Latest / UNCHAINEDTV'S Truth Files with Jane Velez-Mitchell / You Won't Believe This Epic Vegan Thanksgiving from the 19th Century

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You Won't Believe This Epic Vegan Thanksgiving from the 19th Century · UNCHAINEDTV'S Truth Files with Jane Velez-Mitchell

0:00
The 1890s Vegan Thanksgiving Gala.
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Step back in time, ladies and gents, to
0:07
the city of Philadelphia, where our nation was
0:10
born in the sound of the Tofurky Rad
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and learn the amazing history of vegetarianism and
0:17
veganism in the United States from two experts.
0:22
History came alive at Philly's Vegan Thanksgiving Revival
0:26
Gala on November 22nd, 2025.
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About 100 guests gathered in Philly for a
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unique celebration, the 1890s Vegan Thanksgiving Gala.
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This living history banquet transported attendees back to
0:43
the golden age of vegetarianism with ragtime music,
0:47
mocktails, vintage gowns, and delicious plant-based dishes
0:51
adapted from original 19th century vegetarian recipes.
0:58
Yes, there was a huge vegetarian movement in
1:02
the United States in the 19th century, and
1:05
that's what you're going to learn all about
1:06
from two experts, one of whom is Seth
1:10
Pivot, the founder of the one and only
1:13
Tofurky, the amazing alternative to eating an actual
1:18
turkey.
1:19
There he is right in the center, Seth
1:21
Pivot, the founder of Tofurky, and Ann Denshaw,
1:25
the CEO of the American Vegan Society that
1:29
put this incredible celebration on.
1:31
So Tofurky started in 1995 in the Pacific
1:37
Northwest where I had been struggling at Thanksgiving
1:42
to find something to eat that was like
1:45
celebratory and high-protein, center of the table,
1:49
you know, and I saw all these people
1:51
that were eating Tofurky, including some vegetarians who
1:55
would backslide into eating turkey on Thanksgiving back
1:59
then, and I wanted to have something that
2:03
we, as vegetarians and vegans, that we could
2:06
eat.
2:06
So we invented Tofurky just for that purpose
2:11
and right away it was apparent that this
2:14
was a big moment, you know, we found
2:17
a niche that was not really fiddled at
2:21
that point, you know, which was having this
2:23
food that vegetarians and vegans could eat at
2:27
Thanksgiving.
2:28
And so I thought, oh man, I've invented
2:32
sliced bread, this is incredible.
2:35
And then after that first season, I got
2:38
an email from Bill Shurtleff, who is the
2:42
author of the book of Tempeh, the book
2:43
of Tofu, and kind of the historian of
2:45
the soy movement and meat alternative movement, and
2:50
he goes, hey Seth, did you know that
2:53
in 1895 there were vegetable turkeys?
2:58
And I was like, oh my god, I
3:00
had no idea.
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And that idea really struck me, and he
3:05
sent me an article about it, and I
3:07
read it.
3:08
And so I was researching that really for
3:12
the next 20 years or so with Tofurky,
3:16
and then it was last year, in 2024
3:19
actually, that I found these recipes for a
3:25
vegan, well, actually it was vegetarianism then, because
3:29
veganism didn't really start until Donald Watson in
3:33
1944 coined the word, but it was like
3:39
news to me that here was these recipes
3:41
that I found in, of all places, the
3:44
1900 November issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.
3:50
And so I thought then, wow, wouldn't it
3:53
be great to taste these?
3:55
Because I wanted to know what these recipes
3:58
tasted like, and I thought it would be
4:01
a good living history thing, because people think
4:03
that vegetarianism, veganism only was a family that
4:09
was born, you know, in the 1960s, but
4:13
actually vegetarians were busy veganizing, vegetarianizing Thanksgiving all
4:20
the way back in the 1890s.
4:22
Before we get to Ann, you did an
4:24
incredible presentation at the event, at the gala.
4:28
By the way, we were all in costume.
4:30
It was super fun.
4:31
I hope you do it again, Ann, because
4:33
it was a blast.
4:34
But you gave an incredible speech that was
4:37
so fun with a PowerPoint, but it also
4:40
taught everybody, including myself, so much about the
4:43
history of the plant-based movement in America.
4:47
Let's hear a little bit about that, a
4:49
clip from that incredible speech, and then we'll
4:51
talk to you on the other side.
4:52
The first mention of vegetable turkeys was in
4:55
1869.
4:56
It was like in Indiana, and it's almost
5:00
like a early National Enquirer article, man finds
5:04
giant beef and thinks it's turkey.
5:07
And they published an article about it, but
5:10
in the process they mentioned vegetable turkey in
5:13
1869.
