Leather: Is It Really Just a Byproduct?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast. This is episode 66. 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 be talking about leather. A couple of things we're going to talk about are what it actually is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:13

It's skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:14

Spoiler alert. Spoiler. Whether it is just a byproduct and whether that argument holds up, where some of the environmental numbers come from, and what vegan leather is really made of. And then also we're going to cover something that comes up a lot for people who are going vegan, which is what do you do with the leather that you already own when you become vegan?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:34

And is it okay to buy secondhand leather?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:37

Yeah. So we're going to talk about all of those things. But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:40

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:42

The first piece of news we have is actually related to leather. So the EU, as of last month, has dropped leather from its deforestation law. They have special regulation around products that are the result of deforestation. So if something had to be deforested for a production facility or for some land or something like that. But they have removed leather from the scope of that regulation. They did keep in beef and live cattle. So those are still regulated under the deforestation law, but leather is not anymore.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15

I kind of hate that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17

Because it's like yeah I get that, leather's only like part of the cow but then if you're like i'm gonna start, parsing out stuff what else shouldn't be like what else wouldn't you include yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:32

And they did carve out a couple other unrelated things uh with this particular passage but i think they review it every few years whenever somebody has an objection or whatever but uh this takes effect at the end of this year 2026 so it'll start on i think technically the last day of this year and then And the act itself said that they foresee a review of leather's inclusion in 2030. So, I guess in three years, they're already planning to revisit whether or not leather should be included. Their argument was something we're going to talk about here a little bit, was that leather is a byproduct because its value is like less than 2% of the cow's total value.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:09

But it can't be created without deforestation. So, I don't know why it would be excluded, you know. Right. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:16

And we'll talk about a little bit of the deforestation here in the episode, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:19

Big leather has their hand in shit again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:23

Next piece of news is about tofu. So tofu is the single best protein for nutrition, sustainability, and affordability.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:31

Holy shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:33

We've been watching a lot of Walking Dead, and now she's just doing Negan impressions constantly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:37

He's my favorite.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:38

She's pretty good at it. tofu was crowned the champion by a new scoring system from chris macdonald who is the director of the better protein institute and we had talked about the scoring system i think a week or two ago on the podcast real briefly um but it has scored tofu the highest based on a new multi-dimensional rating system that breaks things up into two categories there's people and planet so the The planet side of the rating has things like greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and resource consumption. And then the people side has more like health factors like sodium, saturated fat, and then also things like affordability and availability of the food. So tofu actually led in both those categories, people and planet, and had the highest overall score.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:24

That's pretty awesome. You guys should eat more tofu.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:27

For sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:27

I think it's interesting they chose tofu and not soy as a general term since there's so many other things that come from soy. Yeah. And maybe it's that availability piece, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:36

Okay. I have soy now. What do I do with it,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:38

Right? Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:38

Yeah. Edamame, I guess, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:40

Yeah, TVP. But, yeah, I think, you know, tofu is probably more widely available globally. So, very cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:47

Go tofu. The last piece of news we have is that a University of Stirling study had 24 regular meat eaters interviewed. And they found that their attachment to meat was mostly an attachment to things like family gatherings, childhood, tradition, nostalgia, things like that. And not really the food itself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:05

That makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:06

It definitely is how I feel about meat as a vegan now. Every memory I have of meat and some of the things that made it harder to transition to the vegan diet were all related to those things and not really because I like this food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:18

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:19

So, yeah, they suggest that you try to recreate the nostalgic dish itself and not try to just totally replace that food with something entirely different. Right. Because it can make it easier for you not to eat the meat.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:33

I mean, that makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:34

Yeah, we've done a couple like that. Like you have a couple of recipes that were basically veganized versions of some of the things our parents made us for holidays and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:43

I know for you, like biscuits and gravy, your mom always made you that on Christmas morning. So that was like a big one. That one was really hard for you to drop because you had to tell your mom, like, I can't eat this anymore. And it was like a whole thing. Yeah. But we have veganized it. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:55

And that was actually the last thing I ate before I was like fully 100% vegan. Yeah. Pretty cool. And I think another one, you know, they talk about family gatherings. I think my family didn't do this a whole lot. We did it sometimes, but one a lot of people do a lot more is cookouts. So they really associate meat with, like, the cookouts their family does all the time, like maybe a weekend in the summer or something like that. So, yeah, you've got to try to find ways to sneak some Impossible Burgers onto the grill or something like that. It makes it a little tricky.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:21

I think that's for the summer people. I'm a fall people, and I try to not go outside in the summer. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I think the idea of, like, depending on how close you are with your family, it sounds kind of cool to, like, be in the kitchen with your mom or dad and, like, trying to veganize something that they used to make you if you can get them on board. I guess it also depends on how receptive they are to something like that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:43

And we actually did a podcast episode on something really close to this. We called it, like, keeping the memories, changing the menu or something. And this study just came out last month, so we were well ahead of the curve.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:52

Yeah. We're trendsetters.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:56

So, yeah, it definitely is, like I said, how I think about, you know, the foods I did feel like I was going to have a harder time separating from. They were all related to this kind of thing. So it makes sense.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:05

Yeah. So veganize your favorites.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:08

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:09

And if you need help veganizing something, we actually have a Deficient Vegans Discord and a Deficient Vegans subreddit and lots of nice people in there that could help you out. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:18

All right. So let's get into the main segment and talk about leather. So the first non-food thing, because like really the biggest thing with going vegan tends to be the diet. Yeah. There are other elements to the vegan, you know, uh, belief system basically vegan ethics and the biggest one probably for that isn't food is leather

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:37

It's a pretty big vegan tenet to not wear other people's skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:41

Yeah yeah so you know somebody might ask wait so you don't wear leather and then the second question that comes up is like well what about the leather you already own because most people own something that's leather if they're not already vegan hopefully we give you enough information that you can decide like how you want to handle leather if you're going vegan leather it's already in your house you know So, yeah, I'm not telling you what to do, but we can hopefully help you make some decisions. Yeah. All right. So what is leather?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:07

Leather is skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:11

Usually skin from cows.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:13

Right. Yeah. It's like the hide of the cow, which is the cow's skin.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:17

Unless it's the movie Leatherface, in which it is human skin. Or Silence of the Lambs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:23

Yeah. The industry measures it in raw hides. You've probably heard raw hide before. Yeah. So there were 13.8 million tons of total hides in 2024. That's a lot. Yeah. Cattle was 9.4 million out of that 13.8 million.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:44

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:45

So more than half.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:46

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:47

Yeah. Sheep were about 2.2 million. Goats were 1.5. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:53

Wait, isn't, I think I heard they use sheepskin for Uggs. Is that true?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:57

I've heard that. I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:59

That's fucking gross.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:00

Maybe they don't anymore. I'm not sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:02

I think they do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:03

Yeah. I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:03

Don't wear Uggs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:04

You'd be the Ugg expert.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:06

I've never had a pair of Uggs. I think, you know, it's just short for ugly. I'm just kidding. You can wear your fake Uggs if you want. I won't judge. I have Crocs now, but they're sparkly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:19

Yeah, Crocs don't use any leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:20

That's true. They're vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:22

The next highest is Buffalo at 0.8 million tons. And then everything else is much smaller.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:27

Wow. That's a lot, though. Yeah. Overall.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:30

Right. So as far as where all that leather goes, it mostly goes to shoes. Shoes are 40% to 50% of all leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:38

I would expect that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:39

Yeah. Apparel is 5% to 10%. So clothes. Belts. Things like that. Purses. Yeah. Home textiles are actually 10% to 15%.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:49

Okay. What is a home textile? Like couches?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:51

