Veganism Online vs. Veganism in Real Life

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:00

Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast, episode 68. I'm 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 veganism online versus veganism in real life. They're pretty different.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:13

They're quite different, yes. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:15

But first up, new news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:17

New news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:19

So the first piece of news we have is that the EU is looking to expand some of their plant-based label bans that they have in place.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:25

What does that mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:26

So they have a ban on some of the words you're allowed to use in labels for plant-based products, but they're looking to add more quote-unquote meaty words. So they want to add things like steak, escalope.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:36

What is escalope?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 0:37

Apparently that is just like a thin slice, typically of meat. The others in there are sausage, burger, hamburger, bacon, ham, ribs, filet, loin, breast, and I think a couple of others.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 0:49

Do you think that the bra companies can still use the word breast or does animal ag, are they the only ones allowed using a term for female anatomy?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00

I think they'll probably give a pass to the bra companies.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02

You know, I just think it's funny that with other things like chocolate eggs, nobody's coming after chocolate eggs.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08

No, that's true.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09

Because that's not threatening you selling chicken eggs. But as soon as there's like a vegan egg, people are too stupid to figure out what the word egg means in the context of vegan food.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18

So, hopefully this new bill or proposal or whatever goes nowhere, but they're making an attempt in the EU.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25

Escalope is a fun word. Yeah. I don't understand it really still, but I like saying it. Escalope. Escalope. Feels like a car, like a goofy little cute car, like an Escalope. It's like an Escalade, but like a cute version. I drive an Escalope.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:41

I drive an Escalope.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:43

I drive a lime green Escalope.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:45

That is a cool name.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:46

I like it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:48

The next piece of news is that they had the first documented sighting of an otter in the Bronx River in New York in more than a century.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:56

This is good news because otters are adorable and I hope that they can be everywhere.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:01

Yeah, they're pretty cute little guys.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:02

They're so cute with their little feet and their little hands. Oh my gosh, did you see that story about like this? So this guy was like, he came upon a little otter family.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:13

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:13

And I guess the mother otter, I don't know if this was at the zoo or I can't remember. the exact details because I just was like fascinated by the picture.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:20

Hyper focused on the otter itself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:22

Yeah, I was like, I don't know where you're from. I don't know who you are, where you're from, what you do, as long as you love me, otter. But like, okay, so the mom otter, she'd just given birth to a baby otter. Yeah. And she was like presenting her little baby otter to the world, right? But then the dad otter is sitting there and showing off his favorite rock.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:45

That sounds very human.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:48

It was so cute. We'll have to link a picture of that in the show notes, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:55

Yeah, we'll have to find it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 2:56

Yeah, it's adorable.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 2:58

But it's probably a good sign that they've been cleaning up the river and improving the ecosystem and stuff. Yeah. That's pretty cool. The last piece of news is not really a piece of news.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:07

It's a piece of news.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:08

Okay, okay. It is hot off the press. It's almost fall.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:14

It's almost fall, which means all your favorite fall products, they're either coming out or they're already out. Yeah. I've been seeing a shit ton of like Trader Joe's vegan fall hauls. It's great. Pumpkin spice, everything. Apple and cinnamon, everything you've been waiting for.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:30

Do you like fall?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:31

I love fall so much.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:34

It's your favorite season for sure. Yeah. The pumpkin spice stuff, I'm like hit or miss on, but I like a lot of the other fall flavors.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:42

I like anything fall and anything Halloween.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:47

I like apple cinnamon a lot. I'll eat apple cinnamon in pretty much anything.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:49

Apple cider's coming out?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 3:51

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 3:52

See, people are like pumpkin spice latte girls, but I've never had coffee. Right. So I'm not like a latte whatever. And also I hate coffee. I've tasted it. what like oh yeah so we bought a bunch of different like fall flavored coffee drinks oh yeah from this local place that we like that has a lot of vegan options, and i hated all of them because i had never tasted coffee before i had just like smelled it and i hated the smell turns out i hate all of those yeah but i do like pumpkin spice anything else.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:22

Right yeah there's a lot of local restaurants and stuff that like have fancy fall items coming out things like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:29

So get excited. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:31

So let's get into the main segment. So if you went off of like the, the internet version, the Reddit, the Tik TOK, the Instagram comment sections, things like that. Like what would your opinion be of vegans?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:46

It would be pretty varied. Yeah. You have some like normal people. Then you have some like very aggressive people. You have some argumentative people. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:54

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 4:56

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 4:57

Yeah. I think it mostly just if you're just looking at those things, it makes you feel like vegans spend their days like arguing over materials and shoes and talking about like, can I take this lifesaving medication? It's got this gelatin or lactose or something in there. Or the really interesting one, like kicking each other out of the vegan club, like revoking your vegan club.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:17

You're not vegan enough. I see that a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 5:20

Yeah, it comes up a lot. There's a lot of internal arguments, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 5:24

Mm hmm. Like you say the wrong thing. I feel like there's a lot of pressure in the online vegan spaces to say exactly the right thing or somebody will tell you you're not a real vegan. And that is actually pretty stressful to like. And I've heard a lot of people say they don't even really like existing in social media spaces, like even on Reddit and stuff, just because it's like just there's just constant fear of being like surveilled, you know, of like they're just picking apart every single thing you say. say and like if you say it just not right enough now you're like not a real vegan or you're like uh, what is that new term i keep seeing an animal abuser apologist oh i've seen that coming up just in ways of like oh hey i'm glad that you're starting to reduce your like animal product intake yeah you're an apologist even.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:14

Just conversations about like helping people transition to the vegan diet it's like if you didn't do it all or nothing an immediate conversion in like five seconds, then you're an apologist. It's very aggressive and I don't think it's very effective. No.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:29

I think what it actually does is it kind of makes people that are like more, I wouldn't say middle of the road because like I don't think vegans are middle of the road. I would just say like have a softer touch maybe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 6:40

Well, I just think you have to understand the reality of how people make a change like that in their life. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 6:46

I think, yeah, exactly. It's like people like that that are just a little more understanding don't even want to be in those spaces. So then those spaces become filled with people that are a little bit more like... I don't want to say the word aggressive, but it feels like that's maybe the right word.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 7:00

Yeah. And to a certain extent, it makes sense, I guess, because like an online community is a lot of really passionate people in general. So they kind of feed off each other and it's a little bit of an echo chamber. But that's not always a bad thing if it's like echoing a bunch of education to spread. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, some people don't make the transition well of like stepping outside of that bubble and like interacting with the people who aren't there yet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 7:23

You kind of have to remember that non-vegans will read your stuff regardless of like where you are, right? So like if I post a video and it like breaks containment of my normal like vegan followers, it's like that video and the comments and the entire comment section are going to be consumed by like, non-vegans, potential future vegans. And it's like if it looks really unfriendly, unwelcoming, like maybe they don't try it for a while. You know what I mean? Oh, for sure, yeah. I'm not saying that that's, like, you're responsible if you say something rude for someone not going vegan. And I don't think anyone thinks that. It's more of just, like, it could sway them away from trying it for a while.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:03

Yeah, the idea of, like, spooking a deer. Like, they're hesitant, they're poking around, and then you come out yelling, and they're just running away for a while.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:10

Yeah. For me, I get a little frustrated when people are, like... aggressive in my comment section and i know that like non-vegans that are maybe vegan curious are going to see because it's like the amount of effort i have put into like getting videos that break the containment of my normal vegan following that like non-vegans would see that yeah so much effort goes into creating videos that like can be seen by people outside of the immediate following, you know what i mean and it's like i want this to be received well but like when you're being rude in the comment section. Yeah. You're scaring away future vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:45

Yeah. Stop it. Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of that stuff happens exclusively online for the most part.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 8:51

Yeah, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 8:52

And your day-to-day life as a vegan is mostly like reading ingredient labels. And like, oh, is this vegan? Is this not vegan? Oh, damn, it has milk in it, you know?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:00

Right. The thing with the plant-based label somehow has traces of milk in it. I guess I can't buy it. Or like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:06

Why does this thing that has no beef flavor at all have beef as the third to last ingredient right yeah what is this for

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:13

What the fuck is gelatin why can't i eat gelatin yeah they put gelatin in toilet paper what the fuck yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 9:18

Those there's a lot of stuff like that so i think if you just exclusively look at the the kind of chronically online vegans it's a really distorted view of like just actually living your life as a vegan

Protein Deficient Vegan: 9:29

Yeah and i think it's a distorted view of like how you would expect a conversation with a potential vegan to go to because if you had someone if not like just an average vegan right it has someone come up to them in their life like a friend co-worker whatever yeah and they just say like oh, i'm thinking about trying to eat more plant-based you're not gonna yell at them most people aren't gonna yell at them and be like it's all or nothing, yeah you're like a animal abuse apologist you would never say that to your co-worker, i wouldn't think right like and i've had co-workers come up to me and just say like oh like me and my partner are trying to eat more vegan food throughout the week and it's like oh do you have any favorite recipes that we could try yeah and it's like yeah sure and then give them information, And it's like, yeah, the person I'm specifically talking about, they and their partner are still not vegan, but they still eat quite a bit of vegan food every week. And it's like maybe they eventually get there, maybe they never get there, but they've still reduced.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:27

Yeah, on balance, it's definitely better than somebody who eats just exclusively animal products every day.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:32

Yeah. And I do think I think that is actually like I would say one of the more important points that gets lost online is that that that is the truth is like any reduction is better than not making that reduction. So whether or not you think it's enough. It's still better than if they did nothing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:53

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 10:54

And I think you have to help people with that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 10:56

Yeah, absolutely. Also, there's kind of a phenomenon online, I guess. But the people who are like the loudest in spaces really don't represent the average person. And probably the louder they are, the less they represent the average person.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:11

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:12

So.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:13

That's just how the algorithm works, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:15

Yeah. I mean, it's going to pick whatever it is that is getting a lot of reactions, even if it's a very negative post.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:21

Yeah. Well, kind of like the new news we just covered. Yeah. Right. I have seen a lot of stuff on otters. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 11:28

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 11:29

And my social media the last two weeks has literally just been vegan fall hauls from like Trader Joe's or whatever. Right. People are just showing the products they got from Trader Joe's. it's obviously less important than the first piece of news we covered which is that animal agriculture, companies from across different countries are coming after plant-based products trying to make it harder for them to sell their products yeah like that's obviously like a more important piece of news that we should all know about that and we should all be pissed about that but it's like that's not going to get as much traction as like a vibey vegan fall haul video yeah where you run through trader joe's and pick out all the like pumpkin spice stuff right yeah Because that's just how social media works.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 12:10

Yeah. And even kind of stronger than that is something where they're trying to elicit an emotional response. Yeah. So there was actually, not that this episode will have a lot of studies, but there was a study in 2017 that showed that each extra moral or emotional word in a tweet or something like that online increased sharing by about 20%. Oh, I believe that. So, if you try to make people, like, have an emotional reaction, that's going to drown out a lot of the other more mundane things like the otters and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 12:40