5:14
So that's where the term came from, from
5:16
this beef.
5:17
In 1886, right here in Philadelphia, was the
5:22
Vegetarian Society of America, who had this magazine,
5:26
Food, Home, and Garden, and they published all
5:30
the stories that, again, read like a social
5:32
media post.
5:33
Like here's one of the posts, Mr. O.
5:36
Charrington Arthur of Oregon writes that after experimenting,
5:40
he has come to the conclusion he is
5:42
better without butter or any animal products.
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Here's the first vegetable turkey recipe, which is
5:47
in 1891.
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This is what we had to go on
5:50
a lot of times when we were researching
5:52
these recipes.
5:53
You'll notice that they're in paragraph form.
5:56
It's not like we have recipes today, where
5:58
you have the ingredients and then the preparation,
6:01
and this was a recipe that was based
6:04
on bread.
6:06
Wow.
6:07
It was just so fascinating.
6:09
I learned a lot.
6:10
I want to go to Ann Denshaw, the
6:12
CEO of the American Vegan Society, and we'll
6:14
talk more about the incredible history of that
6:17
organization in a second.
6:18
But you were sort of the concert master,
6:23
the maestro of this entire, very complicated event.
6:28
I'm going to show some of the incredible
6:29
food that was served there.
6:32
Tell us how you brought this together and
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all the different chefs that you recruited, top
6:37
vegan chefs from around Philadelphia and the country,
6:41
Ann.
6:43
Well, I had the pleasure of being the
6:45
event coordinator, and it was a lot of
6:47
fun to get to work with amazing chefs.
6:50
Really, Rachel Klein and Christina Perlow put together
6:54
the food with the help of many other
6:57
prominent Philadelphia chefs who veganized the recipes.
7:02
I've got to give Seth credit for having
7:04
the dream of doing this celebration, and American
7:08
Vegan Society, that's a big part of what
7:10
we do, is we like to throw celebrations
7:12
because we spend a lot of time teaching
7:14
people what vegan is, how to be vegan,
7:17
how to be successful at being vegan, how
7:20
to encourage others to be vegan.
7:22
But sometimes you've got to just stop and
7:25
celebrate, and so that was a big part
7:27
of what this was about.
7:28
Yeah, and you're looking at the main course.
7:31
We're going to dive into that in a
7:34
second.
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Absolutely delicious.
7:37
The reviews were raves.
7:39
That was a vegetable turkey on top, and
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here are the incredible desserts.
7:43
Now, remember, everybody, this is all taken from,
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essentially inspired by, Good Housekeeping and other recipes
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that were published at the start of the
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20th century and the end of the 19th
8:00
century.
8:00
So I really want to ask you, Seth,
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for those people who have no clue that,
8:06
first of all, veganism or the idea of
8:09
a non-violent meatless diet goes back to
8:12
Pythagoras, you know, to the ancient Greeks and
8:17
to Buddhism.
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Why is it important to show that the
8:23
plant-based movement has a rich and long
8:25
history?
8:27
Yeah, well, you know, we as vegans and
8:31
veganism right now has had some incredible growth.
8:36
Really, it's a golden age of veganism that
8:39
we've been living in since, I would say,
8:42
1995 when the first Tofurky came out.
8:46
But, you know, Beyond an Impossible came so
8:51
close to the sun, really.
8:54
They were showing up all over in, you
8:57
know, fast food restaurants and stores and, you
9:01
know, Tofurky and other products were doing the
9:04
same thing too.
9:05
So, big meat and big dairy had to
9:08
respond and this is what they have done,
9:11
you know.
9:12
They've really tried to villainize plant-based foods
9:16
with all of this misinformation and saying that
9:19
their products are the ones that you should
9:23
be eating and that this is just a
9:24
fad.
9:25
Plant-based food eating was a fad.
9:29
And to counter that misinformation, I think it's
9:33
important to look at, like you say, that
9:35
this is a quote-unquote fad, but it's
9:39
not a fad.
9:40
It's a movement that's been around centuries, really,
9:44
in the world.
9:44
And I would say the movement in the
9:48
USA has been around since 1819 when the
9:53
Bible Christians came over from England with the
9:57
idea of spreading their good news of the
10:02
plant-based diet into America.
10:04
So, I think it's really important to look
10:07
at the long history and then you can
10:11
extrapolate that this isn't a fad, but it's
10:15
something, a diet that'll last on into the
10:18
future and is strong and a great way
10:22
to live and eat.
10:23
So, that's why I think it's important to
10:25
have these kind of living history events that
10:28
underscore that.
10:29
Yeah.
10:30
And it was just so much fun.
10:32
Again, you're seeing people in period outfits and
10:35
the food was based on these 19th century
10:39
recipes.