Yeah, I think so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:52

Couches, chairs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:53

Mm-hmm. Okay. Upholstery.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:55

I, can I be honest? I have always gotten the ick on sitting on leather couches. Even before I was vegan, it just kind of grosses me out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:03

My biggest issue with them was always they're very sticky.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:06

Yeah, they stick to your skin. Yeah. It's skin on skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:09

Yeah. The rest of that is like bags, which I guess don't go into apparel, car seats, and kind of everything else. And we'll have links to these reports and data and stuff all in the show notes. So as far as the scale of it from the animal side, there were about 300 million cattle, which were slaughtered worldwide in 2024. So all those cattle are a potential hide. We'll talk about a little bit more. You know, cattle aren't typically slaughtered for their hide. Yeah. But, you know, most of them, they end up using the hide from.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:36

300 million. That's crazy. Every year.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:40

Yeah. So it's like... This will also make you wonder, like, why leather is typically so much more expensive because it's not really like a luxury product. There's just a lot of it out there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:53

That is interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:55

So let's talk about the argument that it's just a byproduct, which we hear a lot and we hear vegans say it's not really a byproduct. It's a co-product. Yeah. And this has kind of changed over time based on the price of hides and how that relates to the price of a live cow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:08

I have said it's a co-product many times. Yeah. Am I wrong now?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:14

I think currently it's probably not a co-product just because it's so cheap compared to the total price of the cow. Like, nobody's going to grow a cow just to sell the hide.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:22

What is the percentage of, like, the sale price that is qualified as a co-product? Is it, like, 5%?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:29

I don't know if there is one.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:30

Hmm. Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:31

I don't think that's just something we decide. Not us. Me and you. But, like, the society decides. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, the claim is basically, like, the cow was going to be killed for beef anyway. so the hide would otherwise be thrown away so buying leather changes nothing okay yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:48

So but then you know the vegan argument that i've seen and i think i'm even made is like it does make it more profitable to grow cow because you're getting some money back on the.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:57

I mean you are still getting some money in a lot of

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:59

Cases yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:00

Even if that's like two percent like to a very large business two percent

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:04

Is two percent is huge i mean um, I don't know. You guys know much about oil and gas, but like the actual, it's the amount of money made on a gallon of gasoline is like literally cents on a gallon. Yeah. It's like very small, but the reason that oil companies still make a lot of money is because they sell so much. Right. So this is like kind of similar, right? It's like the economy of scale. 2% could be a lot for someone that's selling 300 million cows.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:32

Yeah. So as of September 2026, the USDA says that a hide, and they update this price like every day. So this is just a price from a couple of days ago. They say the price of a hide from a cow is about $1.61 per hundred pounds of animal. Okay. And then to compare that to the price of the whole cow, right now the price of a live steer, they call them steer, obviously, but a live cow is about $217 per hundred pounds of live steer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:01

Okay.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:01

So that means right now the hide is about 0.7% of the animal's live value or like only $22 for the whole hide of like a 1,400-pound cow.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:13

Okay. But I guess we don't really know like what the profit percentage is on, raising cows, you know, for meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:22

Right. Is it a thin margin?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:23

Yeah. If it's a thin margin, that could be pretty huge, I guess. Yeah. You know, I'm not really sure what the margins are.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:28

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:29

Because I don't raise cows for profit. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:33

The price also fluctuates quite a bit. Four years ago, the same report showed that it was $31 a hide instead of $22 a hide. So it's come down by almost a third.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:43

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:44

And I don't know if that's a general trend down or if there's something where it's like ebbs and flows. Yeah. I don't really know the whole history of like hide prices.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:52

Yeah. I mean, it could just be like the demand is down.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:54

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:55

You're getting more vegan leathers on the market and stuff. it probably is going to drive the price of leather down too. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:01

Also, leather, like you said, typically leather products cost more. So we're like borderline recession than the price of the demand for leather is probably lower.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:09

That's true. Yeah. It's like, am I going to buy a $300 pair of leather boots or am I going to buy a $30 pair of leather boots? Even if they were to last longer, like maybe you don't have $300 to pour out in one go right now.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:21

Yeah. So there was a longer term view from the USDA that said hides have historically been like 30 to 75 percent of the byproduct value of a cow. basically the total byproduct value. And the byproducts as a whole are more than 10% of the live cow's cost. So they basically used to matter a lot more than they do today in 2026.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:43

And that could change at any point, too. So like probably would not base your decision to wear or not wear leather based on this data. Oh, for sure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:52

Yeah. I mean, a vegan is not sitting around thinking, well, let me think of the byproduct value of the cow to decide if I think I'm going to wear of this cow's skin or not.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:00

Right, yeah, that's fair.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:03

But one interesting thing, and I didn't actually, you know, really realize this before I started researching this, but a lot of the hides are actually just being thrown away right now. Like, they're that low value. So, about 17% or 5.5 million U.S. hides never entered the supply chain. And that's based on a report in 2019. So, that's a little older.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:22

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:22

And then, like, 15% of them were landfilled in 2020.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:27

So I think that part is also interesting if we're talking about the environmental aspect, because that's like five million entire cow skins that are ending up at the landfill. And then I think I read that they give off CO2 and methane as they decompose.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:41

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:42

Also not great for the environment. Like we're making waste.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:45

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:46

It's like, is it a byproduct or is it waste? Right. You know? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:51

It's definitely generating a lot of waste.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:53

That doesn't seem good. That doesn't seem environmentally friendly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:56

Yeah. So, you know, at today's prices, the leather and boots did not really like pay for the cow. They're probably not thinking about it too much. But again, it's like anywhere from half a percent to two percent. And, you know, in the past it's been up to like 10 percent of a cow's value. And they're throwing a lot of hides away. It's like you said, generating waste in that case. So there are a lot of reasons why even if the hide is not considered a byproduct, why you still might not want to, you know, support the creation of those. Yeah. So does the idea that like they're throwing a bunch of hides in the landfill make you feel any different about leather?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 15:31

No, I actually read something. I don't remember where I read it, but it was this really interesting discussion around like the idea of a freegan or like maybe you're like vegan most of the time. But like, let's say you're at a work lunch and all of the options are not vegan. And then because there aren't vegan options, like and the food is free, you're going to eat that. and like the whole argument is like oh it's going to be thrown away anyway or whatever right, and then so like i think the obvious answer to that is well someone was going to eat it and that would have prevented them from eating another meat-based meal whereas like you could have just eaten a plant-based meal, like you generated an extra meat meal by eating that um but another argument i saw in general was just like, you shouldn't feel responsible for waste that's coming from an industry you don't already support like that guilt isn't on you and that made me feel a little better because like i do think about those kinds of things of like wastefulness and stuff but, uh yeah it was basically saying like you as a vegan can't take responsibility for everything that happens in the animal agriculture industry like you're doing your best by not participating right and like waste that's generated isn't yours to like use up essentially.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:46

I also feel like that's it's kind of like the freegan thing i know that a lot of people talk about it i think it's a little bit of a slippery slope um just because you could be like like the next step up from that could be like, okay, these burgers are on clearance and if I don't eat them, we're going to throw them in the trash. Like, I mean, it's like, I think you've got to draw the line to something a little more clear than that personally.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:05

I think so too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:06

But, you know, I won't tell anybody else how to live their life. But yeah, I mean, it's always been, it seems like you're, Kind of trying to justify things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:14

Yeah, making a bit of excuses. I don't know. That was like pretty freeing for me to just hear like, okay, you're not responsible for like the waste other people create. Yeah. You're doing your part by not participating.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:24

Yeah, I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:25

And spreading the good word.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:26