Yeah. Well, I've seen that on, like, my posts that do well. It's, like, not—I was not intending on getting an emotional response. I have one that's still going. I posted it, like, two months ago, but it was basically—, I was referencing a study by Faunalytics, which is like one of the largest animal advocacy groups in the globe. Right. And they do a lot of studies on like what would help you go vegan or like they did a study on ex-vegans, self-identified ex-vegans. That's what the study said. Yeah. On why did you stop being vegan? What specifically would help you go back to being vegan? That was the study. I referenced it in a reel where I was like, hey, I put together a free e-book and I think it helps address some of these things that people are saying from the study. Like, I don't understand how to like eat as a vegan and I was having trouble with this or that or whatever.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:33

Right. So that was the entire reel, like 20 seconds. It was just like, hey, this study said this percentage of ex-vegans stop being vegan because of this.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:41

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:42

And then I offered a solution at the end. And my God, the number of mean ass people I got in my comments, fellow vegans that were telling me I'm a shitty fucking vegan, destroying the vegan movement.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 13:56

Destroying the vegan movement.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 13:57

I literally was told I was destroying the vegan movement by quoting a study done by a legitimate group that is one of the best animal advocacy groups in the world.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:08

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:09

I'm quoting their study, and I'm the worst vegan. I'm just the worst, right? Because I mislabeled plant-based as vegan. We don't actually know if the participants in the study were plant-based or if they considered themselves vegans. Why is that the most important thing for my video, though?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:26

Well, what I can say is, like, if you are talking to a person and they're like, I'm an ex-vegan, and you say you were never vegan, that conversation's over. Like, you're telling them they're not something I think they are. You're never going to, like, win them back or whatever your goal is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:40

Exactly.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 14:41

So you have to understand that people do feel like, and, you know, I think people change their beliefs all the time. You have, like, people who used to be religious. That's similar, like, moral, ethical.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 14:50

Yeah. And I think it's like a lot less likely that you would have an ex-vegan versus like an ex-plant-based person who wasn't doing it for the animals. Yeah. But like they do exist. I actually had several people in my comment section who were like, I actually am an ex-vegan. I have like some medical issues I haven't been able to figure out yet. Yeah. I've been trying to add back more and more plant-based foods. Like, do you have solutions for this, this, and this? Right. And they were looking for solutions, like actively looking for solutions or people that are like, I unfortunately like had to move it back in with my parents due to like unforeseen circumstances where I don't have like the funds to purchase my own food and stuff. And like, they're kind of just the same with like houseless people. Right. It's like, yeah, you're kind of eating whatever you have to, to survive. Yeah. And like that would be considered a real ex-vegan. Yeah. I mean, but I think the thing that pissed me off is, like, that's not the point of the video. Yeah. The point of the video was, like, hey, there are people that say they want to come back. These are the resources that they need. This is the help you can provide when you're talking to people like this. And then all of a sudden, I'm not a vegan because I use the word ex-vegan. Like, it's just stupid.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 15:59

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:00

It's fucking stupid and it pisses me off. And then people come into the comment sections, right? Like, just people that are interested in that, they come into the comment section and realize, like, ooh, this is, like, not at all a welcoming community.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:13

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:14

But because there are people being aggressive and mean and being rude to me, that makes the video do better.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:21

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:22

But that's, like, the whole point. And I see a lot of videos from other, like, vegan content creators where I almost feel like they do it intentionally. I did not do it intentionally.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:31

Yeah, you don't really like being yelled at.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:33

I don't like being yelled at. It isn't fun for me. I don't like being told that I am, like, an animal abuse apologist and a piece of shit destroying the vegan movement when I care so deeply about it. It's bullshit. Stop doing that to fucking people. Yeah. But, like, what I will say is there are some people that intentionally do it to get engagement. Oh, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 16:50

It's very common.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 16:51

But like, okay, so some of the videos I've seen is there's like a creator who, I don't necessarily like the wording of it, but she says like... Oh, like you love cheese so much. Well, be vegan, but cheese. It's not saying like you would call yourself a vegan and still eat cheese. It's just saying like, we'll do the rest of it. And like, don't, and still eat cheese, whatever. Like, don't let the cheese be the thing that holds you back from doing all the other parts of it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:19

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:20

And I think that sentiment makes a lot of sense, but people take it and they get really aggressively mean to her. Yeah. Because she said, be vegan, but cheese. Vegans don't eat cheese. And it's like, yeah, I mean, like, I know that's not actually what she's saying. Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 17:33

But if ever and I understand the point of view, I don't I haven't seen this video or anything, but I understand the point of view. It's like, OK, if like because so many people say I could be vegan, except I love cheese. It's like, OK, do everything else. Stop buying leather. Don't stop buying meat. Do everything else. Don't eat cheese. You're OK. Technically, you're vegetarian, whatever. Yeah. I don't care what you're called. You're like reducing animal harm. Exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 17:54

But like, man, she gets the most hateful comments I've ever seen from other vegans, like telling her she's basically a piece of shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:01

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:02

And it's like, it makes her videos do better. And what I will say is like, it's kind of funny, right? Because it's like, there's like a double edged sword. As like a vegan content creator, you want your videos to break containment. You want your videos to be viewed by non-vegan potential future vegans, not your normal following of vegans. Yeah. Because you want your message to get out there. So it's like a double-edged sword for someone like that. It's like, well, I know my videos can break that containment if I do something a little spicy. Yeah. Like if I cause like drama in my comment section, those are the videos that are going to do better. Yeah. Then if I'm just like... oh, look at this new protein bar I bought.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:42

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 18:43

Right? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 18:45

And this is a little off topic, I guess, from what we're talking about, but I think that approach is totally valid because if somebody manages to go, you know, vegan without the cheese or whatever, then at some point they have been eating only cheese. The only animal products they've eaten is cheese for a couple of years. At some point they're probably going to think, like, do I really need to keep eating cheese? Like, I'll try some vegan cheese. Oh, this isn't so bad. And then they'll probably end up going vegan. Like if there's just, you're taking them from this world where they have 10 different things holding them back. Yeah. And like helping them move into this world where they have one thing holding them back. And that's pretty easy to let go of.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:18

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's more of just, the other thing that I've seen from non-vegans in those comment sections is just that, going vegan is viewed as so difficult.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 19:32

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 19:32

Like it's such a complex thing. like you need to know all this stuff immediately or you're not a good enough vegan or you're going to be called like names and stuff yeah and it's like yeah that actually holds people back because they're stressed about doing all the things at once yeah, you know and it's like yeah if you can just get them to take that initial step you can probably create way more vegans or like or reducetarians or vegetarians or whatever but like, that's still good like and i think just in general Like we've been reading the book, the impactful vegan for our book club. And I think there is something in that of just, you have to take your ego out of it. And it's like, wouldn't it be nice if the whole world went vegan overnight? Obviously. Yeah. That's what we all want. And it's like, But isn't it also good if the whole world, like, goes down to just eating cheese overnight?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:24

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:24

Like, that's something, or just, like, one individual.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:27

Yeah, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:28

If the option is they're going to be an omnivore or they're going to eat a fully plant-based diet except that they eat cheese once a day.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:36

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:36

Isn't that better than an omnivore? Like, can't we all agree that's better than an omnivore? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 20:41

The only way it's not better is if you're super, super hung up on the label for some reason and not super, super hung up on the actual animal harm reduction, which is the part we should be super, super hung up on.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 20:53

Which I think is like interesting because that's what the author in The Impactful Vegan was talking about is like once you let your ego piece go of like you want to be able to fully convert somebody from non-vegan to vegan. They leave that conversation. They fully agree with you. They're like, yeah, no, I'm vegan for life. I totally get it. Yeah. That's like a piece of your ego, because like if you could convince 10 people to drop everything except for cheese, you did way more good than convincing one person all the way through and then scaring off the other nine people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:24

Because like ultimately, I think we should all be thinking about the actual numbers and like, what does this mean for the animals?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:33

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:34

Because there's going to be a bunch of baby steps to get to the end result. Right. Right. So like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:39

And again I'm pretty confident if I can get you to only be eating cheese for a year I can get you to stop eating cheese yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 21:45

Because you're gonna be in vegan and vegetarian spaces where the stuff's being.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 21:49

Talked about yeah and you're gonna see all these like foods people are eating without cheese and you'll be like okay and I feel like You know, my timeline was very compressed, but it was when I went into a vegan diet. But it was kind of the same thing. Like, there were things like, okay, well, I can do without this. I can do without this. I can do without this. And it's like cheese. And then I try vegan cheese. I was like, I don't really love vegan cheese, but I don't really need cheese in general that much. But then, like, I come around and now I eat vegan cheese. So, it's like, it's just reducing the friction points. It's kind of like a salesman thing. Like, you just remove their objections one at a time over time. And it takes a while. eventually they'll buy the vegan package

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:25

You know exactly and like with your timeline like yeah you went vegan like overnight yeah so basically, we were moving in together and it was kind of just i was like you're not going to eat non-vegan food in the house that we live in together so you're basically going to have to become a vegan right yeah but like we had that conversation like, i don't know six to eight months before you actually moved in yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:47

So i like i was able to do all the mental processing yeah and even like cut down my consumption on my own to like you

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:53

Know get ready get.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 22:54

Ready and like understand what my options were and

Protein Deficient Vegan: 22:55

Things yeah and like when we because we did long distance for a while but like we'd go on our weekend days and it was like we were going to only vegan restaurants and i was like cooking you vegan food and it was like just like the slow understanding of like vegan food doesn't suck and like, hey read this book hey watch this documentary you know like, It was, like, overnight from, like, I was still eating animals to I'm not eating animals. Right. But, like, the process of getting there was actually, like, a few months. Of, like, me badgering you a lot.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 23:24

It wasn't really bad, right? Yeah. But it was, like, overcoming objections because, you know, and I don't feel like I was very obnoxious about it. You were. But there were things I was, like, oh, I need to understand this a little better before, like, just so I can do it right. It was never that I thought it couldn't be done. I just want to be, like, I want to make sure, like, I'm not messing up my health and I want to do this right, which, newsflash, wasn't that hard. But I didn't know that at the time. So it was just some stuff I had to learn.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 23:45

Yeah. You were reading about like whole food plant-based diets and stuff like that. And yeah, you just want to understand like how do you get protein? Which I think is like a fair question from anyone who's not vegan. Yeah. And just like, yeah, little things time by time. So, you know, and I guess like the thing I think about is how would I treat someone in real life that I want to get to vegan?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:08

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:10

And then I'm going to implement that online with strangers. Right. Because it's like. I don't, and I, and I, maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think most people, even the people online that are yelling at me or other people, I just don't think in real life, if they have a close friend come up to them, they're going to scream at them and like create all this conflict.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 24:30

And I think it's important you think about it in terms of real life, like a friend or somebody you don't care about and not real life, like you're at a group event or like an activism event or something, because those are meant to be more aggressive. Yeah. But I would think about your online interactions as if this was like somebody in your family or something. Exactly. Who you had to continue to interact with. Yeah. Even if they choose not to be a vegan, but you want to try to convince them. Like, you're going to approach it entirely differently than you are a stranger or, like, somebody online or somebody at an event or something like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 24:58

