Monica Chen on Empowering Youth to Dismantle Factory Farming

What if the future of food justice lies in the hands of our youth?

In this powerful episode of The Glen Merzer Show, Monica Chen, Executive Director of the New Roots Institute, shares how she’s helping young leaders challenge the dominance of factory farming and build a more ethical, plant-based world. Her message? "Progress over perfection is key."

Monica’s personal vegan journey began with an unlikely teacher—a beloved guinea pig—but her work now reaches thousands of students across the U.S., opening their eyes to the ethical, environmental, and systemic harms of animal agriculture. “We need to be outside of our bubble,” she explains, highlighting the importance of inclusive, culturally sensitive education.

New Roots Institute empowers the next generation to speak up about food injustice, making the link between factory farming—responsible for 99% of animal products—and climate, health, and human rights. Through leadership programs and classroom presentations, students learn to challenge the status quo, think critically, and drive real-world change.

Monica and Glen explore the emotional and cultural barriers to dietary change, acknowledging that systemic shifts require both individual courage and collective momentum. “The demand does have to decrease,” she insists, pointing out that our daily food choices are deeply tied to global sustainability.

If you're inspired by youth activism, ethical leadership, or transforming food systems—this conversation is a must-listen.

🎧 Tune in now and discover how the next generation is leading the plant-based revolution.

📌 Watch the episode here: Monica Chen Campaigns for a Just Food System!

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DISCLAIMER: Please understand that the transcript below was provided by a transcription service. It is undoubtedly full of the errors that invariably take place in voice transcriptions. To understand the interview more completely and accurately, please watch it here: Monica Chen Campaigns for a Just Food System!

Here's the transcript: RMEP Podcast (00:02.382)

Welcome to The Glenn Merzer Show. can find us across all your favorite podcast platforms. You can find us on YouTube. And please remember to subscribe. You can find us at RealMenEatPlants.com. My guest today is Monica Chen. She is the executive director of the New Roots Institute, which is a nonprofit

that is empowering the next generation with the knowledge and training to end factory farming, cause dear to my heart. The New Roots Institute offers lessons in high schools and colleges across the U.S. alongside fellowship opportunities to high school and college students. Monica, welcome to the show. Grilled to be here, Glenn. Let's hear first about your journey. How did you wind up

running this nonprofit that's doing such good work to educate people about our most destructive industry. Well, there's so many places that I could begin, but I actually want to take us a long way back to when I was eight years old. I had a guinea pig and everybody in my life was sort of like making jokes about eating guinea pigs. And I love this guinea pig very much. And that was my first introduction that

speciesism was alive and well, even though I, of course, didn't have the words for it at the time. So that's where I started. And let's be clear. Nobody ever ate that guinea pig, right? No, she she lived a glorious six years and very special individual in my life. Good. OK, so where did you go from the guinea pig? And then I met my first vegetarian when I was 12 years old in middle school and I was like, you can do that.

you don't have to eat animals, that's exciting. And then later on in college, I met Katie Cantrell, who became the founder of what's now New Roots Institute. And she was the one who was going to the various classes at UC Berkeley and saying, hey, there's this opportunity to talk about food in your public health, your social justice, your environment classes. And those presentations were just really well received. I...

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did not start working for New Roots Institute immediately after college. was a third grade teacher on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. really love teaching science as well. So I worked as an environmental educator, worked in suicide prevention, worked in prisons. And then in 2018, I moved over to New Roots Institute and I became the ED in 2019. All right. Now, at what point did you become vegetarian and then vegan? I was 12 when I was

became vegetarian. so when you met your first vegetarian, you said, I'm going to join you. Yes, I like to say that I'm a very highly influenceable person. I just need to know that the possibility exists. Well, it's a good thing you didn't meet somebody on the paleo diet. So that's good. I should have that love for the guinea pig. That's right. So then what about the transformation from vegetarian to vegan?

was just really concerned. I mean, once I learned the information and, you know, shout out to the organizations that existed at that time, you know, that was PETA, that was Vegan Outreach, like those materials I found very compelling. I probably watched Earthlings pretty early on as well. There was a time in my life where people told me I had to watch Earthlings like every single year in order to stay committed. And I have learned that is not necessary. I'm very committed to this work. I've watched it once. That's all it takes.

Yeah. But but at what age did you go vegan? 18 at 18. And did you notice you were probably in good health anyway as a young person, but did you notice any health changes when you when you went vegetarian and then vegan? Unfortunately, no miracles. Well, actually, this is important because this is the key to the young people listening to this before you have the health problems you won't see any.

health changes, probably if you're in good health and you're a teenager, but you will be preventing the health problems that would hit you 10, 20, 30 years later. So well, and even as a vegan, I know that I could be a lot more intentional about what I'm eating, too. And that's something that's come later as I've gotten older and realize, hey, we can't just be eating any whatever that's vegan. Right. Well, I went vegetarian at 17.