I think that is a good way to look at it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:27

Yeah. I mean, I think it takes like, well, I think as a vegan, or at least me personally, I already have guilt from like when I wasn't a vegan. Like, why didn't I know this sooner? Da, da, da, da, da. And then there's just like overall, extreme duress, distress and depression and stuff of just like looking around and seeing all the animal products everywhere. We already have a lot of baggage to carry of just like being vegans in a non-vegan world. So I just don't think you need to add more by being like, I am personally responsible for animal hides that are being thrown in dumpsters because they don't use them all. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:01

I am curious how, like, in a hypothetical, obviously this would never be a realistic scenario, but a hypothetical where, like, leather was outlawed or something. Yeah. How would the cattle industry change, if at all? I'd be curious to know, like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:13

Yeah, like, would it move the dial back on food creation?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:16

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:17

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'd be really interested to see what the general margins are for, like, beef production. Yeah. Because, like, yeah, like you said, it doesn't seem like much if it's less than 1% of the value. But if we're talking 10%, that does seem like it moves the dial to, like, oh, this is up. Maybe I'll raise more this year. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:38

And I'm sure they're always, you know, not that the farmers can do much, but I think the industry at large is always incentivized to try to increase leather demand so that that price does go up. Which, you know, still, like, incentivizes people to, you know, raise the cows and stuff like that. So, it's a very complex chain of events.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:54

Right. But also, like, okay, the other reason this, like, the landfilling situation doesn't move me is because... That would gross me out to wear a leather jacket, I guess. It's like, this was a cow's skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:09

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:10

And to know all of the horrific things the cow went through for the skin to become a jacket that I'm wearing, there's no way I could mentally deal with that. That's just my thing. Like, willingly buy something that I know is leather. I think there are, like, exceptions, right? Like, boots, like, work boots. Like, I've worked places where I physically had to buy leather boots. It was part of the safety policy. You weren't allowed to buy pleather. Right. So, that's kind of, like, out of your hands. But, like, if you're intentionally going out of your way to be like, I want to look cool in these leather pants. I don't know. There are other options.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:45

Also, very few people look cool in leather pants.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:48

I remember that Friends episode where, was it Ross, was trying to wear leather pants and he went to the bathroom and he couldn't get them pulled back on. And then he called, I don't know who he called, maybe Joey. And Joey was like, yeah, just try to put some lotion on to slide them up. And then so he put lotion on his legs and then for some reason he put baby powder on top of the lotion. And it was like a whole mess of white goo and it was hilarious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:13

So don't be a Ross.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:14

Never wore leather pants. They just don't look very fun. Yeah, me neither. I already have leather pants. It's called my legs. I have my own skin. I have my own leather pants.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:25

All right. So now let's talk about the environmental aspect a little bit. So the big one is, well, one of the big ones is deforestation, which we talked about with the law. So in the Brazilian Amazon, 62% of all deforested land as of 2008 was cattle pasture.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:43

Wow. Yeah. And they're bitching at us about soy beans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:47

Which soy was under 5% of deforested land. So still contributing a little bit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:51

How much of that soy is going to the cattle?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:52

That's a great point. So there was a report called the Nowhere to Hide report from Stand.Earth with Slow Factory in November 2021. That traced roughly 500,000 rows of customs data, which is like where you import, export countries. And found over a hundred fashion brands with supply chains linked to Brazilian leather exports, including Nike, Adidas, Zara, Coach, Prada, Ralph Lauren.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:16

All the fancy shit?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:18

Yeah. About 30% of those companies had a clear policy against deforestation leather. And again, this is a situation where it's like, we're not deforesting to grow cows to get leather. It's mostly for meat, but they are getting the leather from the cattle farms that did deforest. Yeah. So I think the issue was just in general, the fashion industry has been like buying those leathers without really asking where they're coming from. And a lot of the times, you know, you don't ask the question because you don't want to know the answer.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:48

Absolutely. I'm sure we've all seen that at work.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:51

Yeah. And so like the one law in the EU, at least, that would have forced leather to prove where the cow came from, just took leather out of that regulation. And hopefully in 2030, they'll think better of it and put it back in. Because I think it is at least, you know, there are people who care about the environment enough to know to like, even if you're not a vegan. Right. Those people will want to know, like, my leather came from, you know, a cow farm that is involved in deforestation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:18

Yeah. And I think when it's clearly a cow that came from a cow farm that deforested, you should at least put that on the label, even if it is not the reason why. I think taking the label off just kind of hides what is happening and makes the customer less likely to understand.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:35

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:39

This is from deforested land, they might be like, wait, huh? How does that work?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:44

Right, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:45

Let me go look into that. Like, you're taking away opportunities for people to learn what's actually going on, which I think is intentional.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:50

And I think that was probably one of the benefits, this is off topic, but related, I guess, in my mind, that was probably one of the benefits of, like, the dolphin-safe tuna label.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:58

Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:58

Like, even if it doesn't really always mean it's dolphin-safe, it makes you think, like, wait, why would my tuna not be dolphin-safe?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:05

Why would there be dolphin in my tuna? Yeah. That doesn't make any sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:08

And then you go and research, and you're like, oh, okay. And then you're a little more informed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:11

Speaking of dolphins.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:13

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:13

We have a bit of a, you know, is there anything you want to say about dolphins?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:17

Guys, I know dolphins aren't fish. I said in one of the previous episodes, we were talking about fish, and I said something like, dolphins and whales are big fish. I just meant that they're like, live in the water where all the other fish live. Dolphins are mammals. I know dolphins aren't fish. I'm sorry. I got so many comments about this, which is weird based on all the other things we've talked about and I've probably been wrong about over the years. I'm sorry. I know dolphins aren't fish.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:48

Our people are passionate about dolphins, and I appreciate that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:50

I do too. I'm so sorry to all the dolphins I've offended.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:54

And the dolphin lovers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:55

Yeah, the dolphin lovers.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:55

And the dolphin haters.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:57

Dolphin haters.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:57

The fish lovers that hate dolphins.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:59

Yep.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:01

Apologies to everyone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:02

I had to get a shirt that says dolphins aren't fish.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:06

Dolphin is not fish.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:10

So anyway yes sorry about that

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:14

Yeah but i think it's true about like you know cage-free eggs too it's like why would my eggs be in a cage yeah just any of those yeah or like humane meat it's like why wouldn't my meat be humane i think just those labels in general even if they're meaningless they do kind of add a little bit of, Okay, you read that and you're like, that's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:32

Yeah, I think the fair trade stuff the same way. Like you're like, oh, wait, what does that mean? Then you go read about the horrible things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:37

Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, wouldn't it be fair trade? What does unfair trade mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:41

I think the labels are good for that kind of thing. Yeah. Awareness. So the other side of the issue with leather, which is, in my opinion, like one of the biggest ones and is like totally uncontested. It's just how leather works. Yeah. Is tanning.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:54

I think most people don't really understand the tanning aspect, but, okay, let's just think for a minute. When people die, they go through a pretty rigorous process to, like, get them in funeral-worthy shape, right? It's like a whole situation because your skin, like, starts decomposing pretty fast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:16

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:17

You know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:18

Yeah, embalming fluid.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:19

Yeah, exactly. So it's like the same thing with animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:22

So around 80 percent of the world's leather is chrome tanned. So that figure is from the chromium industry. So this is not like a propaganda situation. That's just how that's what they call it. United Nations has an agency called the UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. So they look at some stuff like this. But the UNIDO calls chrome tanning by far the most prevailing method. So, again, another supporting point that this is how it's done. So something called chromium three goes in and the problem is what leaves in the wastewater and oxidizes to chromium six, which is hexavalent chromium, which you might know if you've ever seen the Erin Brockovich movie.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:04