And I honestly think that's the way we win. Yeah. Is, like, I'm going to interact with you like I would my best friend who's trying to, like, reduce their animal intake. Like, and I have several friends that are probably never going to be vegan. Yeah. But, like, they are actively reducing. Yeah. I mean I don't I can't control what they do I'm glad they're reducing, I would love to see them go vegan I don't know if it's gonna ever happen right but like they send me pictures of their vegan food they're real excited about it yeah they're clearly doing it you know and I just think that's how we should be treating people online.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:32

Yeah I agree it's like

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:34

Because I think when you do approach it that way, at least I think when you open it up to, like, what do you need to, like, start making those reductions, you start getting good questions and, like, hearing what's actually holding people back. And then you can give them resources, offer them help.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:50

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:51

You know, just yelling at them. You're never going to get to have that conversation. They're just going to be like, oh, vegans are fucking nuts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 25:58

I don't want to talk to you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 25:59

I'm never going to be in a vegan space again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:01

I'm going to need an extra steak to make up for that crazy conversation I just had.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:04

For real. Yeah. Like, it doesn't sound logical. Like, and it's frustrating as a vegan. It's like, I just told you about animal abuse and you're going to go eat an extra steak. People aren't logical.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:12

People just don't like to be attacked. No. They will react out of spite and go the other direction. What? I don't like to be attacked.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:19

Yeah. I mean, it just sucks, you know? But I think that's where it's like, yeah, you might be right, but did you win? Yeah. I don't know. I like winning more than I like being right. Yeah. If you're liking this podcast or you hate it and you want to be kept up to date on new episodes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:36

That might be better than this one.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 26:38

You can like and subscribe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 26:40

Yeah. Another big difference with online is that everybody is kind of crowded into the same space. So you've got like the aggressive activist people, the brand new vegan, the whole food plant-based diet people, people who've been vegan for like 50 years but aren't really involved with activism or anything. And then like kids who are stuck at their parents' house. Like a lot of people are in the same space on an online environment. Whereas in real life, you kind of, those people sort off into their own group. They don't interact as much, especially if they don't want to. But online, you're like, you're arguing with people who have entirely different views of how to go about this thing all at the same time.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:16

I mean, like, it is funny what you'll see. Because like a four-day vegan is going to have a much different view of veganism than somebody who's been vegan for 30 years. Like newer vegans are like, I didn't know honey wasn't vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:29

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:29

And I remember feeling like I was discovering that kind of shit probably the first month or so.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 27:35

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 27:36

It was just like, okay, now I understand that honey's not vegan, but I don't get why it's not vegan. Or like the wool thing I didn't understand. Like I was having to go seek out like, why aren't we doing this? It didn't make sense to me. Yeah. Now I get it. But like, that's the problem with like, you're brand new. You're like learning so much. You're gonna have a much different opinion than somebody who has been doing it for a long time. or like an activist that's like, kind of constantly watching this this like footage and stuff that's and i think you know people that watch a lot of that footage are, um probably just like a lot more on edge and upset, rightfully so you know you're you're exposing yourself to like this is what the animals are suffering with every day like of course that's gonna make you, want to get shit done yeah right Like, you know why it needs to be done. You know it needs to be done fast.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 28:29

Even us, I mean, we do a lot of research for the podcast and we like read a lot about vegan things and write a lot of vegan things. And even me, I'm still like learning new stuff all the time. And there have been a lot of things during this process where I was like, okay, I know that's not vegan. I'm not 100% sure why. And like even doing the research for the podcast episodes made me more clear on it. I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah, that's totally different than how I thought it worked in the real world. So that makes sense to me now. Yeah. So there are a lot of little nuances.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 28:55

I will say like when we're researching the podcast and stuff and I am like reading about like horrific stuff it makes me meaner like you know what I mean because it's just like it's so like, fresh in my mind like the reason why we do all of this that I do feel like I have less patience with people yeah like a couple days after reading stuff like it just it's like, okay you can't give up bacon like you even know what I just read about pigs like I do I get pissed it makes me mad so like yeah i try to think what is the most effective and it's hard and i don't always do a good job yeah when talking to people there are definitely.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:34

Times where you just want to yell at people

Protein Deficient Vegan: 29:36

And i probably have and i probably will again but like yeah i do think it's important if you are online to try your best to be you know measured yeah right yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 29:49

And, you know, a lot of the interactions we talked about so far are with, like, people who aren't vegan yet or, like, transitioning to vegan. But there's also a lot of, online specifically, a lot of, like, policing and vegan purity tests.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:01

There's vegan on vegan hate all the time. Yeah. And I would, like, if you're doing this, I would challenge you to sit with yourself and think how you would feel, if you were going about trying to convince people to be vegan in a way that you felt was, like, the most effective. Okay? Yeah. And you're just doing your best and you're using up your free time, your resources. Like this is like your thing you feel super passionately about. Think about that. You're doing everything you personally can in a way that you personally think is most effective.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:34

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:35

And you are met.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:36

And it matches your skill sets.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:38

And it matches your skill sets. Yeah. And I think that's important, too, because we all bring different things to the table.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 30:42

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 30:43

Right. So you do that and you think, man, I've done a great job. and then you have 50 fucking vicious vegans in your comment section telling you you're a piece of shit. You're destroying the vegan movement. Animals are dying because of you. How would that make you feel? Right? Because at the end of the day, there is no right way to convert people. And I think this is kind of close in my brain because we're reading The Impactful Vegan, but it talks about all of the... different ways you can advocate for veganism. And there's just so many, and it really is dependent on like your skill set and stuff. So while you might not think that's a useful way to advocate for animals, like that might fit someone else's skill set. They might be having great luck with it that you don't know about. You don't know everything, right? Like me, I am very introverted. Never in a million years am I going to be standing on the side of the road doing animal, activism, like talking to strangers because i'm awkward as fuck yeah and i'm not convincing anyone and it would be a mess like it wouldn't be good right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 31:50

And you're not saying like you don't want to do that it's just like you your your skill set is not like interacting with people in that

Protein Deficient Vegan: 31:56

Way no like yeah i'm not gonna ever be a one-on-one stranger interactor like there are people that are very skilled at that yeah and i think that's awesome and i thank you for doing that yeah that's not me, yeah you know what i mean like i've decided like i'm an introvert i'm gonna do stuff from like behind the scenes like i'm gonna push out recipes i'm gonna like give out resources as much as i can like because that's a skill set i have i can make things you know right and but i think there's room for everybody right yeah, and like just because you do something different than someone else i just don't think we need to be attacking people we need.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 32:26

To be doing things different like everybody needs to be doing it in the way that makes the most sense for them and that way everybody's covered because there are people who like Want to receive things in different ways. So if you have people like spreading the word or spreading their knowledge or whatever in different ways, then you match up with all those people who like to receive things in those ways.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 32:46

Yeah, just kind of like teaching. Yeah. Like there are different ways to teach. Yeah. So like some people learn audibly and some people learn visually from reading, writing and stuff. And yeah, there's just like all kinds of different ways to learn and receive information. Yeah. I just think we need to stop attacking each other for doing it different than you might do something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 33:05

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 33:05

You know right but then i um, i actually this is the reason i left threads i don't really ever interact on threads anymore because i got basically yelled at and mansplained by some fucking douchebag guy online basically telling me that like i don't understand veganism and i shouldn't be leading with these facts and figures i should be leading with the animal thing, because I was having a conversation. It was a long conversation with this guy, And this other fucking guy wasn't involved. Yeah. We had like 10 back and forths where I was providing that person like data, facts, figures, information about factory farming. And it was actually going pretty well. And this other vegan just came out of nowhere and was like, you shouldn't be leading with like percentages and numbers and this and that. You should be sending him footage and you're a bad vegan. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not going to fucking waste my time arguing with fucking asshole vegans on threads. And so I don't look at threads anymore because you you pissed me off. Like that shit pisses me off. You weren't even part of the conversation. Like I was having a very useful what I thought back and forth with somebody providing them information they didn't know about. Right. And then some other fucking vegan comes in out of nowhere. Not to help. Yeah. You're not helping. You're trying to mansplain to me how I'm doing a bad job. during a long back and forth with a non-vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:37

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:38

Why would anyone want to fucking join veganism when they're just the vegan police running around correcting vegans online? You're not helping the conversation at all. You're just being a douchebag.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:48

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 34:49

Sorry, I'm very passionate about that. That really pissed me off.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 34:51

Yeah, there's a lot of feedback. People think you should be sharing information in a different way, and they will get pissed at you about how you share information, but then they're not sharing anything. And I'm not saying everybody should, But if you're not, you probably shouldn't be, like, aggressively arguing with other people who are in a public space.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:09

And I just think, like, the more vegan accounts there are out there sharing stuff, the better. And I think, I guess, something that I would say just to keep in mind is, like... It is not super fun being a vegan content creator. You get shit from the other side a lot. Yeah. Like you get trolling from omnivores a lot. And it's like, why would you want to make it more uncomfortable for them to continue messaging? Even if you don't agree with how they're messaging. Yeah. Unless they are being like intentionally harmful, like truly intentionally harmful to the vegan movement, which I don't even know what that would look like, I guess.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 35:45

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 35:46

I just don't know why they also need to be trolled by their fellow vegans. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause like, you don't know, like, like for instance, the guy on threads, he didn't know that was going to be the last interaction I ever fucking had on threads because he just like, I just was like, I can't do this. Yeah. Like it's bad for my mental health to have to argue with vegans when I'm trying to do something. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you being a dick to someone could be like the last time they ever want to post. Is that, is that helpful? Right. Especially, like, if you're seeing their video, that means they're doing it well enough that it's getting reach.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:21

Mm-hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:22

Yeah. I don't know. I just think we all need to be kinder to each other in general.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:26

Yeah. There's also a lot of more minor, like, purity test stuff. I see this a lot in the vegan subreddit. Yeah. Where it's like, you know, what do you feed your pets? Mm-hmm. Or, like.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:38

You have pets.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 36:39

You have pets. or, like, a label that's, like, may contain dairy, cross-contamination, like, all those little things that don't really come up. Or if you're, like, you're somebody who went vegan for your health and you're, you know, you're not really talking about the animals the right way or the way they want you to. There's a lot of stuff like that that are, like, little purity tests that get, like, a little exhausting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 36:58

Yeah, like, or are you still wearing a leather jacket? And, you know, I feel like we sound a little hypocritical because we just did a podcast. We've done a podcast on, like, honey and leather and blah, blah, blah. I am, like, really, me personally, I'm not, like, judging whatever you do. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 37:14

I don't feel like, and, you know, if I've ever done that, correct me, but I don't feel like I've ever been, like, this is the thing you need to do. I feel like we're just sharing information about, like, here is why people think this is not vegan. Here's kind of, like, what's going on with it. Yeah. You are your own person. You do whatever you want. Yeah. But, like, here's the information. Now you have the information to make a decision for yourself.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 37:35