10:41
It was a unique event that also had
10:44
a purpose of showing the history of the
10:46
vegan movement and the vegetarian movement at a
10:50
time where, as Seth mentions, basically there's a
10:54
lot of very powerful forces that would like
10:56
to just make veganism disappear.
10:59
So, I want to go back to you,
11:01
Ann, and talk about the history of the
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vegan movement in America and the crucial role
11:08
that your parents played in founding your dad,
11:13
J.
11:13
Dinshaw, and your mom, Freya, in founding the
11:17
American Vegan Society, helping it take off, helping
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it go pretty much from a concept that
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very few people had heard of in 1960
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to something that is obviously recognized around the
11:31
world.
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So, why don't you tell us a little
11:35
bit about the history of your family and
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how that relates to the vegan movement?
11:44
My father, J.
11:45
Dinshaw, visited a slaughterhouse because back then you
11:48
could just knock on the door and say,
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your food is made.
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And he saw dairy cows get slaughtered in
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Philadelphia.
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He went vegan on the spot.
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And so, he decided to devote his life
12:01
to lecturing, teaching people how to pronounce the
12:05
word vegan and what it really means.
12:08
So, in 1960, he founded American Vegan Society
12:11
and he was the president.
12:14
And my mom was actually his pen pal
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and she joined him in 1960, just a
12:20
few months after he started the organization.
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And they really traveled together frequently.
12:27
He would give the talks.
12:28
She would help people learn how to cook
12:30
vegan.
12:32
In 1965, she published, that's Freya Dinshaw, my
12:36
mother, she published the very first vegan cookbook
12:40
in America that used the word vegan in
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the title.
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And that's what they devoted their lives to.
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So, when my dad passed away in 2000,
12:48
because he internalized the suffering of billions of
12:51
animals, my mom took over as being president
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and she just retired last year.
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And so, now I've decided to not be
13:01
the president.
13:02
We have someone else being our board president
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and we created a new role of CEO.
13:08
And so, I like to call that coaching
13:10
effective organization.
13:12
And there's your incredible family.
13:15
We learned so much about it by visiting
13:18
the headquarters.
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There's two headquarters.
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There's the original headquarters in New Jersey.
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And then you have a Brownstone storefront in
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Old City, Philadelphia.
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That's incredible.
13:29
But what history that you brought us.
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And by the way, we're in the process
13:34
of doing a documentary series on that.
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And so, we're going to step back in
13:39
time and really show all the, almost like
13:43
secrets, secrets revealed of the start of the
13:47
vegan movement in the United States.
13:50
Just for one example, you, Ann, were born
13:53
as a vegan baby and that was like,
13:56
ah, everybody was up in arms.
13:58
And your mother, Freya, wrote an article in
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the American Vegan Society publication to explain like,
14:06
wow, you can be totally healthy on a
14:09
vegan diet as a baby, as a mother
14:12
who's pregnant, getting ready to give birth, dispelling
14:16
a lot of these myths that frankly are
14:19
perpetrated and perpetuated by people who make money
14:22
off of selling formula and trying to convince
14:26
customers and consumers that they have to consume
14:29
dairy.
14:31
Yes.
14:32
Well, I've been vegan my entire life.
14:34
So, 56 years of veganism as of now.
14:39
I like to keep celebrating my 39th birthday.
14:42
So, that's all good.
14:43
But I've got plenty of energy.
14:46
I've always been an athlete.
14:48
And yeah, back in the day, like in
14:51
the 70s and 80s, I just didn't really
14:52
tell people I was vegan because the world
14:56
wasn't really ready to hear it.
14:58
And I just let people like me as
15:00
a friend because I was growing up.
15:02
Yeah.
15:03
And everybody is just loving this concept of
15:06
a vegan gala based on vegetarian recipes from
15:13
the golden age.
15:15
And I just only learned in the past
15:17
year that the word vegan was created in
15:19
1944.
15:20
I mean, we have to put this in
15:21
context.
15:22
We're babies.
15:23
We're babies here in terms of veganism.
15:29
Go ahead.
15:30
Yeah.
15:31
The word vegan was created in England.
15:34
And ironically, that's also where my mother was
15:36
from.
15:37
So, she was about three years old when
15:39
this word was coined and took her correspondence
15:43
with an American to convince her to go
15:46
fully vegan.
15:47
But both my parents grew up in vegetarian
15:50
households.
15:52
And we did our own bit of research
15:55
in preparation for the gala.
15:57
And we found out that one of my
15:59
grandparents was actually in America as a vegetarian
16:03
in the 1890s.
16:05
And so, he would have experienced a vegan
16:09
or vegetarian, at least, 1890s experience.