And if you haven't seen the Erin Brockovich movie, you should watch it. Yeah. So I worked in like the refining industry and the energy industry because so really into process safety type stuff. But this is the one movie that everybody should watch because it is really fascinating to give you like a peek behind the curtain of various industries and how scuzzy nasty they are. But basically the premise of the movie and it's based on a real life story, too. Sure. Yeah. So basically there is. Yeah. Is company Hinkley? Or no, maybe Hinkley's the city. Anyway, there's this company that has wastewater that actually has hexavalent chromium. And the people that live near it are, like, developing cancer and having miscarriages and having a whole bunch of horrible shit happening to them. Right. And then Erin Brockovich comes in and she tracks it down and figures this out and she gets them, like, millions of dollars.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:57

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:58

But all that to say is hexavalent chromium is some bad fucking shit. Yeah, definitely. And you should watch that movie because it has Julia Roberts and it's really, really good and it's funny and it's heartwarming and you're going to love it. And if you don't love it, don't talk to me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:13

It is a good movie. I like it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:14

No, it's such a good movie.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:17

So for the hexavalent chromium, the EU actually limits that to three milligrams per kilogram in leather goods. So they have a regulation for it because it's a skin issue and also, like you said, a carcinogen cancer-causing agent. Right. Pretty bad stuff.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:31

But, like, you know, they have wastewater that's going to have hexavalent chromium. Where are they doing the tanning processes? Because it's probably, like, in poor communities.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:41

Well, here's one example. So in 2012, there was a Human Rights Watch report called Toxic Tanneries, and it was about 150 tanneries in Bangladesh where there were 8,000 to 12,000 workers and a whole bunch of the wastewater from the tanning facilities basically went out into the river. Yeah. And there were also, like, children that were as young as 11 years old working in the vats. And they had $663 million in exports to about 70 countries in one year. So this is, like, a major source of tanning for the leather industry.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:17

Yeah. If you have leather, it might have been from this. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:22

And some of the things they reported here in their report were, like, skin disease, respiratory illness, even, like, amputations.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:28

But, like, that doesn't even tell you what's going to happen in the future because it's highly carcinogenic. Yeah. So they're probably going to develop other diseases. Or one of the interesting ones in Erin Brockovich is people weren't able to have children either. It's bad shit, right? Yeah. I don't think anyone talks about this enough. This is, like, a real big trigger for me. You know, like, even if you're not vegan, if you care about human rights, I don't understand how you don't know this about leather. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:54

Yeah. Now, after that report came out, they started to move a bunch of the tanneries to a new area to try to, you know, address some of the issues. I think as of now or as of May of this year, the biggest one is still not fully operational. And now the wastewater just goes into a different river.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:10

Yeah, I mean, well, that's the problem with some of this stuff happening in different countries that don't have as strict rules on things like process safety and environmental stuff. It's, yeah, they're going to take shortcuts. They're going to do it as cheap as possible. They're not really looking out for worker safety the way that maybe you would in the U.S. or somewhere. And then now we'll get stuff imported from those countries for way, way, way cheaper than it would have been if it was made in the U.S. And like pretty much everyone loses.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:36

Yeah, definitely. I know this isn't about animals really, but this is like one of the few vegan topics where the strongest case is actually like a human rights case.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:44

Yeah. Humans are technically animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:46

That's true. Plus, you know, they like humans.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:48

Well, I mean, I like the idea of humans. but I am an introvert a pretty hard introvert so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:56

You have trouble finding specific humans you like

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:58

No I actually like most humans it's more of like, interacting with humans is a little exhausting for me as an introvert. Yeah. Yeah. Like I like the idea. I like hearing about their lives, but like physical interaction with people makes me really tired.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:15

Yeah, that's true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:16

That's just the way I am.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:18

All right. So that's kind of the human rights aspect. Tanning is a really dangerous industry. So for that reason alone, I think even if you're not vegan, you should maybe think about your leather use quite a bit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:30

Yeah. And you should probably go watch Erin Brockovich again because it has nothing to do with leather, but it is a really good movie.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:36

Yeah. The next big topic we're going to talk about is kind of vegan leather. I know a lot of people say vegan leather is just plastic. It's historically been kind of true, but we're coming up with new things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:47

But it doesn't get made in a tannery.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:48

Yeah. It's not skin. There's no tannery. The plastic production is not really the safest process either.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:57

Yeah, that's true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:58

Most vegan leather is polyurethane or PVC.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:02

Which is polyvinyl chloride, which I know because I did my senior design project on a fake polyvinyl chloride plant, and I still have the book. for it in my car and i really need to send it back to the uofl library because i almost didn't get a job, because there was a hole in my transcript from the university when i applied to a job great and i lied to them and said i was sending it back and i didn't and we should do that this weekend i feel guilty about it all the time i feel so bad about it all the time when i remember oh yeah sorry anyways well i bet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:35

You're a pvc expert now haven't had that book for so long

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:38

Yeah i don't remember anything i should go read it again before i send it back, So anyways, back to vegan leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:45

Yeah, for the vegan leather, typically the polyurethane or the PVC is bonded to a fabric backing. So that's kind of how they make it. It's plastic mostly. It doesn't biodegrade, but it can peel and some of the cheaper ones don't really last very long. Which is always one of the things people have used leather for is it lasts for quite a while. Right. Under ideal circumstances. And that's also one of the reasons why they don't really like vegan leather is because it kind of breaks on the cheaper ones. Right. Now, there are plant-based vegan leathers. Like there's cactus, pineapple, apples, even grapes, mushrooms.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:15

Yeah, they're doing a lot of stuff with fruit skin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:17

Yeah. A lot of those right now still use like polyurethane or a PLA binder. And PLA, interestingly, is what you use when you do 3D printing. So I've used some of that. But that's how they hold those together. There was a 2021 study that tested nine of those different materials against shoe upper leather. And they said none of the leather alternatives showed the universal performance of leather, unfortunately. But, I mean, that doesn't mean they're, like, useless, right?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:43

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:44

And it says some of them were strong on some of their individual properties. They're just not, you know, meeting the same across the board as actual leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:53

Yeah. But I guess I kind of always go back to this, right? It's like when you're looking at shoes, what fails first? Yeah. Because for me, it's always this sole fails first. So, like, I don't really need a leather shoe. Yeah. because my sole's gonna wear out anyways yeah i don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:09

Yeah i agree i mean even on boots you're typically having to resole them before anything happens to the uppers even not for non-leather boots yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:17

And then i think for purses is like a big trigger for me because i've never had a leather purse ever i like canvas purses i don't i don't know what you guys are doing with your purses but i just carry them i don't like getting bar fights with them or anything so maybe like other people are harder on their purses but i've had canvas purses that have lasted me 10 plus years yeah because i just carry them and i, like what are you doing to damage a canvas purse it's similar.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:43

With wallets like leather wallets have always been in high demand but i haven't had a leather wallet in probably 20 years at this point yeah and i've never really had an issue with the wallets i have yeah granted the wallet i have now is metal so it's not going anywhere anytime soon but even with like canvas wallets that last for a hell of a long

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:00

Time yeah why do you need your wallet to last you 200 years that doesn't even make sense why do you need your purse to last you 200 years just buy a fucking canvas purse yeah that's my two cents on that there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:11

Are some next gen materials that are coming out but they're not really scaled up to you know a super usable production yet There was one called Mylo, which was a mushroom leather that Stella McCartney and Adidas were using back in 2023, and it basically got paused because they couldn't meet their funding goals.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:31

