially because I think most people think vegan food like it's you have food restrictions yeah for sure most people aren't thinking about materials so I think that's helpful especially like we're getting close to the holidays so if you have recently went vegan or maybe in the last couple years and you haven't had that conversation with your family or friends it might be a good time to like remind them of the things that, you know, you, you cannot accept gifts of like these foods, don't forget honey because they always forget honey. Yeah. But then like, you know, wool, leather, uh, down, that kind of stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:15

Yeah. Kind of similar to wool is like alpaca stuff. Yeah. Cashmere stuff, some things like that. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:22

Yeah, I mean, it's a good reminder. Then you can prevent like awkward things where you open something and you have to pretend to like it. And then you eventually have to have a conversation of like, well, like, I can I have the receipt because I don't wear this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:33

Yeah, that's always bad.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:34

Or they make you something and then that's even more uncomfortable, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:38

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:38

So, yeah, I think having those conversations is important. Most people aren't going to know this stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:42

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's just there's a lot of stuff like this you don't really think about. You don't even if you think about it, you don't know enough until you kind of dig into it. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:51

And I think we're going to have an episode probably around holiday gift giving and stuff. Yeah. Just, but I think it is like something important to talk about, like we're approaching the holidays. Like you just don't want to get in a situation where you get a gift that becomes like an awkward, tense moment, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:07

Yeah, I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:08

Especially if you have people that are hand making things. Because as somebody who like handcrafts stuff, like I start knitting gifts months in advance of Christmas and stuff. Yeah. You know, so like they might already be working on something for you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:22

They might be. You never know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:24

I don't know. I'm just telling and saying, if you got crafty friends, make sure they know that you don't do wool. No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:30

Yeah, so in summary, you know, wool is, we have bred these sheep to continuously generate wool at this point. Like in the wild, they would naturally shed that wool or that fleece. That's not wool until we turn the fleece into wool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:45

Yeah, it's like another one of those weird things that we call things to disassociate the fact that it comes from sheep.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:50

Right. Yeah. And in Australia, that typically for the merino, the merino fleece, the merino wool, that typically involves that mulesing process where they cut off that layer of skin. And then once that wool no longer becomes profitable, the sheep are typically culled or killed or sold for meat or slaughtered or something else with the sheep dying.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:12

I hate the word culled. I think it takes all the bite out of like what's actually happening. You know, like when we say culled, we do mean slaughtered. I just hate it because it's like, I think most people read it and they're like, oh, cold. I don't know what that means. Maybe, maybe the sheep go to another pasture away from like this wool factory setting and they just go to like free roam. I don't know. Yeah. Why don't they just let them go free?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:33

Yeah, I know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:34

Just release them into the outdoors.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:37

Yeah. It'd be nice. I don't know where they would let them go. But, you know. No. At least give them a chance, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:43

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:45

Is Scotland the place that has a bunch of sheep? I feel like I've always seen pictures of Scotland and they're just like sheep all along the countryside. And it looks kind of magical. I don't know if it's like actually magical in real life.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:55

Not magical for the sheep, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:56

Are they not wild? Some of the ones in Scotland kind of look like they're. Oh, I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:00

They have wild sheep also. Are there wild sheep?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:02

Indeed there are. Yes. Oh, that's so cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:07

Yeah. So there are some wild sheep in Scotland. Sheep are actually not native to Scotland. They were originally brought there for like milk and wool and things like that. But they apparently took like 100 sheep to an island at some point to just live without being managed. So there are some wild sheep in some areas of Scotland.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:29

I want to go to that island. That sounds so cool. I've never seen, we've never seen a wild sheep. I feel like they'd be so happy just out on their own.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:36

They get their own island. That's pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:38

That is cool. Release them all.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:41

Yeah. And then for down, you know, the bird is always effectively slaughtered no matter what, because its primary use case is meat. And then it could be worse because the feathers could be live plucked. So that sounds awful. And there's typically no way to tell, like, what level of welfare the animal is treated with. Because they don't label them very effectively for down.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:03

I think, as with most things, I think if we're talking about is it or isn't it vegan, I think if we're getting down into the minutia of, like, what was the specific treatment of this specific animal and, like, the fine details, it's like, we probably just shouldn't be using it, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:20

Yeah, I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:21

Like, if you have to get down into that level of detail to figure out whether or not you think it's ethical, maybe just... assume it's all unethical and just call it a day, right? Because there are alternatives.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:31