And I feel like, for the most part, I think, shame is, I would say, one of the major deciding factors of if you are going to become vegan, like, do you carry shame about wearing leather? Do you carry shame about eating cheese? But shame is a very internal emotion. yeah like you can be shamed by others but i don't think the reaction is the same as if you have internal guilt about something do you know what i'm saying so like. A bunch of vegans shaming you and telling you you are a bad person i don't think does what you think it's gonna do right right so like, for instance like when i a vegan post on something yeah and i have a bunch of vegans telling me i'm a shitty fucking vegan i'm destroying the movement or whatever i actually do feel shame about that like that makes me feel like a bad person because i care so deeply about this but you're trying to shame people that don't believe in the cause yet yeah so like it's not effective so like the only people you're hurting by being mean is vegans that are with you on your same team because like omnivores aren't gonna feel that same shame because they're not like, believers in the cause yet right like that's like so i'm an atheist so it'd be like a christian being like well you're going to hell and i'm like okay, don't threaten me with a good time right like that does nothing for me i don't believe in that i feel nothing, you know what i mean but like if you did it to another christian like that probably does some damage right, i just think shaming people doesn't do what you want it to do if they're not already like, sold on the vegan cause yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:17

And i think a lot of people do that and they don't even really consider how you feel a lot of it is it appears to be really performative like they just want to make it known in a public space that they're more vegan than you or something like they just they want to feel morally superior even to other vegans by saying like no you this is not a gray area this is like exactly how you should do it this is the most moral way to do it and i'm sure they have things in their life or their interactions where they're not meeting the standard but but

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:50

But this specific one they're better than you at right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 39:52

And maybe they aren't even in real life they just want to like put that presentation out there and perform

Protein Deficient Vegan: 39:56

I do think and i think this goes also in politics like i see this a lot in, um you know i lean very far left and i feel i see that in left leaning spaces too of like well you're not this if you don't do that and like I'm more this if you know, Yeah. It's just like, we don't have to be, I don't know. I think you can share the information without making people feel like they're a shitty person. Yeah. I guess.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:20

Yeah. Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is like the, there's no such thing as a perfect vegan anyway.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:25

Right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:25

Like if you follow anybody long enough, they're going to be making mistakes or accidents or like they just won't know something yet. Like there are little things like shellac, like the shiny thing in candy. A lot of people don't even know about shellac. They're probably eating lemon.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:39

Or that, like, red food dye that's made by, like, squash bugs. Like, yeah, you probably don't know about that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:44

Or, like, there's, like, vitamin D3s, like a sheep's wool thing sometimes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:48

Yeah, and sometimes it's in cereal, lanolin.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:51

And then there's a whole sugar thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:52

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 40:53

But there's a lot of stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 40:55

Or it's like, okay, I have a massive fruit fly infestation in my house that I've been trying to deal with for a while. Yeah. And I've been cleaning all the counters and doing all the things it says. Like, at some point, yeah, I don't know, you might have to do some non-vegan things about that because they're, like, infesting your house.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:09

Yeah. So I think, you know, if we just accept that we're all imperfect in some way, then why are we trying to be like the perfect police in the first place?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 41:17

Yeah. And I think it's it is kind of interesting because I think kind of like you said, any vegan, you could pick any vegan. And there is definitely somewhere in their life that they're doing something that other vegans would be like, yeah, that's questionable. Right. You know, like the cat thing comes up a lot. Just like having cats and they're carnivores. And I guess I think they've started making vegan cat food. I don't know how widely available that is. I don't think most people can even afford that. Yeah. Or, you know, but some people might be like, well, it's not vegan to have a cat. It's not vegan to have a pet.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 41:51

Or they're just concerned about the health of the cat. Like they don't know, can my cat even have vegan food? Right. I'm not 100% sure. And I don't want to risk my cat's life over this thing I believe in.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:00

Yeah, that I'm just not sure about. Yeah. or it's like oh you know, I avoid leather at all costs, but also I could only afford this used car that does have leather seats. Right. It's like, I don't think that makes you less vegan. I mean, they're just like, I would say edge cases for everything. Like we are all not vegan in some regard. Like there isn't a perfect vegan God that's just like perfect on every level because like, yeah, you're driving, right? Or like you're using public transportation. Bugs are going to get hit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:33

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 42:33

A squirrel might get hit crossing the road. does that make you not vegan like there's just no one that's doing nothing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 42:39

Yeah and i think that's why like the official definition of veganism from the vegan society like intentionally includes the phrase as far as is possible and is practicable because like it's impossible to be perfect yeah and you might have you know extenuating circumstances like you've mentioned before like a job that requires you to buy leather boots or some kind of health condition that requires you to have a medicine with it or even a potentially like a very serious medical condition they're rare but there are some medical conditions where the doctor's like you should really just eat this animal product right and so i mean if that's the situation you're in you're still doing things as far as is possible and it's practicable for you

Protein Deficient Vegan: 43:18

Right yeah right or like maybe you're living on the street and you don't have money to buy the food that you want and you're living off like the kindness of strangers right like you don't have much of a choice i think you're doing everything you can yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 43:32

And at that point like people are just having people people who are criticizing people like that are just having meaningless conversations about the label of vegan yeah it's like what is this person actually doing and how what do they like believe and how are they like performing that in their life in a way that's consistent with their beliefs like that's the part that's important to get to you know the reduction of animal harm and things like that it's not really about like are you checking all these boxes on the vegan label so which um

Protein Deficient Vegan: 44:01

Now, we already had the protein deficient and the muscle deficient, usernames or whatever, just because we thought that was funny. Right. Like, originally it came from, like, protein deficient, because, like, that's a well-known joke in the vegan space of, like, oh, where do vegans get protein? And I had been hearing that for 20 years as a vegetarian of, like, where do you get your protein as a vegetarian, right? And then I heard it even more when I went vegan, so we just thought it would be funny to, like, call our website that has high-protein vegan recipes, protein-deficient vegan, because it's just, like, tongue-in-cheek. And then same with you, right? Like, you're a personal trainer, so we thought muscle-deficient vegan. That's funny. Yeah. Because everyone's always like, vegans are tiny, scrawny little shitheads. Like, that's what people think, right? Yeah. And you can be scrawny and be a vegan, and that is totally cool.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 44:50

I remember we went on a trip to Canada once and the border patrol guy, it came up we were vegan because we had a thing on top of the car that was full of kitchen equipment and we were like, we're going to Canada to try a bunch of vegan restaurants. And he looked at me and he was like, you don't look like a vegan. What does that mean?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:07

Thank you or not thank you. I'm not sure. Is that a compliment? I'm not, I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:13

They let us through though. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:15

So we actually ended up changing the podcast to be called Deficient Vegans. Yeah. Because I think that's like a funny play on words too. Right. You know, there is no perfect vegan. We're all deficient in some way. Yeah. So like... If that resonates with you, you should join our Deficient Vegans community because I feel like that is the vibe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:35

Yeah. And the Discord is in the show notes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:37

Yeah. It's like you don't have to be perfect to be accepted here. Yeah. We're not saying, like, please post your cheese pictures. Like, that is not what we're saying. No, no. It's a safe place for vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 45:46

Right. And, you know, the goal is be vegan, right? No matter what.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 45:52

But, like, if you're transitioning and you're having trouble and you have questions, like, it's a space for you. if you are a 20-year vegan and you just want community where you're not going to be like vegan policed, you know, I think it's a space for you. Right. I think just the main point is like in every person's life, there is definitely one aspect where you're not like totally a perfect vegan. Yeah. And I think we should all be acknowledging that. And I think if you think about that one spot where you're not a perfect vegan, like me, I take thyroid medicine. I'm assuming it is not vegan. I don't know. I don't have a thyroid, so I have to take it or I die. I don't even think about it. I don't feel guilty about it. I need to be alive.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:35

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:35

I am very deficient there. Haven't even looked and see what's there.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:39

I think it's fully synthetic. But.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:41

Yeah. I don't. But it probably had animal testing. I don't know. Who knows.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:44

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:45

And like, I'm sure you have something that makes you feel like a little bit deficient.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 46:48

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 46:49

But like, I feel like everybody has that thing. And I think maybe before attacking other people for their deficiencies, think about that. What are you deficient in? Right. And would you like people to attack you? Because, like, if I had a bunch of people attack me for taking thyroid medicine, you're not going to like me. You know? Yeah. Do you have anything you feel deficient about?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:07

I have an old car that's, and it does have leather seats, so.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:12

You've had that for a while. Yeah. What, like, 10 years?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:15

Yeah, about 10 years.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:17

But, yeah. It's a really cool car.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:20

Yeah, I mean, it's got leather seats. It might even have a couple other leather trim things. I don't know. But, yeah, it's like, what am I going to do? Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:29

I just feel like everyone has a, like, something. Yeah. I'm not saying that you should, like, boast about it and be like, ha-ha, this is where I, this is my loophole.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:37

And I definitely wouldn't buy that again, I guess. Right. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:40

You know, I wouldn't choose to not have a thyroid that works. Right. But, like, yeah, I just think, I think before you judge other people, think about, like, you're probably not perfect either.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:52

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 47:53

So, yeah, that's why we have the name Deficient Vegans, if you ever wonder where that name came from.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 47:58

And I think this whole concept of like perfection and the veganism space makes it look a lot harder to be a vegan than it actually is on the diet side at least. Yeah. If you look online, some of the things that it feels like you have to know to be a vegan is like all the intricacies of the sugar and the bone char situation. And like we talked about the vitamin D3 with the sheep's wool, like natural flavors is another one that comes up, things like that. And then like we mentioned, kind of the may contain milk, cross-contamination. It looks like you need to be an expert in all those things.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:28

To even call yourself a vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:29

Yeah, to even, like, try to be a vegan and call yourself a vegan. But really, like, it's a process, first of all. And the first week, at least, of being a vegan is a lot more like, you know, just get oat milk instead of dairy milk. Or swap out your meat for tofu, TVP, beans. Like, the really common.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 48:45

Basic stuff.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 48:46

Basic stuff, yeah. Look on labels. Like, one of the easy things I like to do is just check the allergens on labels. It'll tell you if it has milk or eggs or shellfish. It's just based off the allergy list. That's a really easy way to do it. And the only thing you really miss there is like meat stuff or lard or something. You kind of have to check the ingredients for that. But, you know, as a starting point, check the allergens. You'll get rid of most of the stuff by looking for milk and eggs.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:08

Yeah. And you'll probably know if it has meat because it'll like, it's going to be kind of obvious that it has meat.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:14

Like I said, there are some times where it's like this thing has beef and I don't know why. Lard, but yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 49:18

Or like natural beef flavoring.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 49:20

More uncommon. But yeah. And then, you know, you can just, at the beginning, learn a few meals that you know are vegan that you can rely on. Learn a few local restaurants. Yeah. Use the Happy Cow app. So you have some go-tos and you don't feel like cooking or you run out of ingredients. You don't quite know what to do. um things like that so that's like really the basics of how to get into it and that just that alone will get you 95 percent of the way there like these little other intricacies and details are things you you just kind of learn along the way you're gonna make some mistakes you're gonna screw up um but you'll learn them like i said the shellac thing was probably the last uh real food thing i learned but i never ate lemonheads so it didn't matter but it did come up in a popcorn conversation once but i was like oh i guess i can't have the lemon popcorn because it has shellac and that was a new one for me but that was like i don't know years after i'd become vegan because it just hadn't come up yet