Damn. Yeah. That's sad.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:33

As of the start of 2024, the Material Innovation Initiative counted 92 different companies working on leather alternatives out of 144 next-gen material innovators that they were surveying. So like out of all the material innovators, is what they call them, that they surveyed, over half of those were working on leather alternatives.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:52

That's pretty great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:52

Yeah. So basically a good leather boot will probably outlast a polyurethane boot. But like the comparison you're making there is like a $300 leather boot against a $40 polyurethane boot. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:05

And it's really interesting, too, because I feel like the people that will spend$300 on a leather boot will not spend $300 on a vegan leather boot, which could maybe hold up the same way like you're talking about. And coming from like an industry that, you know, we had to have a lot of like protective personal equipment, like safety wise, we were required to have leather boots. There wasn't a way around it in the policy. And for that kind of stuff, in my mind, you're still vegan if you wear leather boots for work because you need a job. Right? And there are some safety reasons why you might want leather, but I mean, just like normal wear and tear in the yard, like, I don't know why you would need to buy leather necessarily.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:44

Yeah. Yeah. I have to imagine there are some scenarios where the fact that leather doesn't melt is probably a pretty big motivator. But I mean, they're few and far between. And again, like, if you have to have it for your job, then it is what it is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:55

But yeah. But yeah, it is kind of funny how it's like, let me compare the most expensive leather item with like the cheapest ass plastic leather thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:05

For sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:05

And we'll talk about durability.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:06

They do that with belts a lot. Oh, I know. Yeah, if I have a leather belt, it probably lasts me my whole life. But then you're going to compare it to this like $10 plastic belt you have. Yeah, exactly. There are nice non-leather belts that will also probably last your whole life. Yeah. I've got a couple of non-leather belts that I don't foresee breaking anytime soon.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:25

I've always liked fabric belts personally. Yeah. They work just as well. Yeah. I don't know. And you can get them in fun colors.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:31

That's true. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think the point is basically most vegans aren't really wearing vegan leather in general. They're mostly wearing like canvas, cotton, rubber. Exactly. Like other synthetics.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:45

Right. I'm just thinking of like, okay, where do people use leather fashion wise? Purses? Like I've never had anything that was like that. Yeah. I just, I like cotton purses. Like, you know what I mean? Like a, I don't even remember, Vera Bradley type situation where it's just like a fabric. And it lasts and it's totally fine. Or like belts, like I just said, like, I'll get like a, they had really cool belts on the hippiestore.com that are like their fabric and they have like fun flower designs on them. And I have like three of those. Oh, it's the hippieshop.com. Yeah. Yeah. But like also shoes. I mean, I could see it for like work boots. Yeah. needing leather but any other shoes they have a lot of tennis shoes that are made of vegan leather and i think they hold up just as well like the soles is going to wear first just the way tennis shoes are yeah like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:37

The the uppers and the like the top body of the shoe i've never had one of those wear out before i needed to replace the shoe maybe i just got

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:44

Lucky yeah no i've had like 40 pairs of shoes and that's never happened it's always the soles yeah but even like just walking around shoes i mean fuck chuck taylor's are all vegan you know i like those there's like a lot of really good vegan shoes i.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:59

Mean even if you know vegan leather is like a marketing term for plastic which largely it is right now i'd still rather wear plastic than skin and i probably i'm not going to wear vegan leather anyway i'm just going to wear these other

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:12

Materials exactly it's not like a leather or vegan leather it's like a a leather or vegan leather or canvas or cotton rubber uh you know what i mean there's like a billion other options we don't have to have leather pants, we could wear denim all right i don't know, I think, you know, part of this is maybe car seats. You don't have a whole lot of, like, room to choose, but a lot of car companies are coming out with, like, leather seats and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:39

I think it's really hard to find a car with, like, real leather now that's not a really high-end car. Yeah. I don't actually know what the high-end cars have.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:46

I mean, maybe, like, a used car could.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 38:48

Maybe. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 38:49

That's true. But then, you know, I think that's—you've got to buy whatever car's in your price range, you know? Yeah. I would still think you were a vegan if you couldn't find a used car with vegan leather. And this was the one that worked for you because cars are hard to decide between and find.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:05

The last section we want to talk about here is like being a vegan and like living with the leather not being an option anymore for buying it. Right. Basically, we already mentioned this, but the biggest thing that comes up for new vegans is like, what do you do with the leather you already own?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:19

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:20

So, like, what did did you have any leather when you went vegan? What did you do with her?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:25

So the only leather I had were work boots, which I was required to have. So I honestly, I just started, I don't think I ever bought a new pair while it was vegan. I just kept wearing my old pair, even though they offered free ones like every year at work. I was just like, I'm going to wear it until these are like falling apart basically. And then the only other thing I had a pair of Doc Martens from like, a very very long time ago like college that i just happened to buy um, so yeah i don't know i still have those i don't think i've worn them since i went vegan yeah but i didn't throw them out because they're in good shape but i mean i guess i could give them to goodwill right but, uh yeah i don't think i really had anything else leather i just never really did much with leather so yeah so what about you did you have any leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:14

Stuff yeah i think i had one pair of boots that had leather um that i've had for a very long time and then a belt that was leather um i do still have them somewhere i don't really wear them the belt uh the belt is an old one i'd end up having to like put a bunch of holes in so it's not even in the best shape but i don't wear it anymore um i mostly wear like a fabric belt or i've actually got these little things that are velcro and they kind of go on the side of your pants and they hide and you like can belt up yeah yeah So I use those sometimes. Don't really wear a belt much, actually. So anyway. But yeah, but no, the boots, I have a pair of composite boots that I wear now. I don't even really need the leather ones because there's a company that I got the leather boots from originally, I think. And they also make a composite version. So I got that. And those are great. So I don't, it doesn't seem like they're ever going to break. Again, the sole will probably go out way before anything else on the boot does. So yeah, those are the only two things I had that I can think of. There's a belt and a pair of boots. I don't wear either one of them anymore, but I do still have them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:18

Yeah. I hadn't worn my, like, non-work boots for a very long time before I went vegan anyway. So they just, I have a lot of shoes that I bought at various points and had, like, phases of, like, wearing that shoe a whole bunch. And then... It's not really worn out, so I don't really get rid of it. And so maybe I'll have a phase where I want to wear my Doc Martens again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:39

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:39

But I think if you already own it, I don't know why you would throw it away. Maybe, like, if you don't want it in your house, donate it to Goodwill or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:47

Yeah, and I think, you know, we were talking about, like, not wanting to wear skin. I think that feels a lot different for something like a belt or boots than it does for, like, a jacket.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:57

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. yeah the jacket feels like a bit more like, i don't know you're really all in on like buying a whole cow yeah yeah it's very weird i will say like similarly i do knit and so i had a couple like i had several skeins of, like wooled yarn which i don't buy anymore yeah and so i've just been using that up to give to people and like scarves and stuff for christmas and whatnot yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:25

Yeah it's pretty it seems like it'd be wasteful to just throw stuff that's you've already owned away for no reason but yeah at the same time some people just don't want to

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:34

If it makes you uncomfortable for sure i mean i would probably i would say if it makes you really uncomfortable just give it to goodwill so at least like, maybe you can prevent someone from buying something new.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:46

Since you were just talking about goodwill that reminds me of something else we were talking about which is like buying leather secondhand and we mentioned this before on the podcast where we I covered this very briefly. But, you know, there are a lot of opinions about this as well. Like some vegans are fine just buying secondhand leather outright and wearing it. Some are obviously not for some of the same reasons. So, like, what's your opinion on that?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:07