Yeah, I agree 100%. All right. So that about wraps it up for the main segment. Let's get into the bite-sized coaching. So if you guys don't know, I'm a personal trainer. So every week, I like to have a brief segment here to maybe answer a question about fitness and nutrition or give a little information that you may find helpful. And you get to ask me the question.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:49

That's right, I do. Okay. This week's question is, do I need to do cardio? And what kind?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:56

Yeah, and what kind? It depends. Well, I would say it depends on your goals, but really it doesn't depend on your goal because I think everybody should probably do cardio. So the thing that people typically associate with cardio the most is trying to lose weight or lose body fat. Yeah. Because cardio is like a time effective way to burn some calories. Yeah. But, you know, there are a couple of issues with that, one being that more cardio does not necessarily always lead to like more calories total, does not always lead to a higher calorie deficit total.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:32

Because you're hungry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:33

Because you're hungrier. If you're not tracking at all, then you will potentially overeat your calories. But also, not only because you're hungrier, but also doing a lot of cardio has been shown to like lower your kind of subconscious activity levels throughout the rest of the day. Oh. So you're maybe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:49

You're just kind of tired.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:50

You're kind of potentially moving around less, burning fewer calories because you're a little more tired. So if you're not necessarily tracking your calories and you're not tracking your weight, it's possible that like cardio is like 50% as effective as you think it is based off of how many calories it should be burning. It's always a good idea, but it's not like super effective for losing weight. What it is super effective for is like exercising your heart. So I would think of like lifting something as exercising your muscles, making those grow. and cardio is like, it's called cardio because it's good for your cardiovascular system. So it's like training your heart and your lungs to be more efficient and more effective. So that can help you with things like blood pressure. It can help a lot with what's called work capacity, which is basically like how long you can do something before you get tired, which is one of the biggest benefits for it. Even for lifting, if you're doing cardio, you'll be like less out of breath as you're lifting, less out of breath for like taking walks going upstairs things like that and it's also just generally associated with like living longer so that's a good benefit, so I would say like even if you're not trying to lose weight you should probably be doing cardio um at least a couple times a week and so above walking yeah, to the point where you're like um out of breath or it's like hard to hold a conversation is where I would aim for just to keep it simple. Yeah. But walking is also good cardio. You just have to do, you'd have to do a lot more of it to get kind of the same effect.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:22

Oh, okay. So you think instead of like higher impact cardio, you could do low impact cardio, just more?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:28

So the American Heart Association, like their official recommendation for adults is 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic activity, which is cardio, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity. and just so you know aerobic activity is cardio something like lifting weights is considered anaerobic activity so that is a different thing so yeah if you're doing something that is vigorous which is kind of what I was talking about where it's hard to hold a conversation they want you to target 75 minutes a week but if you're doing something that's more moderate intensity like walking quickly basically more should be more like 150 minutes a week or about two and a half hours a week oh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:06

Okay yeah so yeah it takes more time but yeah if you like walking you're probably walking 150 minutes a week

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:13

Anyways yeah and then some of the examples of moderate intensity activity from the uh the American Heart Association are brisk walking water aerobics dancing gardening even uh tennis or like slow biking so very casual type cardio, some of the vigorous intensity stuff is running swimming laps or jumping rope that's obviously pretty Oh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:35

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:36

Cycling 10 miles an hour or faster is actually the guideline there, but just think of it as like cycling fast.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:42

They also have heavy yard work, such as continuous digging or hoeing around.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:47

Hoeing around is probably pretty cardio intensive.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:49

Dude, if you're hoeing around, I think you could get your heart rate up.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:53

Yeah, definitely digging. Shoveling snow. Actually, a lot of people have heart attacks when they go to shovel snow over here because it's very intense.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:00

Yeah, I think I read something that if you're shoveling snow, you should never raise a shovel above like your chest level.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:06

Yeah. And I think a lot of that is because people will go to shovel snow who don't really do a lot of exercise. So that's like the hardest exercise they do all year. But anyway, yeah. So those are kind of the guidelines for cardio. I would say no matter what your goal is, you should probably do cardio. Even if you're trying to gain weight, I would find a way to do cardio and just eat more food, unfortunately.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:26

Yeah, nobody wants to eat more food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:29

Well, some people have a hard time eating more food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:31

That's true. Yeah, the people are like 4,000 calories a day. That would be pretty hard.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:34

But yeah I mean I think it's just a good general like longevity, general health and wellness like again going upstairs walking around every day general bodily function type stuff it's really good for that so yeah do cardio right so what is going on in the protein deficient vegan recipe world do you have any updates for us.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:51