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and then vegan in my mid 30s. but then I went no oil in my 50s, you know, and I cut out sugar somewhere along the way, too. So, you know, my diet has evolved over time towards getting healthier, but still haven't taken a pharmaceutical drug in my life. So, well, he is to start early if you can.

But whenever you get this information, it's never too late to go on a whole foods, low fat vegan diet. Right there. Now, the people who work for you at the New Roots Institute and work with you, are they on this diet? I don't know exactly how much oil or sugar people are consuming, but yes, we're all animal rights oriented as well. nobody's eating meat. No.

And are there people who work for you? what's the title? Because you have about 30 people who go around and give these presentations. What are their titles? Fellows? Well, yeah, our staff is actually split into different departments. So there is the educational outreach group, and they do go into classrooms very physically.

And then there's the folks that work in leadership development, and they're the ones who are really running our fellowship programs. And we have about 150 fellows starting in the summer. And applications are open if you know of any bright high school and college students who really want to work to change our food system. And then, of course, there's the operations department, the advancement department, which covers communications and fundraising. OK, so if you're listening and especially if you're a high school or college student and you'd like to get involved in this work,

You could go to the new roots Institute dot org. And it's Institute dot org. No, but I was using the grammatic in the in the sentence. You could go to new roots Institute dot org and and there's a link to apply to be a fellow. assume. Yes. OK, so do that and don't use the go to new roots Institute dot org.

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And the folks who do that were, as far as you know, were most of them already vegans before they applied for this? Or did some of them change their diet as they learned this information and then went to work for you? I think it's a mix. We probably have stats on that. I can tell you that when we go into high school and college classrooms,

There's probably only one student in the entire class who's vegan, maybe a few vegetarian. So we're generally speaking to an audience that is not yet familiar with this information. Have you found a way to track how many people you've converted to to health? Well, I can say that we do pre-lesson surveys and post-lesson surveys, but we have not been very good at

getting responses for like six months and one year follow up. So we can measure the number of students who say that they do intend to reduce their animal product consumption. But I cannot guarantee that we have been following and tracking them. Right. Why is it so hard to get people to eat a human diet? It's it's constantly mystifying to me. Well, we talk about that in our lessons, Glenn. What do you say about that in your lessons?

I mean, I think that it's really important and I can share some of the slides that we show where we're really asking the students, why do we eat animal products? And they will talk about culture. They will talk about their connections to masculinity and protein and health. They'll talk about price and access and we'll discover why all those things happen and ultimately get to, know, where do we have choice and

what things need to change on an individual and an institutional and systemic level. And what's really exciting is the kids actually do say a lot of this for themselves. So it's not me just like speaking at them. Right. All right. Well, you have a presentation for us. Let's get to that. Yeah, I'm doing something a little bit different on your show, given the incredible audience that you have. I thought it'd be fun to start off by sharing a little bit about what organization does and then going into our

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leadership development programs. So these are the pillars of our work. We go into the high school and college classrooms and we are able to speak to a lot of different audiences. We are recruiting many of those high school and college students into our leadership development programs, which starts off with our leadership academy over the summer, goes into an academic year fellowship and then potentially even a teaching fellowship.

Those students are working on campaigns in those same schools where our educators have already been teaching. And after our lessons, should add something like around 80, 90 % of students do have an intention to reduce their animal product consumption. They are really interested in legislation limiting the impacts of factory farming. They're very supportive of plant-based foods. So our students are running campaigns, bringing that availability of plant-based foods.

to the schools where the student body actually has demand. And then we are helping our fellows do all this work in the schools. They're practicing, ultimately running campaigns so that they can do that wherever they end up in their careers. So whether they work in government, whether they work for nonprofits in the animal rights space or in environmental spaces or in corporations, they will have that anti-factory farming lens. They will know how to run campaigns.

and they will bring that lens to their work. And that's a really big point in all of this, Glenn, is I strongly believe that we need to be outside of our bubble. We need people who can be our allies. When I think about some of the successes we've had in our space, like New York City Public Hospital's going to default vegan meals, that happened because there was somebody who was well positioned to make that happen and work with a nonprofit. So really key part in our theory of change is positioning.

Alright, so I thought it might be fun to start off with educational outreach and what happens in our classrooms and to give our wonderful listeners a sense of the types of classes we go to. We are able to speak to pretty much any high school and college audience. If I'm going to a ninth grade health class, I might be talking about nutrition. I might be talking about zoonotic diseases.