Yeah. So this one seems like a pretty hot topic from what I've seen in a few vegan subreddits and just like general online discourse. But my personal opinion is that I would not buy secondhand leather because I think, number one, anyone that's going searching out anyone that's like non-vegan, right, that's going and searching out a leather belt or a leather jacket or leather boots or something. If if they're searching thrift shops, Goodwill first and they don't find that, I think they will probably go buy that new.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:43

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:44

So, I think buying from secondhand stores, Goodwill, etc., I think probably still kind of increases the demand of firsthand leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:54

Yeah, I think that's... I agree with that, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:56

So, that's why I'm personally... I wouldn't do it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:59

Right, yeah. Plus, I mean, it encourages even secondhand stores to accept more leather because I know they can sell it. So, there's still a demand... Supply and demand aspect to it there.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:08

Yeah, and I think the other thing is, like... we were talking about earlier is like i just don't see that as like something i would want to.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:14

Wear yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:16

So i wouldn't like go seek it out i guess i feel like there are better options that i could just buy what was your.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:21

Opinion yeah i think i feel the same way like i can't imagine why i would go out and buy any leather i don't already have at this point um and again i like i feel like you said like if somebody's out there looking for a secondhand leather jacket and they feel really strongly about it and they can't find one they'll probably go buy a new one so somebody like a vegan buying one will probably kind of potentially have a chain reaction that makes somebody go buy a new leather jacket so i don't know and again i never really felt strongly enough about leather that i need to do this yeah yeah so yeah i don't i don't think it's a great idea i don't really think it's like a ethical issue maybe necessarily but yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:58

Yeah i wouldn't say it's like a personal moral failing if you did buy secondhand leather i guess like i wouldn't be like you're not a vegan right but like me personally i don't really see a good case for doing it, and i could almost make an argument that it could potentially cause someone to go buy a new leather yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:15

Yeah and i think you know kind of in the same vein like if the leather you already own like your boots your belt or whatever if you just keep using those until they wear out i don't think there's really any ethical issue with that either i think that's a personal choice kind of thing you're not harming additional animals definitely with stuff you just already own right so uh yeah i mean i think there's definitely some gray area here. I don't think there are any ethical issues. I think people just have to make a personal choice on some of these.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:39

Yeah. And I think the other thing is like you already, if it's a leather good, you probably already spent a lot of money on it. So like I wouldn't really tell you to like, you need to go throw that out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:48

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:49

Like wear it until it's gone.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:51

Yeah. The reason you bought it originally was probably because you wanted it to last the rest of your life and you've already, you know, done the harm or whatever, then you might as well keep it, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:00

Yeah. If you feel really bad, Go donate that money somewhere that's helpful to animals.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:04

Yeah. There you go.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:06

That's a good idea. You know something that I've always thought was kind of like odd?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:09

What's that?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:09

Is that people, even non-vegans, are super adamant against fur specifically. Oh, yeah. But then they don't seem to have that strong feeling about leather.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:18

Yeah. That is pretty interesting considering they're very similar.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:22

Yeah. They're basically like the same, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:24

Yeah. And I mean, like, I guess the difference in somebody's mind about fur is like you typically don't use the meat from an animal that gets fur.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:32

Hmm. That's interesting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:33

I don't know. Yeah. That gets their fur removed. Like, so you're just killing the animal for the fur.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:38

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:38

But I don't know that that necessarily makes it better because even the animals you kill for meat, you're killing pretty young. And maybe even, I don't know the data on this, but maybe the animals that get furred actually live longer than the animals that get, you know, killed, slaughtered for meat. I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:55

Yeah. I'm not really sure on that either. Yeah. Um, I will say even as a vegan, I have a much stronger reaction to seeing fur. Uh, we went to an Airbnb. Remember that Airbnb we went to? Oh, dude. So basically, so we walked in this Airbnb and there was, it was, we didn't book it again. I'll start there. But we walked in and it was like, there were like animal skulls on the walls. And then we went down to the basement and there was like a full fox pelt just laying out on a chair. And it was like two. There were several with like the head.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:34

And a rug. And like I like kind of lost it. And I was like, I mean, I need to go like out of this room and like you hid them somewhere or whatever. And then we left them a pretty. I don't say nasty. I would say constructive. Like, you don't know who's renting your Airbnb. Like, some people might have a very strong reaction to it. But I would say I had a very, very strong reaction to that. Like, that was very, very upsetting for me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:59

I think even more so than you would have expected. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:01

You don't even think about it. Yeah, I know. I was, like, very, very upset.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:07

I mean, they were, like, the full pelts. It was, like, the heads and everything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:10

It was pretty upsetting. Yeah. but like i don't have that reaction when i see a leather couch like i don't want to sit on a leather couch really but like i don't have that like gut reaction of like what what the fuck yeah and i think it's more of like when you see fur it's more i would say like closer to its natural state, and like leather doesn't really like by the time you see leather it doesn't really look like a cow because they've like dyed it and tanned it and like whatever like, you know and in cows have fur like a like a little bit of hair right so like you don't really see that on leather so i think just seeing like fur is a little bit more like, you can attach that to the animal a little easier it's kind of like we were talking about in the uh like the vegetarian episode we covered a few weeks ago where it's like yeah if you're eating beef you can very easily identify like that came from an animal and it's a little bit different than like, dairy where you're like oh the animal had to be alive to provide dairy yeah you know kind of thing i don't know it just seems more obvious when i see fur.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:09

Yeah i mean

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:09

I just have this like very big reaction and i think other people do too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:14

Yeah i mean it just looks like it just looks like a dead animal sitting

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:18

There yeah and you know maybe it's 101 dalmatians yeah because i watched that a lot as a kid and i think that really it was like fur fur's evil.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:30

Yeah, you know, I know you feel strongly about the cause because you didn't root for the villain in that movie like you do in every other show.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:40

Not when it comes to animals. Dude, Negan from The Walking Dead, he is not a villain. Okay. Fight me. And then my other thought on the fur thing is that like a lot of the pets that we keep in our houses, like cats and dogs and stuff, they're furry. Yeah. Right? So like, I think when you see animal fur, people wearing animal fur, I think immediately you in your brain, you're like, oh my God, my dog Skippy when I was a kid, you know, just like it's fur.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:13

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:13

I think it just like gives you like more of a visceral reaction because most of our pets are fuzzy and furry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:18

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:19

I don't know. That's just my, my thought. Do you have any thoughts on why people react so strongly to fur?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:23

I think it is that. I think it's just like, it, it looks a lot more like the animal. And again, I think maybe people realize that they don't, we're not using the meat from those animals. So it's just kind of cruel. Yeah. But not that factory farming isn't cruel. I think it's just easier to disassociate from factory farming than it is to disassociate from fur.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:42

Yeah. It's just kind of one of those weird things because they're like basically the same thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 50:46

Yeah. I mean, it's like the hide, basically. We tan the leather. That's really the only difference. Yeah, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:51

I would say if you get in an argument with a non-vegan about leather and using leather, you should bring up the fur thing and see what they think about fur. And then maybe like press them on why do you think that's different than leather. Yeah. I don't know. I'm a little curious what people would say.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:04

That is most of what we had to talk about for leather. So just to kind of conclude, leather is the skin from like the beef and dairy industries from the cattle. 305 million cattle a year are slaughtered. We used the hides from, it sounded like maybe 80%, 85% of those. So byproduct is probably an accurate term at today's prices, but this has gone up and down over time throughout the years. And so who knows what it'll end up. But that's kind of irrelevant to why most vegans don't want to use leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:35

Yeah, it could be a byproduct today in the market and it could be a co-product next year in the market if the demands and supply change.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 51:42