16:16
That's amazing.
16:17
Well, let's get back to...
16:19
Yeah, it's truly amazing, the history.
16:21
And we all should learn it because it
16:23
gives you strength.
16:25
And nothing goes straight up.
16:27
Right now, we're in a little bit of...
16:29
Well, we're on our heels because very powerful
16:32
institutions want to wipe us off the map.
16:34
But I feel that there could be also
16:36
a boomerang effect.
16:37
So, it could end up being a positive.
16:39
So, let's talk about the main course, the
16:44
vegetable turkey.
16:46
Again, to recap, you, the founder of Tofurky,
16:50
Seth, thought you had created this incredible product,
16:52
which you did.
16:53
I've enjoyed it for many, many Thanksgivings and
16:55
continue to have the Tofurky deli slices and
17:00
the Tofurky plant-based chicken just this week.
17:04
It's so good.
17:05
But you were shocked to find out, oh
17:08
my God, they were doing similar things back
17:10
in the 1890s.
17:11
So, tell us about how you tried to
17:14
recreate but also modernize the original menu so
17:19
that they were free of eggs, free of
17:22
dairy.
17:22
And let's dive into that vegetable turkey with
17:26
chestnuts that was served at the gala.
17:31
Yeah.
17:32
So, this recipe was based on chestnuts and
17:38
eggplant.
17:40
And the modern Tofurky and Gardein and Field
17:44
Roast, they're all kind of modern textural creations
17:50
that use vital wheat gluten.
17:52
And this was a whole food recipe that
17:57
didn't have any of the isolates or concentrates
18:00
that, well, Tofurky doesn't have those, but some
18:03
of them do, but it didn't have tofu
18:05
either because tofu was just getting a foothold
18:08
in America at that time.
18:11
And so, I was attracted to this recipe.
18:15
I found five vegetable turkey recipes and I
18:19
took them down to a culinary institute on
18:23
the Oregon coast where I teach a class
18:25
in veganism every year to these young student
18:28
chefs.
18:29
And we made up these five different recipes.
18:32
Some were like more like a nut loaf.
18:35
And then this one really stood out because
18:38
of the eggplant chestnut texture.
18:42
You know, chestnut trees in 1900 were about
18:47
a fourth of the deciduous trees in America.
18:50
And then in 1906, a blight came over
18:54
from Japan and it destroyed all of these
18:58
chestnut trees.
18:59
So, chestnuts, which were a big part of
19:01
holiday eating in the 1900s and 1890s, really
19:07
disappeared.
19:08
But this recipe tested good for us.
19:12
And then I took it to my old
19:13
friend, Hans Robel, who created the first tofu
19:17
turkey for us in 1995.
19:22
And he took the recipe and brought it
19:26
to another level, but he kept the main
19:28
ingredients the same.
19:31
And he just tweaked them.
19:32
Like for instance, onions, he caramelized the onions
19:35
instead of just putting them in the roast
19:37
like the recipe called for.
19:39
And to make it like more of a
19:42
flavorful vegetable turkey, he added a little bit
19:48
of nutritional yeast.
19:49
But those were really about the only things
19:53
that he changed.
19:54
So, it was a very historical recipe and
19:57
it was, I felt like, very close to
20:01
what a vegetarian would have eaten if they
20:04
had made that recipe when it came out
20:06
in 1900.
20:08
And again, many, many chefs were involved.
20:13
You have something like nine chefs total.
20:15
Then you have all these student chefs and
20:18
other supervisors.
20:19
But there were two women, two female chefs
20:22
who were at the very heart of it,
20:24
let's hear a little bit from them.
20:25
And then we'll talk about how they also
20:28
made this all happen.
20:29
I'm Christina Pirello.
20:30
I've been vegan for 42 years.
20:32
And I'm an instructor here at Walnut Hill
20:35
and a television host on the longest running
20:38
vegan cooking show on television.
20:41
Hi, my name is Rachel Klein.
20:42
I'm the chef owner of Miss Rachel's Pantry.
20:45
I have been vegan since 2008.
20:47
I went from vegetarian, which I did in
20:49
kindergarten, to vegan because I watched a little
20:53
documentary that someone made.
20:56
They were a dairy farm owner and just
20:58
about how the baby cows cry for their
21:01
mom after they're separated.
21:03
And that was enough to make me cut
21:05
out dairy and then eggs followed.
21:09
Wow.
21:10
So, amazing chefs.
21:12
As you see, they're world famous in their
21:15
own, each in their own way.
21:17
One from television, one from an extremely popular
21:20
restaurant.
21:21
Tell us how this came together, Anne.
21:24
The menu is really extraordinary.
21:28
Well, the menu, I really give credit to
21:30
Seth.