Protein Deficient Vegan: 50:08

Yeah it's funny because i know when i first went vegan i went vegan after reading the book eating animals, and it was like basically it talks about you know obviously like the animal ag industry yeah so like obviously i, wasn't i was already not eating meat because i was a vegetarian but like the obvious things i was cutting out was like dairy and eggs period that was it right and then i think that, i and i was like fully thinking i was a vegan at that point right because i was just like i just cut that immediately and it probably was like a couple of, i don't know weeks maybe even a month before i understood the the honey thing because that wasn't really in any of the vegan materials i had read yeah like i kind of like went out of my way of like. I can't remember what it was. I think I accidentally bought something that had, some ingredient that wasn't vegan. And that kind of led me down of like, oh, what are like other things that I'm missing that like I shouldn't be buying? Yeah. So like I was like searching for that and then the honey thing came up and I was like, oh, honey's not vegan. That's interesting. But the other thing is like I went vegan in a vacuum. Like I didn't have social media or like I wasn't following accounts. I wasn't on Reddit at the time. you know like i was very much going vegan based off of like cowspiracy the book eating animals that was it yeah it's like if it wasn't covered in either of those like i was having to search out that information and that's when i was also found out like wool isn't vegan and i knit so i had some wool so i had to be like okay can't buy that anymore yeah and then it was like well why isn't that vegan and i had to look into that and then i had to look in the rabbit hole of the lanolin thing and it's in cereals and then at some point i saw like the toilet paper thing. Yeah. And I was like, what? Toilet paper's not even vegan? Like, if you learn all that before you even start, that's going to be so overwhelming because it's like, oh, okay, not only do I need to find like new protein sources, I need to figure out this cheese thing, the milk, the dairy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:04

What am I doing with eggs?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 52:05

What am I doing with eggs? Now, on top of that, I need to find, like, new toilet paper, new toiletries, like, new shampoo. Like, it gets very overwhelming fast. So, like, I do think starting with the basics, basically the exact things that you mentioned is, like, the way to go. And then, hopefully, if you're doing it, you'll decide I'm going to be on trying to follow some social media accounts that kind of, like, teach this stuff. Or maybe I'll hang out in the vegan subreddit. But that's the thing is, like, these are the kind of people asking what a lot of vegans are considering stupid questions. Yeah. They might just be vegans that went vegan for, like, a documentary like Cowspiracy, which it doesn't have that information about wool or honey or all these other questions that they're asking. It's not because they're stupid. It's because they don't know another vegan. Like, and you had to learn that shit, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 52:55

And there are a lot of people, like, I see people online sometimes who, like, say they're vegan and really all they did was cut out meat. So they're like technically vegetarian, but they think they're vegan because they just don't know enough about it. So I think you got to give people a little bit of grace. I don't think they're doing it intentionally.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:10

Yeah. I just don't think people are maliciously mislabeling themselves.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:13

Because who wants it? Who wants the stigma of saying I'm a vegan?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:16

Yeah. And I see a lot of people do with like the plant-based diet because they think those words are interchangeable. Yeah. And what I'm not saying give everybody a free pass to like spread misinformation. information. Yeah. I'm just saying like you can correct in like a kind way that's not like making someone feel like shit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 53:32

Yeah. And that's why we you know some of our episodes we try to cover some of those like gray area less known things like we talked about the honey we talked about used leather stuff like that just so you can kind of come across it at some point and be like oh I hadn't really considered that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 53:45

Yeah. Yeah. I just stuff that I didn't know the toilet paper one shook me to my core. Like I was kind of lucky because I think I was already buying who gives a crap because... the toilet paper situation that was happening. Oh, right. Like during, because I, yeah, I went vegan like around, like in the middle of COVID basically.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:04

Right when all the restaurants closed.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:05

Yeah, it's just like pretty easy. But I had already was like, oh, we have like the real pandemic is the lack of toilet paper at grocery stores.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:15

Oh man, that was crazy.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:16

Yeah. So I started buying Who Gives a Crap because you can buy like 52 rolls at once. And it turns out it's completely vegan and they have it on their website and their FAQ. They're like, yeah, we even use vegan ink and vegan this and vegan that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:27

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:27

It's like, all right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:28

Toilet paper is a lot like shoes where it's really hard to find out if the brand you use has the things you're concerned about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:34

Unless they're specifically saying they're vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:35

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:36

Right? That was another one for me is like I had just happened to already be wearing Hoka's. Yeah. And most of theirs are vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:44

And they say it's vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 54:45

Yeah. Because some guy at work before I even went vegan was talking about like, oh, I really like this brand Hoka. It's like walking on clouds. Yeah. They're not like walking on clouds. They're pretty good, though. Yeah. But yeah, so I'd already started buying hokas. Yeah. And then I found that those were vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 54:58

I like Brooks. They have a page on their website that specifically lists their shoes that are not vegan. So you can just assume everything else is.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:04

See? That's nice. Yeah. But it is stuff, like, that takes a while to learn because it's not just the leather on shoes. It's also, like, the glues and all the other shit that might not be vegan. It's just a lot to learn. If you're learning it all at once or people are, like, judging you for knowing every specific thing all at once, it's just a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It kind of feels like, When you're taking your driver's test, like there's all these like edge cases for like, what if you were parking on a hill that's a 20 degree angle and you're parking on the right side of the road and like which way are your wheels turned? And you're like, what? Let me draw out a fucking picture. I don't know what that means.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:45

I need to go Google this for a week. I'll get back to you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:48

And like you're being tested on that before you can even get your driver's license, which that makes sense because you're driving a car.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 55:53

You're like, I'm still not entirely sure how a yield sign works.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 55:56

I know. Yeah, I know, right? What does that right arrow mean? That's red.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:02

We have roundabouts in America now. It's chaos.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:04

Oh, God. Since the roundabouts, I haven't known a day of peace. But there's not like a vegan handbook like that. Yeah, yeah. That you can just like study. I mean, at least I haven't seen one. Especially not like a free one, which I think is like another reason people are like out there trying to give out free resources and like write blog posts. That shit helps people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:23

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 56:25

And, you know, and people that are doing that might also be the people you're yelling at online, the people that are, like, creating useful resources for people to go vegan.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 56:34

Absolutely, yeah. I think, in general, people are just a lot meaner online than they are in person. And we talked about, like, you should approach it how you would approach a family member. Because nobody would be having a conversation, even with somebody at work, and be like, oh, you're a vegan? Yeah. It's like, oh, your shoes have leather in them? Yeah, they do. Oh, you're not a vegan? Fuck you. It's kind of like there's an old, I don't know if you ever read Aesop's Fables. It's like the collection of stories, but I think it was a wolf and a sheep, but the sheep was on top of the house and like talking shit to the wolf, but he would only do it while he was at a distance. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's the same kind of thing for people online. Like they're willing to puff up and talk a bunch of shit or chirp or whatever, you know, online about your veganism and like how imperfect you are. But like, even if it was the same person talking to the same person in person, that conversation would go completely differently.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 57:19

That is so true. true this this one's kind of funny because sometimes i actually get a lot of apologies on social media because i don't think they're expecting, the person that's like posting the video to reply because there's just a lot of comments on stuff yeah and i think a lot of posters don't reply to comments but i reply to a lot of comments yeah but i had this, i don't know what uh video it was but i was using vegan cheese and i was using like obviously vegan cheese like The Violife bag was in the whole shot. Like you could even see Violife. Right. And I wrote vegan cheese in the caption multiple times. Yeah. But I had some guy get in there and they're like, oh, it's just like full of. Is it just like full of cholesterol? And I was like, what do you mean? Cholesterol. Yeah. He's like, yeah. And he basically said, yeah, the person that posted this, she's using cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:12

Oh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:13

And said it as, she's using cheese.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:15

But they were talking about you.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:16

But they were talking about me, and they were replying to me. And I said, she is me, and I'm using vegan cheese. And it says vegan in the caption, like, three times. And it's in my name, protein deficient vegan. And, like, they immediately came back, and they were like, oh, my God, I am so sorry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:33

I blacked out there for a second.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:34

And, like, that's funny, though, right? Because, like, they just didn't think that, like, even when I was actively replying to them, they didn't think I was the poster. They thought it was some other random person replying.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:45

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:46

And I had to be like, hey, this is my video.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 58:49

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 58:50

I used vegan cheese. And then they were like, oh, shit. Yeah. But, like, that happens a lot is, like, people say really mean stuff and they just think it goes unnoticed because there's, like, a thousand comments. People probably see your mean comments.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:03

This isn't this one isn't like specific to veganism any kind of online space like fitness gaming politics is going to have this hell even like driving your car down the street there's a there's a i think there's a name phenomenon for this i don't know the name but like you're flipping people off and honking your horn people just because you're separated by like your cars but if you're but when you're

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:20

In the same parking lot you'd be.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:21

Mortified and yeah and if you're like standing in line with a person yeah nobody really ever behaves that way it's like extremely rare but in cars it's so common yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:29

You think there's a bit of anonymity.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 59:30

There yeah yeah but yeah any situation like that where there's some distance between you and the person like the more the distance and online is a lot of this oh yeah uh the the meaner and more emboldened you feel when you would never do that in real life oh yeah

Protein Deficient Vegan: 59:43

Just look at actual like viral accounts like celebrities for instance yeah like people that have millions of followers the comments in there are so mean yeah it's always like these guys like guy, my guy taylor swift doesn't know who you are, she doesn't give a shit what you think it's like the more popular a post is or an account is the more anonymity they think there is because like surely you're not going to reply to that yeah but sometimes, i've just found when i do, they're just they shrink yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:18

Yeah definitely and i think even uh specifically with food it's pretty funny because It's like online you'll post, I'm sure you get this all the damn time, but you post food and you get stuff like, that's really processed. Soy is unhealthy. Why are you trying to recreate meat? But then if you give the food to somebody in person, they're just like, oh, that's vegan.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:34

Oh, I know. Oh, my God.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:35

Let me get another scoop.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:00:36

That is so true. It's actually pretty wild, like how mean people are about food. Although I will say on Facebook, people are just fucking mean no matter what. Even if you comment back, they like double down and they're like, no, I'm actually a complete asshole. and i will continue being an asshole you will have to block me to get me to shut up and then i do.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:00:56

I think it's especially important to try to uh maybe coddle new vegans a little bit at least um because you don't like i was saying earlier you don't want to spook them like they're they're trying to do the thing give them all the support and like compassion that you can help them into You know, as soon as you're a new vegan and you get online, you start seeing, like, real vegans don't do this. Anybody who buys this isn't vegan. There's no excuse for doing blah, blah, blah. And you're, like, immediately, like, oh, fuck, I'm a terrible person.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:27

Yeah, I know. I know. Like, right when you just got into it, too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:01:31

Yeah. And then it turns the idea of, like, I'm changing what I do because I care about the animals into something that's more like, I'm just trying to not get caught doing veganism wrong. Yeah. Even though, like, you know, obviously, I feel like I'm doing everything right that I possibly can. And it's still like, oh, what am I going to get lit up on today on social media?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:01:48