As far as like environmental and human impacts, the environmental impacts are around deforestation for cattle farms. Again, not necessarily directly leather-caused, but it is something where, you know, it would be nice to know if you had leather from a farm that was involved in deforestation.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 51:58

Yeah. There's also the methane and CO2 numbers and greenhouse gases in general that come from raising cattle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:04

Yeah, definitely. And then the human aspect from tanning, not really up for debate. Probably, like, the most straightforward part of the entire leather issue and really has nothing to do with the animals. It's just a big human rights issue.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:17

Although it is going into the waterways, the hexavalent chromium is ending up in the waterways. So like if you, yeah, if you don't care about the humans that are impacted by, that very dangerous chemical, you should care about maybe the wildlife that is swimming in it or even wildlife that is interacting with the, you know, aquatic life, but it's swimming in it. And that's an environmental impact too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:40

Yeah. And then what you decided to do with the leather you already own is up to you. You know, we decided what to do with our stuff. You can decide what to do with your stuff. I don't think it's really an ethical issue either way, but different people will definitely have different comfort levels with what to do with their old leather.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:55

Yeah, and if you have any more questions on stuff maybe we didn't cover on the leather or you have any specific, like, oh, I just want to hear what other vegans think about X, Y, Z, yeah, shoot us a message or leave a comment.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:08

Yeah, please do. Or if you have any insights. Love to hear that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:12

Tell us why we're wrong. We like that, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:14

Yeah. You better be right, though.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:17

We have numbers.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:19

All right. Let's get into the bite-sized coaching segment. So if you don't know, I'm a personal trainer. I get questions from my clients, potential clients, people on the Internet, people in our Discord all the time. So I try to use some of those interactions to put a question here every week that is quick, easy to answer, and that might provide value for you. so protein deficient vegan gets to ask me the question

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:42

Are you ready for this one yeah should i use straps straps you know straps.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:48

What do you mean by straps you know oh in the gym to lift weights oh

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:53

Yeah i guess that's probably what they meant yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:59

So a lot of people have this question it's like you know so straps if you don't know are basically they wrap around your hand and then they wrap around the the barbell or sometimes even the dumbbell so you can pick up the weight without having to rely on your grip so much. So that's what people are asking. Like when or should I use straps for my weightlifting or when should I start using straps for my weightlifting?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:18

And which ones would you recommend?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:20

Yeah, especially as a vegan, right? So, yeah, so typically the argument for not using straps is that lifting weight that challenges your grip increases your grip strength, which is true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:33

And grip strength is correlated with longevity, right? That's true, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:38

I don't think training your grip strength makes you live longer, but yes, in general, the fact that you've exercised or done so much physical activity that your grip strength is stronger is definitely directly tied to longevity.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:48

Like you can catch yourself before you fall and stuff, which keeps you from getting injured as an old person.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:54

So, yeah, a lot of people will get to a point where they're doing, typically it's pulling exercises that you need the straps for. So, they'll get to a point where they're doing like lat pulldowns or more commonly deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, rows, things like that. And they'll be doing the exercise and the bar will slip out of their hands. So, I'll use deadlifts as an example because that's the most common one people probably ask about. But, yeah, so if you get up to a point where you're still able to lift the weight but your hands are slipping, then once you reach that point if you decide that you're not going to use straps and you just want to keep deadlifting only as much as you can hold in your hand then you've effectively turned your deadlift now into like a forearm focused exercise because the limiting point of your deadlift is how much you can hold in your hand which is your grip strength is related to your forearms So, deadlift is not a forearm exercise. I don't know if you knew that. It does help with grip at some point. But deadlift is like a hip hinge, posterior chain, meaning like your lower back, your glutes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:52

Your butt.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:53

Yeah, hamstrings, a little bit of quads, things like that. So, yeah, I mean, those parts of your body are much stronger than your grip is for almost everybody, especially for things like rows. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, there's no reason to limit your deadlift based on your grip strength. So I would say as soon as you're getting to the point where you're progressing and you're like, you're the weight is slipping out of your hands and you're stopping the set because the weight is slipping out of your hands, start using the straps.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:21

Or chalk.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:22

Or chalk. Yeah, chalk is actually a good first step. I would probably always use chalk.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:26

I didn't believe chalk worked.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:28

What do you think now?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:28

I think it works pretty well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:31

You used chalk like six months ago for the first time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:33

Yeah, I was like, there's no way chalk will help. Okay, so I have very small hands. Yeah. So I like even if I'm strong enough to hold something that's like a smaller bar, a lot of the bars are a little big and it's like there's not a good way for me to hold it with like my fingers fully wrapped around because I just have like short little child hands. But so I like lose my grip a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:54

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:54

And so I had been using straps or whatever. And but those are kind of annoying. But yeah, you were like, try chalk. And I was like, there's no way chalk is going to make me hold on better because also I have sweaty hands when I work out. They're so sweaty.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:06

I've seen Olympians use chalk for your entire life, but you didn't believe it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:10

I was like, my hands are sweatier. They wouldn't understand. So anyways, I chalked up my sweaty ass little hands. And no, chalk, it works. Pretty well. It works pretty well.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:24

But if you use the, like, if you have stairs and you use the handrail going back up or down the stairs after you put chalk on your hands, it makes it so grippy. Our stair handrail going down to our basement is so grippy. Because normally I, like, hold on to it and, like, slide. We slide down while I walk. We being me and my hand. Yeah. But now it's like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:47

Yeah. So chalk's a great option.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:48

Chalk works. It works. I'm a believer. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 57:51

So when I was saying, you know, the strap thing, I'm just like in my mind, assuming that you're always using chalk, but obviously everybody's not. So yeah, I would always use chalk when you're doing pulling exercises.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:59

It'll work on the sweatiest of hands.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:01

And then when you get to the point where even with chalk, your grip is opening up, then start using the straps.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:06

Yeah. What straps would you recommend? What would you strap on?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:12

So, funny that we're talking about this on a leather episode because, like, a lot of the popular straps used to be leather. Now they're more like canvas and stuff. Yeah. But there's a brand I actually like a lot called Versa Gripps.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:22

I like those ones, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:24

So, it's, like, not—so, some straps you have to, like, literally wrap around the bar every time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:28

Yeah. I don't like that because, like, what if I need to drop it easily and then I'm, like, attached to this heavy object? I don't love that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:35

Yeah. They're more secure. But also, those straps can kind of damage some of the nerves and stuff at the top of your wrist and your hand.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:41

Right, because it's, like, pulling down on it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:43

So Versa Gripps kind of solves both those problems. It's much easier to attach. It's just, like, a little, like, flap, basically, that you can secure with your hand and you can do it one-handed. And then they distribute the pressure at the top of your wrist a little different with some foam pads and a different shape and things like that. So no leather. The materials are totally vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:04

And they have different sizes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:05

Different colors, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:06

Different colors. Yeah. They got pink, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:09

Yeah. And different styles. They have, like, they're all basically the same, but they have some that are more oriented towards, like, female hand sizes, male hand sizes, things like that. Also, I'll put a link in the show notes because I do happen to have a discount code for Versa Gripps. so you can take a look at those if you're interested some people do like they're called some people do like other straps better there's a kind called like a figure 8 strap people are pretty that are pretty popular but they're like way too much of a pain in the ass for me yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:37

The Versa Gripps are nice because you can just like velcro them on your wrist and then you're pretty much done yeah I would say before I started using chalk I was using gloves like little lifting gloves they're really cute, because like it like I was always getting like calluses and ouchy things, But, like, the chalk actually fixed that, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:58

Yeah, the chalk will help a lot with callus because it doesn't move around really. Or pinch. You want to make sure you're grabbing it in the right spot, though, because once you grab it, the chalk is going to make sure you're not moving.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:07