21:31
He wanted to keep it honoring what he
21:35
found in a magazine.
21:37
And then he recruited Rachel and it just
21:40
blossomed from there that we got a lot
21:43
of the other Philadelphia chefs involved.
21:47
And sometimes I think it really takes having
21:50
someone with a dream.
21:51
Like this is really Seth's dream, but he's
21:54
on the West Coast and he needed someone
21:57
in Philadelphia to put it together.
22:00
So, anything that wasn't the food was my
22:02
job to put together.
22:04
But the food, it was really Rachel and
22:08
Christina.
22:09
And we were so fortunate that Christina already
22:11
works at Walnut Hill College and she's a
22:15
chef educator there.
22:17
So, we were able to use their facility,
22:19
which was just beautiful for having a banquet.
22:22
I want to add something to that.
22:27
Christina works at Walnut Hill College, which is
22:30
a non-vegan culinary college, but it's the
22:33
only culinary college in America where student chefs
22:39
have to take a course that she teaches
22:43
in veganism to graduate.
22:46
So, it was a perfect fit for us.
22:48
And the president said that he jumped on
22:53
the chance to host this because he thought
22:57
this will be an amazing opportunity for our
23:01
student chefs to work with these famous vegan
23:05
chefs and learn vegan cooking.
23:07
So, it was a win-win for everybody.
23:10
And these student chefs really learned a lot
23:12
from working with Christina and Rachel.
23:15
And Rachel, I mean, all of Philadelphia, I
23:19
want to give a shout out to the
23:20
vegan restaurants that are there.
23:22
It is an amazing vegan city.
23:25
Do you know that there's 30 vegan cheese
23:27
steaks in the city of Philadelphia and all
23:31
these restaurants?
23:32
That's an amazing number of vegan cheese steaks.
23:37
And, you know, you have some high-end
23:40
restaurants like everybody I think might know Veg,
23:43
which is a pioneering restaurant that has been
23:46
around and has done great work for years.
23:48
But Rachel runs this pantry and it is
23:52
amazing.
23:53
She is a high-end meal.
23:56
She changes the recipe every month.
23:59
And it's like a big dinner party when
24:01
you go there and you pay up front
24:03
and then you go to the event and
24:07
the dinner and people and you just enjoy
24:11
it because you've already paid.
24:12
You don't have to tip because you've already
24:14
tipped.
24:14
Tip is included.
24:16
She pays her people a working salary and
24:20
living salary.
24:21
But people are flying in from places and
24:25
driving three hours to come every month to
24:29
Rachel's place.
24:31
And there's some diners that literally have tears
24:36
after eating her food.
24:38
I mean, I think Rachel is an undiscovered
24:41
gem and is one of the most amazing
24:45
vegan chefs in America and really the world
24:49
right now.
24:49
And what a place that is.
24:51
If you're ever in Philadelphia, you got to
24:53
go there.
24:54
I mean, it's just amazing.
24:56
I don't want to date myself, but I
24:57
worked in Philadelphia many decades ago and there
25:00
was barely a single restaurant.
25:02
There was only one famous one in the
25:05
Rittenhouse Square area that I remember.
25:07
But wow, what an incredible renaissance.
25:10
I have to go way, way back because
25:12
obviously Philadelphia is where our nation, the United
25:17
States was formed.
25:19
And Benjamin Franklin is one of the famous
25:22
founding fathers.
25:23
I believe he's one of the very few
25:24
who signed both the Declaration of Independence and
25:27
the Constitution.
25:29
And what is ignored in history is that
25:32
he was a vegetarian for most of his
25:35
life, or I shouldn't say most.
25:38
He lived a long time, but for a
25:40
lot of his life.
25:41
And that's ignored in history.
25:43
Can you tell us a little bit more
25:46
about Benjamin Franklin and why that's so significant?
25:51
Yeah.
25:51
I mean, that's a great example that you
25:54
give a Benjamin Franklin.
25:57
He wasn't even mentioned, Ken Burns did a
26:01
great series on him.
26:03
It was four hours and I watched the
26:05
whole thing and I was like, okay, they're
26:07
going to talk about his vegetarianism, right?
26:09
Because he became a vegetarian in his late
26:13
teens and early twenties.
26:16
And he was kind of, he talks about
26:19
how meat is murder.
26:21
He said that.
26:22
And he said that vegetarianism gave him a
26:25
clarity of thought that he couldn't get anywhere
26:28
else.
26:29
And he just lived it for many years.
26:33
He talked about how hard it was, like
26:35
his friends would all be going out to
26:37
eat and they would say, why don't you
26:40
come with us?
26:41
He said, no, I'm just going to stay
26:42
here and study because there's nothing for me
26:44
to eat at these restaurants.