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If I'm going to an MBA class, I might be talking about horizontal and vertical integration, the history of factory farming, like how we scaled. So we are able to speak to a wide range of audiences. Every single one of our lessons is structured differently. We have over a thousand different slides of information. The citations are always at the bottom. And we structure the lesson based on what the teachers

trying to cover that day or with their syllabus. So it's really tailored to whatever the standards might be. So in this particular example, I thought maybe I'm speaking to a public health class and this is how we would structure it. Interesting for many of your listeners, I have to say that when we do our surveys and we ask what section really resonates, a lot of our students do say that the factoring basics, which are necessary for

everybody to understand the later implications. Like we all have to be on the same page about what factory farming is. That section, which does include like how the animals are treated, how they're living, that does resonate most with the students just across the board. So with that in mind, I thought that I'd share some of the slides and I shared this at a presentation that you saw, Glenn. We very rarely took audiences with adults, but this was really fun to see you. So.

In a class, I might be asking like how many of you sang Old MacDonald when you were a kid and we'll look at packages like this and say like, what do you notice? know, what is the story that we're being told when we go to grocery store? These rolling green hills, you know, these happy cows. And we'll talk about like, what is the actual reality, which are these concentrated animal feeding operations, which is the practice of keeping thousands of animals in confinement often for their whole lives.

And this is done to produce the most product for the most profit. And then we get into the questions. And Glenn, I think you might know the answer to this one. How many land animals are killed for meat, dairy and eggs every year in the US? Is it 10 billion? That is correct, Glenn. This is not your first time. But normally when I am in a classroom and the kids are guessing, they guess, you know, like 10,000, you know, a million, a hundred million.

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it's really difficult to even conceptualize like what 10 billion animals is. that's a lot of those are chickens, aren't they? It's a huge number of chickens. I think I said in the presentation that I saw that I did with you that I've just been thinking a lot about the Vox article about how anthropologists will be thinking about like what happened in 2025 when there was just like so many chicken bones, know, nine of these animals and their chicken bones.

So this is a big number for a lot of people and it really encourages them to think through their animal product consumption. Are they eating it and the people around them, are they eating animal products every year, every month, every day, three times a day? Like what is this need, this consumption? Where is this demand coming from? And then very shockingly, what percentage of those 10 billion animals are raised on factory farms? And the kids,

usually have a really big range of guesses because of what you saw in the first slide about the farms where the sun is shining and all that kind of stuff. Like what percentage of those 10 billion animals are raised on factory farms when you're hearing so much about regenerative agriculture and pasture is an organic and cage free, et cetera, like all these different labels. And the number is just shocking. Like it's 99%. So we can talk about like some very specific cases, but

the vast majority, like 99 % of the time it's coming from these factory farms and really drilling or honing in on that statistic I think is really key to understanding like the scale of this particular challenge. And so those were some of the initial slides. And of course, again, every single lesson is different, but we're just trying to understand the scope of the problem. Sometimes, like I was recently in Indiana giving a

presentation, where it was actually more of a lesson, Socratic style with the philosophy class. And in this philosophy class, I did show a clip of a cow being separated from her mother and the chickens being de-beat. I always say nothing like particularly bloody or gory because I don't come to traumatize people, but like to really like you do have to understand like this is what's happening on factory farms. And we will get to, know, like how

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important it is to really empower the students later. But I think that in this philosophy class, it was really interesting to break down the assumptions students have about using resources, using animals as resources for consumption. what stood out you? How did our young philosophers feel about that information? They were really intrigued. I was stunned by the engagement. I mean, I always am because

philosophy, it was an undergraduate course. I assume that a lot of them were taking it as a prerequisite. They weren't philosophy majors. But that's kind of what's so exciting about our work is it really relates to something that they care about. Like they do think about food. Like they eat every single day. It's not something that's very abstract. So it is exciting. think there's an old philosophical saying, I eat, therefore I am.

They might realize how important it is what they're doing. Yeah, exactly. And, know, after the kids, you know, talk it through, they'll say like, yeah, I did feel really sad. I felt angry when I learned about this. And so then I asked, well, why do you feel angry or sad? And then they just basically acknowledged that suffering matters and they don't find that acceptable. And.

This sets us up to then have a conversation about how do you think animals should be treated? And it's really important to me that the kids are in discussion groups and they're really talking this through. It's very powerful for them to hear other students voicing what's on their minds. So they will acknowledge that suffering is really bad. And then we have to talk about like...

How should we treat other animals? What is okay to do to them? What is not okay? How do we draw the line? How do we determine what is and what isn't okay to do with them? And yeah, let's just circulate the room, get a sense of what they're thinking. And a lot of them will point to like really severe mistreatment, know, such as the cage confinement or, you know, taking the babies away from their moms. And then I'll ask, so what is okay to do to them? And...