Yeah. And honestly, this is like one of the things I think can be really dangerous for the vegan movement because you're already kind of isolated because the percentage of vegans in the world is so small. Like you're in such a minority group. Yeah. So you're basically like desperately searching for a community to find a community that really like understands like what it's like to be a vegan in a non-vegan space. Yeah. But then, like, you can't even relax even when you're in those spaces, which I think feels really shitty. You know what I mean? Like, you finally find, like, vegans to be in a space with, like, virtually or whatever. But then you feel like you're still performing. Yeah. So, like, they don't hate you. And I just think that's, like, not a good mental space to be in, if that makes sense.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:32

Yeah. I will say I'm not very good at, like, changing what I say to get people not to hate me. So, I don't really deal with this. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I didn't really expect that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:40

I'm a little opinionated, so I don't know.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:02:45

Yeah. And so we talked about one of the Faunalytics studies a while back, but one of the sections in it, and we'll have a link to it again in these show notes, but one of the sections in it is like, who quits veganism?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:02:57

And if you say this out loud, you will get hated on by a bunch of vegans that say vegans don't quit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:01

It's just about like the makeup of the people who quit. Yeah. So 84% of the people who quit veganism were never part of any group or community.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:10

So join the Deficient Vegans Discord. The social pressures kind of get to you. Absolutely, yeah. You don't feel like anyone understands.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:16

And I think it leads into the next one, 63% disliked how much it made them stick out. Yeah. And I think you feel like you stick out more and you're more isolated if you don't really talk to other vegans. Right. Like you're a one of in your mind. Like you're the only vegan you even interact with. That is very isolating.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:30

But if you're a new vegan and you were like, ooh, I'm so excited I just went vegan, I'm going to go hit up the vegan subreddit.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:38

Oh, God, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:39

And then you get blasted and everyone says you're a piece of shit because you haven't done X, Y, and Z. Yeah, you probably aren't going to go join that community.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:47

And you probably don't feel like you're part of that community, even if you're in there all the time, because you're just getting lit up.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:03:51

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:03:52

Yeah. 53% of them were gone within the first year. So they came in, probably got a bunch of bullshit, and then just dipped out. And they were like, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't care as much as I thought I did because these people are terrible.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:04

And it's not like okay you need to coddle people uh and if you don't you're the reason why they didn't go vegan it's, it's not really that so much as like just be nice to people because you don't know what they're going through and like don't you want them to stay yeah i guess my thing is like, don't isn't don't we all have the same common goal of like if we because, let's just say like there are probably millions of seeds that have to be planted before someone even tries to go vegan you know it's like, Just my personal experience, right? It's like, okay, when you're a kid, you're watching, like, cute little animal movies, like The Fox and the Hound or Babe or Charlotte's Web. You're reading Charlotte's Web in school. Maybe you saw your uncle have a deer hanging upside down in his garage, and that was pretty upsetting.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:04:51

It's a very specific example.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:04:52

Maybe your uncle tricked you into eating deer meat. You were very upset, and you puked it up in his toilet. And then, you know, not that this happened to me. Yeah. This is totally hypothetical. then maybe in seventh grade like your teacher's like hey i was vegetarian when i was in the peace corps and you're like well you can do that we can just not eat animals that's pretty cool yeah like but then there's like all these other like little things that end up, that you know happening to me personally before i actually go vegan right like just little tiny seeds that get planted along the way that's so hard to do like you have like, people you have documentaries people writing books people, directing movies about animals, like, trying to break down all of your walls about, like... against the industry that's like spending billions of dollars on advertising, meat and dairy and eggs to you yeah like you have to like pin like tiny little pricks in the wall that they're building up to like not let you see what's actually happening yeah, and then finally you get through all of that, and it's like god that took so long it took so many people's hands in that yeah right there's not one person that's making you go vegan yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:01

And now your little seed is a little

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:02

Tree Yeah, after like 50,000 hands have touched and like watered that little seed, right?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:10

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:10

And then all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, it's starting to sprout. I'm going to be a vegan. And then you go into the vegan Reddit and then everyone shits on you and pisses on your little seed tree. And then they smash it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:06:24

Yeah, they just like take a shovel to it. Yeah. It's like, okay, well, maybe I'll try growing it again one day. But fuck, that was a lot of work. Yeah, I think in these situations, specifically with people who are, like, thinking about being vegan or are new vegans, you should probably just stick with the old, like, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Yeah. Like, if whatever you're trying to say is not going to be, like, supportive and kind. I agree. Just lay off for a while. Once they've been vegan for a year or two, you can start poking more about, like, the little things if you want to because they're already established. But, you know, for people who are kind of into them. They're just babies. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:06:56

Like, let them learn and, like, let them be. also i feel like most people that go vegan they're kind of like excited to be welcomed into the community yeah for sure it's like holy shit i just learned some pretty traumatizing information like i'm hopefully this community welcomes me in with open arms and is happy to have me here imagine.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:13

Imagine wanting to like you're on board you're like totally against the animal farming and all that stuff and then you just jump into this community and you get blindsided by assholes yelling at you about sugar bone char. I know. You're like, what happened? Like, I thought I was totally on board. Now I feel like a piece of shit. I don't understand what just happened.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:33

Yeah, and I think it also, it's like, if you're getting blasted for like the little like things, I think it makes it almost feel like, If I can't do it all, I'm, like, not doing anything useful because that's, like, how the stakes feel when people are, like, lambasting you in public.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:07:50

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:07:51

Right? Like, they're, like, lighting you up in public with everyone else in this community you thought you felt safe in, right? And they're, like, you're basically a piece of shit because you do X, Y, and Z. And it's, like, oh, Jesus Christ. Like, I just can't do anything right, huh? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:05

And I think one other thing that was really interesting about that study is they said 37% of the people who quit veganism were interested in trying again.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:14

37 is pretty small.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:15

Yeah. But I think that it is pretty small, but I think also that means that 37% of those people still feel like it's the right thing. And they must have had some sort of experience or interaction or something when they tried it the first time that made them kind of back out. So it's like, what did we not support them in or what did we do wrong on the first time they tried to go vegan that we could do better for everybody?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:38

It is interesting, like, how much effort gets put into planting those seeds before someone goes vegan and how little nurturing goes into now that they're trying veganism, where are we with support?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:08:51

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:08:51

Like, I feel like at least as much effort should be made to support new vegans as we put it effort into creating vegans. You know what I mean?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:00

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:01

I think that's just really important, and it gets lost a lot. Like, yeah... The seed planting work. Now you're growing a little vegan tree, but, like, we need to keep watering it and, like, doing whatever. Yeah. You know? Like, helping the little baby vegans.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:16

Yeah, I agree.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:09:17

Because it is isolating to be a vegan in a non-vegan world. Like, you do need to kind of find community somewhere. Yeah. And you need to feel like I can be honest with people if I'm having struggles or, like, if I bought something I wasn't supposed to and I didn't know and, like, what do I do with this? Yeah. And, like, you need to be able to be, like, not a fake persona of yourself who's just scared of getting caught and, like, you know, mocked or, like, shit-talked.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:09:45

Yeah. And I think also on the other side, like, that doesn't mean that nothing matters or nobody should ever be corrected. Like, having steak every day because you like the taste of it is not the same as, like, you have to take a medicine with gelatin in it. Yeah. So, I mean, there's still, you want to make sure that being vegan is a meaningful thing. Yeah. But you don't want to take it to the extremes where it's like a purity test for every little thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:09

Right. And I don't think being like, hey, you can't call yourself a vegan if you are by choice eating steak every Monday.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:18

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:18

That's not gatekeeping. Yeah. That's just like, I mean, you're not doing the thing.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:24

Even like the vegan without cheese thing, you wouldn't call yourself a vegan. Like, you're doing a great thing for the reduction of animal harm. We support you. We can probably get you to be vegan eventually. But you're not vegan yet, so the word vegan is still a meaningful thing.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:37

Right. Yeah. You'd probably call yourself a vegetarian. Yeah. More plant-based or like mostly plant-based.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:44

Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:10:45

Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:10:45

You know, I think, so if you think about, you know, where the line is, it's probably a little different for everybody. And like, when do you stop being a jerk or like being judgmental towards a person? I think what you were just saying, like with the steak, like you're choosing to have a steak. I think your intention and like why you're doing the thing is kind of where the line is. If it's just like, oh, I just really like the taste of it. Right. Then it's like, okay, well, we can probably, we should work on that a little bit. You're not vegan. We can get you there. But if it's like, I have to have this for medicine, I have to have this for work. Yeah. I like, I don't know better. Like those things are different. Like you're not intentionally saying, okay, I know I shouldn't do this, but I really want to do this. So I'm going to do it anyway.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:23

Yeah. There's definitely like the intent, right? Yeah. It's like, oh, I know everything about the animal agriculture industry. I just want to keep eating steak once a week. It's like, okay, I don't know what I can do with that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:36

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:37

And like, probably you shouldn't be in this community.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:39

I guess. Right.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:40

But yeah, like you said, it's like, oh, I accidentally bought something that had eggs in it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:45

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:46

Oops. Like, I thought I checked the ingredients and I didn't. I mean, we've done that before. Yeah, it happens.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:11:51

Or like we try to get groceries delivered. They grab the wrong thing. Oh, I know. They use something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:11:55

You're like, oh, cool. Now I have dairy ice cream. Yeah. And I don't know what to do with that. And there's nothing I can do with that. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:00

It's not all bad. There are definitely good things about the online community. Obviously, we're a part of it. We think it's useful. Oh, yeah. And, you know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:08

Yeah, this might sound like a lot of doom and gloom, but I have actually had really great experience online. Yeah. Like most, the vast majority of the comments that I get on my stuff are like 99%, I'm 90% positive, like very kind, welcoming comments. thoughtful nice wonderful people yeah but then you just get a couple mean ones and it's like what the fuck.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:12:28

And those are always the ones people are going to remember from the interaction like even if you get a post it has like a thousand nice comments you have one really mean comment you're going to remember the

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:12:36

Really mean i do i remember my first mean comment and this was like three years ago yeah do you remember my first mean comment no yeah i remember my first really mean comment because you know, my videos used to only get like i get like two likes on each video and they'd get like 200 views and but i was so excited for any likes because i was like i'm just putting stupid shit out into the world, and i'd be like oh my god babe we got over 10 likes on this video this is crazy, i remember being like that then i had um it was like three years ago it was, And I happened to post, it was like the first video that ever actually did well. It was a post about a vegan Philly cheesesteak. And I was doing like fun veganuary facts.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:13:25

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:13:26

And at the time, Peter Dinklage was vegan. And my fun fact was like, apparently on Game of Thrones, he was actually eating tofu the whole time when you thought he was eating meat. Anyways, this guy came in and said that my Philly cheesesteak looked like his cat vomited.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:13:41

Okay, that was actually what I was thinking, but I couldn't remember if that was the first one.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:13:44

It was the first one I ever got, and I was so sad. I was, like, so embarrassed, too, because I was, like, I didn't really get many comments from just, like, strangers, you know? Yeah. And I remember feeling, like, so bad about, like, my food and my video and, like, ashamed. I was, like, oh, my God, people are going to see this comment. And it's I'm like so embarrassed. Like, are they going to think it looks like cat vomit? Like, are they going to think it looks gross? And it like totally ruined. Like this is the first video I ever had that I got like, I don't even know how many views. It was like the first video I ever had that popped off. And I was so excited about it. And as soon as I got that comment, it like ruined any excitement for me. I just felt like so sad and deflated. And it really like upset me. And I still think about it because it's mean.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:29

It is mean. And it doesn't look like cat vomit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:32

And you would never say that to someone in real life.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:34

Right. Exactly. That's what we were talking about earlier. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:36

Yeah. But I had so many really nice comments. I don't remember a single one of them.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:14:41

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:14:42

I don't remember anything nice because that was so mean and it really hurt my feelings. Yeah. But that's how and still to this day, I get comments from like people that maybe aren't followers. And I always remember the mean ones. I just think that's human nature is like you're going to you might be flooded with nice things, but like one mean one, it's going to kind of like stick with you. I don't know how people do it that get way more comments than it's like, it kind of shatters self-esteem a little.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:07

I think that's why a lot of, like, music and movie people end up just, like, turning off comments or literally...