26:46
And so it was a big part of
26:49
him at a formative age of his life.
26:53
And then when he was over in France,
26:56
trying to convince them to help in the
26:59
Revolutionary War effort, he discovered what he called
27:04
Chinese cheese, which was, and he wrote a
27:07
letter home about it, which was the first
27:09
mention of tofu that we can find in
27:13
literature.
27:14
And so he was onto that.
27:17
Even when he became more of a pescatarian,
27:21
when he was going back and forth to
27:24
Europe on boats, he started eating some fish.
27:27
But even back then, he was into tofu
27:31
and other products.
27:33
So he kept a lot of his plant
27:35
B eating diet, even back when he became
27:40
a pescatarian.
27:41
So he was quite an interesting soul in
27:46
many respects.
27:47
Well, I think this is another reason why
27:50
this is so important, is that veganism is
27:55
written out of the history books.
27:57
And you know, they say people who write
27:58
history, make history.
28:00
Jane Goodall was a vegan.
28:03
I read several articles after she tragically passed
28:06
away, after a very long and healthy and
28:08
vibrant active life, active right till the end.
28:12
Very, not the big media did not mention
28:15
she's vegan.
28:17
And this happens over and over and over
28:19
again.
28:20
Think of the implications that the founding, one
28:24
of the seminal founding fathers of our nation
28:27
said meat is murder.
28:29
It puts it in an entirely different context.
28:33
People like to say, well, that's the crazy
28:35
paint throwers, the red paint throwers.
28:37
No, that was our founding father.
28:41
And so, you know, we have to stand
28:44
up for ourselves and especially now, and not
28:47
to get political, but I will say this
28:51
is fact.
28:51
There's a new food pyramid put out just
28:54
the other day that puts meat and dairy
28:57
at the top, even though, you know, heart
29:01
disease is the leading killer in America and
29:03
Americans eat more meat than, you know, vast
29:07
parts of the world, most of the world.
29:09
We're one of the biggest consumers of meat
29:11
and yet the heart attacks are killing us
29:14
and we're suffering a lot from cancer.
29:17
So, you know, that's another reason.
29:21
Seth, I have to go to you on
29:23
this.
29:23
Back in the 1890s or the early 20th
29:26
century, the U.S. government was actually, as
29:30
I understand it from you, encouraging Americans to
29:34
reduce their meat consumption versus what you see
29:37
right now.
29:38
Tell us about that.
29:40
A hundred percent.
29:42
So there was the Secretary of Agriculture, Assistant
29:48
Secretary of Agriculture, was really worried at that
29:52
time about what does the future look like?
29:54
How could we feed a growing population when
29:58
meat at that time, animal meat, was very
30:02
expensive.
30:03
Refrigeration was marginal, especially in transporting processed meat
30:09
throughout the country.
30:11
And he went to, of all people, John
30:15
Harvey Kellogg, the brother of Will Kellogg, who
30:18
founded the cereal company that we all know
30:20
of.
30:21
And he said, can't you create something that's
30:25
high protein that would not be based on
30:29
animals, but would be based on plant?
30:31
And so Kellogg went to work and he
30:34
created granola, was one of the inventions of
30:37
his.
30:38
And he also created two canned meat products.
30:43
One was called Protose and one was called
30:46
Nuttose.
30:47
And they were nut-based and Protose had
30:50
a little soy in it.
30:51
And they were high in protein and he
30:55
was all for it.
30:56
And there were actually, in the 1900s, there
31:00
were these pamphlets that were put out by
31:03
the U.S. government that said, hey, we
31:07
know that you don't need to eat meat
31:09
in order to live.
31:11
And cutting down on your meat would be
31:14
good for your health and for our economy
31:19
and for the environment of the country.
31:23
So it was amazing to see that kind
31:26
of support coming to vegetarian foods at the
31:31
time.
31:31
And the government was, like you say, an
31:35
ally of the plant-based movements in the
31:39
1900s.
31:41
So as a result, meat consumption went down
31:46
temporarily, correct?
31:48
That was incredible.
31:49
Like due to the price of meat and
31:53
also, you know, a lot of the activism
31:57
of the vegetarians of that time, including Upton
32:00
Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle, which was a
32:02
novel that talked graphically about how meat was,
32:07
you know, animals were slaughtered and how meat
32:09
was processed in Chicago at the times.
32:11
And it just turned people off.
32:15
And so, you know, it was really from
32:20
1901 to 1922, per capita meat consumption in
32:26
America fell an astounding 24%, which showed that
32:31
it wasn't just the vegetarians that were eating,
32:35
you know, less meat or no meat, but
32:38
it was migrating out to society at large
32:42
and into the culture.