Yes so I just put out a recipe for peanut butter high protein Rice Krispies Treats Um, yeah, those are one of my favorites now. Yeah. I had gotten a couple requests for like a peanut butter version of a Rice Krispies Treat with edamame puffs, and it's pretty damn good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:07

Yeah, those are really good. I like all those Rice Krispies Treat variants that you have. They're all, I mean, high protein, you're basically just eating straight protein Krispies, and it's delicious.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:17

It's way better than like a store-bought protein bar, in my opinion, but I don't really like many of those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:21

100%, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:23

I'm also working on some like Thanksgiving slash Christmas slash general holiday recipes because tis the damn season.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:30

It is tis the damn. It is. It is tis.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:33

Tis the damn season. It is. Yeah. So I'm currently working on a high protein stuffing recipe using my high protein bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:42

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:43

And I don't know. Did you like it?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:45

Yeah. The stuffing was really good. It's like, I don't know how to really compare it. I've only had stuffing, well, I had stuffing a lot growing up. I can't super remember the stuffing, but I always remember it being pretty dry. Yeah. Yours is definitely not dry. And it's got bigger chunks, which I like. And also you have like kind of the crunchiness on the outside thing going on. So it's a really good situation you've got going on with your stuffing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:09

Yeah. I'm pretty proud of it because as a child, I hated homemade stuffing. No offense if you're listening, mom. but that she, they, people in my family No one specific. Someone in my family made oyster stuffing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:24

Oh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:24

And it was gross. Okay. And it was really, really, really disgusting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:29

Interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:29

And I was, like, so happy when I became a vegetarian because I'd be like, I can't eat that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:34

I would say I liked it growing up. It was just kind of dry. That's the way I remember stuffing being.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:37

See, this homemade one I'm talking about was, like, soggy and, like, wet stuffing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:43

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:45

Yeah. The texture of that was pretty disgusting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:49

You're very specific or particular about your texture.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:52

I have some weird texture issues. But, like, I would say the one I'm making, it is, like... The stuffing is moist, but it is not like soggy and like, you know, but it's using homemade bread. And I think that's a big difference.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:06

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:07

Because like, I think if you're using store-bought white bread, like it just soaks up so much more. It doesn't have any like, like yeasty mounts to it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:14

Also like your protein bread. So I think that also makes it a little more resilient. Yeah. You found a way to put tofu into stuffing, which I think is pretty interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:21

Yeah. So I'll probably have that recipe out next week. But if you're fucking around with homemade stuffing, my recommendations are use a homemade bread, not store-bought. That's important. You need to toast it beforehand to get all of the extra moisture out of the bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:36

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:37

Then I would flip it around in some blended silken tofu. Now, normal people that eat eggs would use eggs, but we don't do that because we like chickens.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:48

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:50

But it kind of keeps it from getting too much moisture in it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:53

Okay.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:54

And then, yeah. And those are my tips.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:56

All right. That was pretty good. So, yeah, I definitely recommend trying it out when you guys see it on the website.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:01

And if there are any other, like, holiday recipes that you don't see on the site that you would, like, need to attempt to make, let me know. The book club finishes up today, so it'll be actually done by when this comes out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:11

Yeah. And that was for Tender Is the Flesh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:13

Yeah. And then at some point, we'll probably vote on the next book club that will be in January because we do quarterly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:19

Yeah. Let me give everybody a nice holiday break from reading.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:23

For a couple months

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:25

Yeah but if you want to join the Discord um and see maybe what the next book club will be or.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:30

Just or get to vote in the book club because um it's funny because I don't think The Impactful Vegan book club went very well even though that one had more votes but like this was like the second runner-up the last time we did a poll Tender Is the Flesh and I feel like that book club actually did a lot better oh

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:45

This one did great.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:45

Yeah I don't know if it's because it's fiction I'm not really sure but um Yeah, I guess we'll see what we vote on next time. Hopefully people will like it and read it. It's a lot easier to ask questions in the book club discussion when people like want to have conversations instead of just like asking questions into the void of no one. Yeah. So we've got a pretty good list. We'll narrow it down and hopefully vote in the next couple of weeks so that people have like a month or so to get ready for the next book club.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:12

Sounds good. All right. Well, we appreciate you guys listening. If you are listening on Apple Podcast or Spotify, if you could leave us a rating and follow, that would help us out a lot. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave a comment. We love seeing those. And then also, again, yeah, if you want to join the Deficient Vegans Discord, that's down in the show notes, as well as our social medias and our websites. If you're looking for recipes or like fitness and nutrition blog type style content, I can check those out. All right. Thanks for listening, everybody. You want to say bye? Bye, guys. Bye, everybody.