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:13

I don't blame them at all. Like, I mean, you know, Taylor Swift is my favorite artist. And I watch every interview, but she was basically saying, like, I can't read things about me. I can't read comments in my comment section because everything is so mean. And, like, I can't... Like, it mentally... It really affects her mentally, so...

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:29

Yeah. That probably would, yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:30

Yeah. You just don't look at that shit. But I also think, like, you're not just, like, when you're leaving mean comments in a comment section, you're not just hurting the poster. Like, you're also, that's, like, the impression you're giving to people that might be interested in veganism specifically. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's how vegans treat each other. Like, you know what I mean? That's not the vibe you want to give off.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:15:52

Absolutely.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:15:53

But yeah, they might read through the comment section and be like, wow, 100 really nice comments. Oh, wait, this person's out there destroying the vegan movement and they're a piece of shit. And like, that's the thing that that person's going to take away too, right? It's like, if I wanted to become vegan, I might have people saying that kind of stuff to me.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:16:07

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think, you know, the online space for people who don't know vegans in real life, which is most vegans, I would think. Yeah. It's kind of all the community they have access to. Yeah. So they have to deal with some of this, like, obnoxious bad stuff as just part of, like, having any interaction with vegans. But, yeah, I mean, you have to go online to, like, find all your recipes, find the restaurants. Yeah. Yeah, and any, like, vegan products out there. And you have to deal with the trolls and the assholes that are in the community, unfortunately. But, you know, if we could lessen that a little bit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:16:42

Yeah, be kind to one another. Yeah. That's true, though, especially if you live somewhere that's not, like, very vegan-friendly or, like, an hour out from Chicago. But I have never met a vegan in the wild. Like, a real full vegan, like, just in the wild. I've never met. Just stumbled upon one like at work or school or anything. Right. You know, so like, yeah, the online community is like pretty much what you got.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:08

If we talk about how social media has helped or hurt veganism as a whole, there are ways that it's done both. Yeah. So I think some of the ways it helps are like accessibility, recipes, investigations into like practices and stuff like that with the farms. generally just information um finding communities obviously like the one we're trying to do um and then finding new vegan products things like happy cow kind of counts as social media right

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:17:36

Or just like getting exposure to veganism.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:17:39

Existing yeah having to be normalized like yeah it's it helps a lot when you're like oh okay i'm on this social media forum and there are like a thousand other vegans on this post it's not like some weird extreme minority i mean veganism obviously a very big minority, but it feels a lot different when there are like still thousands of people. You're not alone. Yeah, you're not alone.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:00

Or even if you don't know anything about veganism, it might help you discover veganism and maybe you weren't going to discover it ever outside of social media because like the, you know, a lot of the stuff you have to kind of seek out on your own.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:13

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:14

Other than social media, right? Yeah. I feel like social media is like kind of one of the only places you'll stumble upon veganism without like seeking it out, except for maybe some like street activism. But I think that's like a lot less common than just like randomly stumbling on a social media post.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:18:30

Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, some of the ways that social media hurts veganism and probably similar for other causes is the big one is like amplification of outrage. So like we were saying negative posts and comments get way more engagement than positive stuff. So all of that stuff gets really disproportionately amplified above the other useful information.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:18:51

It's just like it feels like there are a lot more negative people in a community. If you're just looking at social media than if you were just like randomly meeting people in person, because it's like, the part of the problem with the social media algorithm is like some kind of post that's going to create conflict, whether that's like omnivores yelling at you or it's like vegans yelling at you because your opinion isn't vegan enough. Maybe both. Or maybe both. Yeah, like somehow you get a mixed bag of both, right? And it's like those, because there's so much engagement on it, that post is going to go way farther than like somebody just posting like vegan cake.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:30

Protein is a good example of when that happens, by the way, because the non-vegans will tell you that the vegan protein quality is shit. And the vegans are yelling at you because they think protein doesn't matter at all.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:40

No, I've gotten both too.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:41

You see posts about protein and vegan spaces, and there are just, like, people from both sides just going insane about how vegans are— Yeah,

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:49

And the truth lies in the middle.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:51

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:19:51

Almost always, right? Almost always, right. Almost always, the truth is just, like, in the middle, but it gets drowned out over what becomes popular.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:19:58

Yeah. So, it's like, if TikTok, Instagram, and other social media disappeared overnight, do you think it would make people feel better or worse about vegans? And then also, how would it affect people trying to go vegan? Hmm.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:10

I think, okay, so I think it would be harder for people to just stumble into veganism. Yeah. I think that would be probably more negative. Like, I feel like it'd be so much harder to get people into veganism. Yeah. If social media disappeared, um... But I do think people would probably have a better opinion of veganism because they would only be able to go off of what they personally witnessed in their own lives.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:33

Basically never.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:34

Yeah. It's like, yeah, how many people have I interacted with? Like 50 people.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:20:39

Yeah. I think even with all the negative stuff, it's probably still better for veganism to have the social media and stuff like that. Just because it's going to bring so many more people into it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:20:50

Yeah, it is kind of tricky, though. And it's like, which social media brings people in the most? You know, this is actually kind of interesting because I don't think this creator is vegan because I went and looked at their page and they also do they make yogurt, like non-vegan yogurt, and they use cheese. But I don't remember what their handle is on TikTok, but there's this person doing homemade meat and they sound like they're coming from very far distance. Like, I don't know how they're doing the voice on it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:19

Like far away from the microphone?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:20

Yeah, it sounds like they're just, like, this bizarre talking head from, like, another planet. But they're like, I'm making my very special homemade meat today to keep my family fortified and strong.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:21:41

Does she sound like a hostage?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:21:42

That's how she sounds. Okay. Yeah. I might be doing a bad job. But that's like, if you've seen the videos, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. But that shit goes super duper mega viral. I don't know if she's convincing people to make homemade meat. But like, it's actually probably, I would say, the best PR we've gotten on Seitan in ever, maybe. Like, people are like, yeah, queen, make your homemade meat for your family. You know? Yeah. Like, it's funny. And she's not being preachy about like, really like, why am I not eating meat? She's just making homemade meat for her family. It's hilarious, actually. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:19

That is pretty funny.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:20

But yeah, I mean, she's probably reaching way more people than like somebody coming at it with like, I don't know, any other way. I've just never, it's pretty funny.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:29

Yeah, I think like before social media, probably like booths on college campuses were probably the best way or something like that. But yeah, it's interesting.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:36

Or like pamphlets at like a punk concert or something. Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:41

So I think to kind of wrap up the main segment, the day-to-day real-life veganism is pretty boring overall. Yeah. Compared to what you see online.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:22:50

Yeah, you're just like, oh, does this have, like, dairy or eggs? Nope. Okay. Oh, shit. I got it home and, yeah, it does, actually.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:22:57

Or if you're ordering out, you order from one of the same three places, you know, has vegan food.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23:02

Yeah, maybe you'll have someone in your life be like, hey, how do I eat more, meat-free Mondays? Yeah. And you don't lecture them. You just help them with whatever they can do, right? Yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:23:12

And it feels a lot more automatic than you would think. Like, after you're a couple years in, you know all the little gotchas. You know, the stuff around you that's available. You're not really having to think about it too much. I think, you know, the internet really highlights veganism as a big point of conflict and like talks about all the specific points that people argue over. Most of those don't come up in your daily life.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:23:33

It seems like vegan is constantly, like, philosophizing things. Yeah. Like, any video I've ever seen of, like, maybe, like, non-food videos, there seems to be just, like, constant, like, let's talk about the philosophies of vegan, you know? Right. Like, what are we doing with this? And, like, do we agree on that? And it's, like, I just don't think, yeah, in normal spaces that's just not really happening too much. Yeah. Though I will say, like, in our Discord, we have, like, a vegan discussions channel. And I don't really ever feel like people are, like, doing gotchas or, like, we're not vegan enough. It's more of just, like, discussion of, like, random vegan-related things that are kind of interesting, you know?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:09

Yeah, we have a lot of discussions in there. And it seems like the goal of most of the discussions are, like, what's the best way to get people to go vegan? Yeah. I'm not saying most discussions in the Discord are that. I'm just saying most of the discussions that talk about vegan specifics are typically around the goal of, like, what's most effective, I guess.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:27

Yeah, or, like, some piece of news that has some relation to veganism. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't really feel like, at least maybe I haven't seen it, I don't really feel like in our Discord there are a lot of people talking about, like, arguing, is this vegan, is that not vegan?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:24:43

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:24:44

You know what I mean? It's interesting because I feel like ours is like a small enough community that it doesn't really have that vibe in it. It's definitely different than like, I would say, the vegan subreddit. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's not argue. I haven't really seen arguments on our discord at all. Like like real like aggressive arguments. I haven't really seen.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:05

I'm sure this will happen at some point.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:25:07

Please don't. But yeah, I think just for the most part, like everyone's I've seen like some disagreements about like ways to do things, but it almost feels like like everyone like respectfully discusses their thoughts on it. And then like a conclusion. I actually I don't want to get into the specifics, but then I saw someone come back like a couple weeks later and they were like, oh, I actually did it this way after our conversation. And I thought that was really, really cool. But yeah, I think that's how a good vegan community should feel. It should feel like welcoming and uplifting and like you can have conversations without fear of being judged.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:25:41

Yeah, I agree. Cool. Well, I think that's it for the main segment. Let's get into bite-sized coaching. So if you guys don't know, I'm a personal trainer. I like to have a brief segment on the episodes here to talk about some sort of personal training related thing. Maybe a question that one of my clients had or potential clients have or a question you might have and you don't even know about like working out or nutrition, something like that. But you get to ask the question.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:04

I do get to ask the question. I think this one's a good one. So... If you've ever been to like a gym with a cable machine, you've probably noticed that there's like a shit ton of different attachments.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:15

Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:16

And I just pick whichever one fits my hand better. But what attachment should you be using on the cable machine and why?