32:43
So it was, you know, in some of
32:46
the leading magazines, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping
32:50
Magazine, it was everywhere.
32:52
There was a vegetarian football team that had
32:56
vegetarian cheers, and they won the Big Ten
33:00
division of football with this vegetarian football team.
33:05
There were people, athletes that were, you know,
33:08
showing their vegetarianism and how much more active
33:12
and better they could perform on the field
33:15
by being vegetarian than animal-based ones.
33:18
So it was a golden age of vegetarianism,
33:20
and it was amazing how the government supported
33:24
it.
33:25
So now we have a government that is
33:28
pushing just, this is pretty much breaking news,
33:32
it's just happened this week, pushing meat and
33:35
dairy over the advice of the scientific community.
33:40
And in fact, there are efforts by Physician's
33:43
Committee for Responsible Medicine, filing a petition with
33:46
the USDA and Health and Human Services to
33:49
have it withdrawn based on undue corporate influence.
33:52
But if you look at the chart, tragically,
33:55
meat consumption is skyrocketing.
33:58
And Ann Dinshaw, you brought this up when
34:01
you were giving us the tour of the
34:03
American Vegan Society and what has happened since
34:07
your father founded the American Vegan Society in
34:11
1960.
34:13
Well, also our population has exploded, so that
34:16
makes it even more of a challenge.
34:17
But what are your thoughts about where we
34:19
are right now and why this keeps going
34:21
up?
34:22
Well, I think it's tragic that it keeps
34:24
going up, of course.
34:27
But I think a big part of it
34:29
is that other countries, so that chart has
34:32
to do with the worldwide consumption of meat.
34:34
So yes, it's gone up in America as
34:36
well.
34:37
But other countries that used to be more
34:39
plant-based have followed our lead.
34:41
And that's why it's that much more important
34:43
that right now American Vegan Society takes a
34:46
stronger role in helping people see that they
34:50
can have fun, they can eat well, it's
34:53
delicious to eat plants and not eat animals,
34:57
and let other countries see that we can
35:00
change America.
35:02
We are not all believers in what the
35:05
government says and that ridiculous food chart that
35:09
you just showed.
35:10
Most of us are much more intelligent and
35:12
it's time to really stand as a country
35:14
and show what we can do and what
35:18
the right things are to show the rest
35:20
of the world, that America can be much
35:23
more vegan, much kinder, much gentler, much more
35:27
friendly, and all those good positive attributes that
35:30
we know we have.
35:34
Yes, of course.
35:36
To be fair on that chart that you
35:38
showed that showed the number of animals being
35:40
slaughtered, beef and pork are down and those
35:45
are large animals.
35:47
And what's up is chicken.
35:50
So there's some, yeah, that's a great chart
35:54
right there.
35:55
So you can see that the growth of
35:57
chicken eating is really, you know, because you
36:01
have to slaughter so many other of these
36:05
sentient beings, you know, which drives the numbers
36:08
up.
36:09
You're absolutely right.
36:11
And a lot of people don't even acknowledge
36:13
chicken as an animal.
36:15
They say, well, I don't eat meat.
36:16
I just eat chicken.
36:17
No, chickens are individuals and they are sentient
36:21
beings.
36:22
They're not vegetables nor are fish.
36:25
What's the future?
36:27
As we wrap up this incredible segment, I
36:29
really want to know, Ann, are you going
36:31
to do it again next year?
36:34
If you do, are you going to tweak
36:35
it?
36:37
What's it going to be like?
36:38
Because it was a hit.
36:40
There were about a hundred people there and
36:41
everybody had the time of their lives.
36:44
The dress-up factor alone, the carriage, there
36:47
was a carriage there.
36:49
The fact that it happened in historic Philadelphia,
36:52
the birthplace of our nation, this historic, beautiful
36:55
college, Walnut Hill College.
36:58
I mean, look at this.
36:59
Everybody was just blown away by what you
37:03
accomplished here.
37:04
I thought it was a one-off event.
37:08
It wound up being an incredible experience for
37:12
not just the people attending, but those of
37:14
us putting it on.
37:16
And so I can't completely tell you what
37:20
we're planning for this year, but I can
37:21
say that we would like to do something
37:25
that is another celebration.
37:29
The city of Philadelphia is marking that it's
37:33
been 250 years since 1776, and there are
37:37
a lot of celebrations coming up.
37:39
So there's a really good chance that we're
37:41
going to do something amazing, and we'll be
37:44
announcing that a little bit later this year.
37:46
Well, that's exciting.
37:49
Jane, I want to add something.