Yeah, because the calluses are more caused from, like, pinching the skin, right? Kind of.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:10

Yeah, if you've got, like, a fold pinched in between where you're grabbing and where the bar is, you'll get worse callus and it'll, like, irritate callus. So, learning to grab the bar the right way to where you don't have skin pinched up in there is important, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:23

I will say that Dr. Mike said he liked my gloves.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:27

That's true, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:28

He shook my hand and said, those are nice gloves.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:31

Yeah, that's true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:32

They had little, like, sugar skulls on them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:35

They're pretty cool gloves.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:37

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:38

I'll say the only exception to this strap thing is if you're going to do some kind of competition that doesn't allow straps. It's like a lot of powerlifting competitions don't allow straps. If you're going to be doing Olympic weightlifting, you can't really use straps. So for Olympic weightlifting, typically you'll learn something called a hook grip, where you basically pin your thumb underneath and hold the bar that way, and it's kind of painful at first. But that's how Olympic weightlifters are typically going to do it. And then if you're doing a powerlifting thing where you're not allowed to use straps, you'll obviously have to practice without straps. And there are some other strategies there. Like for deadlift, you can do mixed grip, where you grab overhand with one hand, other hand with the other. I probably wouldn't do that unless you're going to be doing a competition because there's like some risk to your bicep tendon with that so if you're just working at home definitely just use straps and probably even for a lot of your practice use straps yeah but yeah if you're like actually trying to build up to your competition lift or something you're gonna have to do it the way you have to do in a competition cool I would say use chalk pretty much always. Use straps as soon as your grip starts failing. And then if you really want, you can do like forearm-specific exercises to work on your grip in the meantime, like wrist curls or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:46

What else can you do for your forearm?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:48

You can also do wrist extensions. And they also have those little grippers you can use at your desk, but that's a different kind of grip, so it won't really help you hold the bar. Did you have any in mind?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:59

No.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:02

All right well i think that's it for the bite-sized coaching hope that helps everybody if

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:05

You have any more questions about straps let him.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:07

Know um yeah so for the deficient vegans community in the discord this week or last week we started our book for the book club the impactful vegan that's our second book we've done and we'll be on

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:19

Week two the day after you hear this but yeah we still have three weeks left so if you're like oh it's too late to join no it's not, you should join.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:28

Yeah, you can get in now and get a copy of the book and join us. You can catch up on the week one questions if you want or just jump straight into week two. Either way you want to handle it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:35

It's been a pretty good discussion so far. Yeah. I think it'll get even more interesting. Once we get into, like, section two and stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:42

Yeah, I think this book is more inspiring. The last book we had was more about, like, the depressing facts and figures of the animal industry. This one's more, like, inspiring you to do things that are impactful for veganism.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:54

Yeah, which I think is why it's great for a vegan book club.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:57

Yeah, I like it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:58

If you need to be inspired, you should definitely join.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:00

Yeah, for sure. Did you have any new recipes this week?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:04

I do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:04

Let me hear them.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:06

Okay, I think you probably already know this because I've made both of these, like, no less than six times trying to get them right. But there's the TVP Crunchwrap.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:15

Oh, man, I love this one. It's so good. It's good. Yeah, they're big, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:19

They are quite big. Yeah. But, like, okay, so the only downside of this one is we had to find these super, super huge tortillas, which were very hard to find.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:28

12-inch tortillas are apparently really hard to find.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:30

But, like, kind of worth it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:32

Yeah, definitely worth it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:33

They were, like, really good. So if you can find those, you should use those. But then the other one is a high-protein zucchini bread, which I had several requests to make a recipe that was like similar to my high-protein pumpkin bread and high-protein banana bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:48

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:49

And yeah, so it took several iterations, but it is pretty solid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:54

I think, you know, I'm on the fence between the zucchini, like, this is saying a lot for me because I love banana bread. I'm on the fence about whether the zucchini bread or the pumpkin bread is the best of the three. Yeah. I think, you know, I've had the zucchini bread quite a bit this week. I think I might be leaning towards it right now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:09

Well, yeah, because the zucchini bread has walnuts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:11

Yeah, I think the walnuts put it over the top.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:13

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:13

I bet if you put the walnuts in the banana bread, that would be my favorite for sure.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:16

Ooh, yeah, that would be good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:17

Anyway, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:17

Yeah, it was really tasty. It was great.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:19

I think I, probably across the entire week, I've eaten at least one loaf of zucchini bread.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:24

Oh, you've eaten more than that. I made it like three times this week just to get the recipe right because I knew I wanted to post it this week. Yeah. We had a lot of zucchini bread.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:34

Yeah, some of those are good. I'm excited for everybody else to try those. If you can't find the 12-inch tortilla for the Crunchwrap, the recipe itself does have a way to use the 10-inch as well. Yeah. Like the normal tortilla side. Yeah, cool. All right, yeah. And we'll have links in the show notes for the Deficient Vegans Discord if you want to join that. Even if you don't want to do the book club, you can just come hang out with us. We're up over 500 people in there now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:55

Which is crazy. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:56

We'll also have a new link in the show notes for our Deficient Vegans subreddit on Reddit, which is kind of new but also pretty busy already

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:05

Uh we've had it for a little bit but we really just started posting pretty regularly like a couple of weeks ago and it's kind of like blasting off we also got.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:14

A new moderator

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:15

Yeah and we got a new moderator CatEatsPlants.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:18

Yeah she's awesome

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:21

The best uh yeah it's going pretty well i would say if if you're in reddit it's kind of like vegan chill vibes but without the trolls and, like the self-promo yeah really like we got a rule that if you're gonna put a recipe in you gotta have the whole recipe in the thing and it's like, a i don't know it's been i like pretty good discussions and stuff i really like it yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:45

It's heavily moderated i'll

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:05:47

Say it's very heavily moderated we are not letting trolls get by Yeah. Immediate bans. So fast. I have a very happy trigger finger.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:05:58

There are spaces that are not this space where you can go and like debate vegans and troll and people have conversations. But we're trying to make this space a little more like smooth for new vegans and people who like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:10

Vegan curious.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:11

Don't want to be in fights all the time. And also on the other side, if you're a vegan and you come in there and you're an asshole, you're going to get the same treatment.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:17

Yep. Yep. It's basically, the whole plan is safe space for current vegans and a welcoming and encouraging space for vegan curious or new vegans. Yep, exactly. Which is also what we're trying to do in the Discord. Yep. But yeah, if that sounds interesting to you, you should join. We're trying to take over our vegan. We got beef with you.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:37

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:38

Vegan beef.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:39

I think, so Reddit ranks the subreddits. I think as of this morning, we were number 18 for vegan and vegan food communities on Reddit or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:47

Which is crazy. Yeah. So yeah, help it pop off. And eventually we're going to put in a lot of guiding documents and helpful, things for going vegan. Like, we're going to build out a wiki and stuff to make it a little, like, easier to follow, like, if you're, you know, starting out.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:04

Yeah, cool. All right, guys. Well, we really appreciate you listening. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, if you could rate and leave us a review, that helps us out a lot. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave a comment. We love seeing those. Thank you again for reminding me that dolphins aren't fish.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:23

We even got a book suggestion.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:25

Oh, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:26

Very helpful. I think it's going to be a good read. We did get it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:30

What was it called?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:30

It's called Dolphins Are Not Fish. It's a scholastic read. I ordered it. I don't know when it's coming. Oh, man. But I can't wait to read it to you as a bedtime story.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:42

Okay. All right. Well, I think that's it for this week. Do you want to say bye? Bye, guys. Bye, everybody.