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:23

Yeah. So it depends. People do ask this a lot. And there's a lot of different ways to do it. Depends on the exercise. It depends on your anatomy. Depends on which ones fit your hands better. So it's actually a pretty good way to go about it. But yeah, I would say in general, if you're doing an exercise with one attachment that could be done with another attachment, what might make the most sense is just like kind of mix them up every once in a while. So you do, like if you're doing tricep pushdowns or something, you could do like the rope thing for a couple months.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:52

I like that one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:52

And then like sometimes the rope thing will start kind of irritating you a little bit.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:26:55

Your elbow or something.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:26:56

Yeah, or you just want to mix it up. Nothing's wrong with it. You just want to try something different. Then you switch to like the straight bar thing. It feels a little different. You can do a little bit different weight with it, something like that. So I would say you kind of maybe rotate through them. There are a couple that change the actual grip. Like some of them are just the same. So there are three grips, right? There's like overhand grip, neutral grip, which is where your palms face each other, and underhand grip where your palms face up, right? So most attachments will have one of those three grips for a pulling type thing. Um, so you can kind of rotate between those as well, but also some of those will just be more comfortable for different people. Like a lot of people, um, do prefer neutral grip just because they have something going on with like their shoulder or their elbow or whatever. It doesn't cause an issue. Like I've got basically a replaced elbow. Um, so neutral grip feels a lot better for a lot of things these days.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:27:45

I like neutral grip for pull down things like the lat pull downs that always feels better neutral.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:27:50

And it also kind of gets in between like with lat pull down specifically, if you're using an underhand grip, kind of like what you would think of as a chin-up.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:27:58

Yeah, it changes where the muscles are getting targeted, right? A little bit, yeah.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:28:01

It's a little bit more bicep if you do it that way. Whereas if you're using an overhand grip, which is like for a pull-up, then, you know, the bicep is a little less. It's mostly the back and lats and stuff. It's a minor difference, but it's enough of a difference that it might make sense to try it a couple of different ways throughout the year. Um, but yeah, mostly it's just like whatever you're most comfortable with and importantly, like whatever you feel like you can get the most leverage with without doing weird stuff with your form. Like some people don't like the ropes on the triceps because they don't really feel like they can like press it down and stretch it out and it's like unstable and stuff like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:28:33

That is true.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:28:34

Yeah. So if you just feel like your form is better and you're like, you feel stronger with like the straight bar or something, you should probably use the straight bar more often than not.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:28:42

What about on like seated rows how they it feels like they always have that bar but they have like short bars and like longer bars what's the difference between those.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:28:52

Yeah so again it's just like a slight difference in the muscles they work so um i like the wide bar most of the time but i also use like i use a neutral grip bar use a little bit everything but um yeah i would say whatever's more comfortable again some people like if they use the wide one their shoulders feel worse or if they use the close one that's like a little more bicep a lot of the time yeah So, but if they have like a shoulder issue or the bicep tendon issue, maybe that would feel worse. So I would just play with things. Like there's not, I think the theme here is there's not really a wrong answer and it's probably a good idea to mix it up every once in a while. But if you have one that you'd like definitely don't like, you don't need to use it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:29:28

What about the cuffs? I've seen the cuffs a lot. What are those for? Because can I tell you where I've seen those used on TikTok? I've seen a couple videos where girls use them on their legs. Yeah. It's really funny because I don't know if you know that TikTok's on where it's like, she was a fairy. Anyway, so they use that sound and it's like they did too much weight. Yeah. And so like they have it on their leg and then all of a sudden they just get like yoinked up into the air. Yeah. From the machine. Does that make sense? Like their leg just gets like.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:29:58

Like a snare trap in the forest.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:30:00

Yeah, they just get levitated and it's like, she was a fairy. It's hilarious. So that's the only case I've seen for cuff usage.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:30:09

Yeah, so the most common use of a cuff is the ankle cuff because there's not really a good way to attach something to your feet. But you can do some good exercises with an ankle cuff, like the glute kickbacks and a couple of like side swings and stuff like that. That are actually really good with a cable machine. But the only way you can really do them with your feet is with a cuff because you can put one of the handles around your feet.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:30:29

Yeah, it's not real secure.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:30:31

And you're like, it's a little weird. But yeah, the cuffs are good for that. But also you can use cuffs on your wrist if it gives you a little bit different leverage point. So I actually like them for like cable crossovers because it feels better. But at the same time, some people have like a wrist issue or something. They might not want their hand to bend back or hold something in their hand. So they can just use the wrist cuff for that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:30:51

I've tried using the wrist cuffs for a couple things you gave me, and it felt so weird.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:30:55

Yeah, it's hard to set up, too.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:30:56

I felt like I just had, like, no control. Yeah. Like, kind of like a marionette doll or something. I'm like, I need something in my hands.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:31:04

Well, you know what's funny about that? Well, first of all, that's kind of what I was talking about. Like, whichever one feels like you're the strongest in, you should use that. But what's funny about the thing you just said is there's actually a lot of people right now who are more on, like, It's not really like science-based lifting at this point. It's more like theory-based lifting, I think is what they're calling it. But anyway, when they do wrist cuffs, they actually hold a handle in their hand because it makes them feel more connected.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:31:26

See, that's what I'm saying. Like, I feel like really untethered, like floopy.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:31:30

Yeah, that's funny. But apparently, yeah, like holding – I don't know. I'm not recommending this or anything. But I've seen people do, as they say, holding the handle in your hand makes it feel more secure and like you're engaging your muscle more because you're gripping it or whatever. I don't know.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:31:43

Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. It feels very weird.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:31:46

But yeah, I mean, if you're down to that, maybe just use the handles. But I guess, again, at the same time, if you don't want to pull it on your wrist. Yeah. Maybe there's something to it. I don't know. But yeah, whichever one feels the best to you is probably the one you should go with and change it up every once in a while. I change up my rows and pull downs quite a bit. Like, I'd say every quarter, I probably use a different attachment for it.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:32:04

Yeah, I think that's interesting because it's like, it doesn't really change where your primary muscle is targeted, but more of like some like secondary type things.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:32:12

It also helps with avoiding some like overuse, irritation, tendinitis type stuff. Because if you're doing the exact same thing every time, you can get some overuse. But just changing the grip or changing like the handle you're using a little bit can be enough to make it not exactly the same thing, irritating exactly the same spot over and over. So getting into the awesome protein deficient vegan recipes, what new ones we have this week?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:32:37

Oh, man, we've been pancaking.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:32:39

Oh, my gosh, dude. I know you made a joke about the Sabrina the Teenage Witch and your pancake post for the new one. But if you guys have never seen it, it's like her family has a curse where they eat one pancake. They're like it's like crack. They have to eat so many pancakes.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:32:53

They have to eat so many pancakes, they start hallucinating pancakes. It's like a whole, like, it's like a life-debilitating addiction to pancakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:33:01

So anyway, I feel like I'm in the family this week.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:33:02

Yeah. It was so funny, right? Because, like, so basically there was like some pancake situation. I guess Sabrina had never had pancakes before. Yeah. This is the old Sabrina the Teenage Witch, not the new spooky one.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:33:15

Which is also pretty cool.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:33:16

They're both really great. But yeah, so she had a pancake. One pancake. And then all of a sudden, she couldn't stop thinking about pancakes. And there was like a pancake luncheon situation or breakfast at school. And she just went around and stole everyone's pancakes off their plate and ate like 500 pancakes. And then she was just like at home cooking all the pancakes. And then like basically her aunts had to sit her down and be like, Sabrina, there's something we haven't told you. Everyone in the Spellman family has an addiction to pancakes. And like they had to take her off the pancakes cold turkey and she's never allowed eating a pancake again. It's actually kind of sad. But she's going through some pretty severe withdrawal where she was like hallucinating people as pancakes. Having fever dreams about pancakes.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:34:03

I think we should make some pancakes after this.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:34:05

I think we should too. But we've basically been living like that. Yeah. Just eating all the pancakes because we came up with a high-protein banana pancake, and I've been eating the shit out of that.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:34:17

Yeah, I really am.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:34:17

We made, the recipes for, like, six pancakes, big pancakes. We made the recipe twice in one day just so I could get it right.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:34:26

Yeah, they're kind of dangerous because they don't taste like protein pancakes at all. They just taste like pancakes. So I'm like, wow, I would like to eat an entire tower of those.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:34:35

And we did. And we actually did.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:34:38

Yeah, because I don't know if you've had, like, actual protein pancakes, but they're usually kind of dry and chalky and, like, they're okay. But I'm not eating them for funsies like I am, like, a big sack of blueberry pancakes or something.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:34:48

No, like, the protein pancakes you get them mixed for, I always, I hate those for the most part. But, yeah, they don't really taste like protein. They use vital wheat gluten, which might be why.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:34:57

Also, you've been putting walnuts on there, which is, like, key.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:35:00

Yeah, a little bit of texture. Mm-hmm. But we also came up with another recipe.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:35:05

I'm so hungry right now.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:35:09

Yeah, it's actually like breakfast time. We haven't eaten breakfast. But the other breakfast food I've been making is, I don't really even know the, we just named them veggie vegan egg bites because I didn't know what to name them. But it's basically, you take one of those little tiny baby red potatoes and you put it in a muffin tin. Yeah. So, like, pop them into the little muffin cups, and then you bake that, and then you smash it so it's got, like, a little potato bottom. Mm-hmm. And then you dump just egg into those. Mm-hmm. And then, like, flop in some veggies and a little bit of vegan cheese and throw it back in the oven, and they're, like, little portable, I don't know, vegan egg bite things, and they're really good.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:35:52

They're really good, just egg and potato and cheese.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:35:54

Yeah. We've just been doing a lot of breakfast things. I don't know why. Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:35:59

Yeah. Fall makes you excited to wake up in the morning It does

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:03

I feel like I want to live again.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:36:10

Yeah, so Also, in the Deficient Vegans Discord, we are still continuing the Impactful Vegan Book Club. Yeah. We just got into week three. So, yeah, if you want to join or are still part of it, make sure you're checking out the channel to see what we're talking about.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:27

And if you haven't started yet, that's okay, because we pin all the discussion questions, so, like, you can kind of go through at your own pace. Yeah, definitely. And we have a spooky book club happening in the middle of October, I think. and it's going to be Tender is the Flesh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:36:43

Yeah. We like saying it like that.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:46

Go ahead. You can try it.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:36:47

Tender is the Flesh.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:49

Tender is the Flesh.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:36:51

Anyway, that's probably not how the author intended it to be said. But maybe.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:54

I hope it is. That one's going to be mid-October.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:36:58

Yeah. That'll be fun.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:36:59

Mm-hmm.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:37:00

Cool. All right. Well, we appreciate everybody listening. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, if you could subscribe or follow and leave us a review, that helps us out a lot. If you're listening on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave us a comment. Maybe you can tell us about your biggest online argument you've ever had with a vegan or something that seems, has seemed pretty important online but is irrelevant in real life to you. Yeah. Yeah.

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:37:24

Tell us about the time someone made you cry.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:37:28

Yeah. Also, check out the Deficient Vegans Discord down in the show notes. Also in the show notes, we have the links to our social media and our websites if you need recipes or like the fitness blog or anything like that. Yeah, so I think that's it. You want to say bye?

Protein Deficient Vegan: 1:37:43

Bye, guys.

Muscle Deficient Vegan: 1:37:44

Bye, everybody.