37:51
You know, I want to thank you and
37:54
Unchained TV, because, you know, when I was
37:58
originally thinking of this event, I was thinking,
38:00
oh, this will be a media hit that,
38:03
you know, we had so much media attention
38:07
with Tofurky and still get it, you know,
38:11
and I was like, this is a twist
38:13
on Thanksgiving.
38:14
It's a great story.
38:15
But you are the main person that saw
38:18
that, you know, and it really speaks to
38:21
the magic of you and Unchained TV and
38:24
how you gave it the attention that the
38:27
event really deserves.
38:29
So I think that you were a shining
38:32
star in having the, giving it the attention
38:37
and the energy, and you brought the kind
38:39
of like the dress up and, you know,
38:41
the documentary and everything to the height that
38:46
it was.
38:47
So kudos to you, and kudos to the
38:50
AVS.
38:52
You know, I think if you go to
38:53
Philadelphia, you got to go to the American
38:56
Vegan Center right there in Old City.
39:00
And I want to give a shout out
39:01
to my friend Vance, who is a member
39:03
of that, who gives vegan walking tours of
39:07
Philadelphia, which is amazing.
39:09
And it helps uncover this hidden history.
39:11
And it's a fascinating tour.
39:14
And it goes through so many different parts
39:17
of veganism and vegetarianism.
39:20
And he's just awesome, along with Anne and
39:23
the team that she's created, you know, and
39:25
having this, I think that's one of the
39:27
reasons why Philadelphia hasn't seen some of the
39:31
fallout, you know, hitting these vegan restaurants that
39:36
are still going strong, you know, and you
39:39
have people driving hours to eat at Miss
39:43
Rachel's Pantry and stuff and veg and places
39:45
like that.
39:46
It's because, you know, there's this brick and
39:49
mortar American Vegan Center that Anne and her
39:52
team run with Vance, and they're doing the
39:56
tours, and you can go there and you
39:58
can find out where to eat, you know,
40:00
and all these vegan and where you can
40:02
go to the nearest cheesesteak.
40:04
I mean, Philadelphia is just an underrated vegan
40:08
world capital.
40:10
And I think a lot of the kudos
40:12
on that go to Anne and her team.
40:15
Well, I want to say it's a team
40:17
effort.
40:18
And you've inspired me.
40:19
Actually, because we're working on this documentary, I
40:23
started thinking a lot about the importance of
40:26
history.
40:27
And I realized that right on my cell
40:29
phone, I had going back to 2015, a
40:33
lot of historic moments in the animal rights
40:36
movement.
40:36
And I started putting them together as a
40:39
category on Unchained TV, for example, the world's
40:43
largest cube of truth in 2018 in San
40:45
Francisco, I had gone live, it was right
40:48
on my phone.
40:49
And so you've inspired me to explore more
40:53
of the history.
40:53
And then people began reaching out to me
40:55
and saying, Hey, I've got something that belongs
40:58
on the history of animal rights category.
41:02
And so really what you've done, Anne and
41:05
Seth have sparked a whole renaissance of interest
41:09
in the history of the plant based movement.
41:14
And I have a feeling that you're just
41:16
getting started.
41:16
And I can't wait to see what you
41:19
do next.
41:19
And also people are saying, why not California?
41:22
We have some comments.
41:24
Somebody wants to do this in California.
41:27
So you might have to take your show
41:29
on the road and do it all over
41:31
the United States.
41:34
Certainly, there's an interest.
41:36
I think people are really interested in this.
41:38
So I just want to say thank you
41:40
so very much.
41:42
You guys are my heroes.
41:43
You pulled off something extraordinary, unique, brilliant, and
41:49
very much needed.
41:51
The 1890s Vegan Thanksgiving Gala based on this
41:57
menu from the 1900s Good Housekeeping magazine.
42:02
And it was reenacted and modernized as a
42:07
vegan Thanksgiving dish.
42:09
Absolutely incredible.
42:12
And I just hope that we can do
42:15
this again for Thanksgiving or some other holiday,
42:19
especially as you mentioned, there are some major
42:22
milestones in the history of our country coming
42:24
up.
42:25
Thank you both.
42:26
And let's keep moving forward as we step
42:31
back in time.
42:33
Thank you to both of you who made
42:34
this happen.
42:35
So it's a vegan Netflix.
42:38
Okay, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
42:39
I love Unchained TV.
42:41
Unchained.
42:42
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42:43
Your life will change.
42:44
It's just that easy.
42:45
Unchained TV has all sorts of content for
42:48
everybody.
42:48
Unchained TV changed my life.
42:51
Unchained TV is crushing it.
42:54
I love Unchained TV.
42:56
Unchained TV is my go-to.
42:58
Unchained TV.
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Who knew?
43:00
Unchained baby, yay!