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You know, some of them will say nothing, nothing like you can't treat animals poorly. And then some of them will say, well, we have to kill them to eat them. So that's okay. And then we really get into this question of choice. Like, do we have a choice? Do we have to eat animal products to survive, to be healthy? I know you, Glenn, have some pretty strong opinions on that. And then given that we have a choice,

How can we justify harming or killing someone to take something from them that we don't need? And this leads to all sorts of interesting questions. The kids will bring up pleasure. kids will, and Glenn, there's any argument you want to talk through, I've heard them all at this point. So I'm happy to share with you some of what the kids say. But if there's anything that you want to talk about, let me know. What types of arguments are you referring to?

Like we have to it's okay to kill animals because humans are superior, you know, like the intelligence argument Well, that that's on the face of it obviously false Yes, well there there there's all sorts of ways in which we will give examples and think about the challenges of judge or

choosing what we can do to animals or any human being for that matter, based on intelligence or perceived intelligence. But it can it can get really deep. And it's really interesting to hear the students like really thinking this through. And I do all of this without judgment, by the way. It's just it's just questioning and pushing their thinking. That was something I noted when I heard you speak. You're you're about as nonjudgmental a speaker in this field as I've ever come across.

And I'm sure that's very effective in helping people engage and not be defensive and absorb this information. It's a skill that I strive for, but I'm not on your level. Thanks, Glenn. Yeah, it's a lot of practice of going into all these classrooms and the students have, you know, a lot of different backgrounds. know, some of them.

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are the children of ranchers. Some of them have really tied their identity to their culture and eating animal products. So it's really important, I think. And if you do that, sometimes in a high school, you could go to six classes in a day. If you're doing that every single day, you learn pretty quick what is most effective in terms of communication. All right. So I'm happy to talk about any of these things. We can talk about

the ethical quandaries, which I know that you've discussed pretty extensively on your show, Glenn. And once you learn about the impacts of industrial animal agriculture and what it does to our waterways, what it does to the air, what it does to the other beings on the planet that aren't factory farmed, is a question around, do we have a moral obligation to respect our environment? To what extent should we be basing our food choices on the damage they do to our environment?

These are excellent points to discuss because there is a bestselling book now on health called Good Energy by a woman named Dr. Casey Means. And she has an interesting perspective on health. She believes that you should eat, you can eat just about anything as long as it is organically raised. In other words, she's not coming down on our side of the argument.

that you should eat a whole foods, low fat, vegan diet. She's not coming down on the other side of the argument that you should be a carnivore and eat meat three times a day. What she wrote is that if you eat meat three times a day, that's fine as long as it's regeneratively raised meat, as long as it's pasture raised beef and free range or whatever nonsense they call it.

chicken and so forth, then that's healthy, but not K-Fo meat. She would be against K-Fo meat. Similarly, she says you could eat the diet that you and I eat, a whole foods vegan diet. That's fine too, as long as it's organically grown. So in other words, she doesn't care what you're eating. She cares about the quality of the food. Now, this is nonsense as we both know because

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As you pointed out, 99 % of the animal products are going to be factory farmed. And there isn't room on four planet Earths to grow the animals the way she would have them grown. But if one were to say to someone like Dr. Means, well, since you think it's healthy either way, since Dr. Means would say that my diet is equal,

to somebody on a grass-fed beef diet, then why not do what your slide says here, respect our moral obligation to respect our environment or observe our moral obligation to respect our environment and base our food choices on the damage we do to our environment? In other words, why doesn't Dr. Means say, hey, if there's no difference, if it could be equally healthy, then let's turn

the planet we live on, which after all has an effect on our health. Have you come across people who think it doesn't really matter what you eat and therefore, well, why not eat what's best for the planet?

I'm not familiar with Dr. Means' work. I'd of course be happy to engage in a conversation. I think that a lot of the time when we're talking about what we eat, it can often come down to like this very like individual level. And that's one level which we could be looking at things. And I think that's great introductory, but I'm also thinking about larger systemic issues and our food system as a whole. And as you note, again, 99 % of our food is factory farmed. I think that as we...

And this is what we'll get to actually like in the next slides, like what could our food system look like? Can we create a future in which every in which we are eating animal products three times a day sustainably? And the answer is no. At least we're like this the sheer number of people that we're talking about, like that demand, like it's just not possible. And it raises a lot of questions. And the students really get into this. I might as well go to the next slide. You know, really just thinking through like

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What are the obstacles? And so like in this slide, for example, the students get into groups, they're talking about what the personal level solutions are, the food choices, the personal boycotts on certain animal products, being an example to others, influencing others, which is a really key point, Glenn. And societal level solutions will talk about education, laws, corporate pressure, but then they'll be talking about the barriers, right? And so what works for a single individual who has

the ability to spend $20 or whatever the number might be on a dozen eggs is very different from like the rest of the people in the United States who don't have those funds. How can you feed so many people eating exactly the same way? We'll talk about every barrier that you can think of, And again, I'm not prescriptive in this. I think that it's really important that the students are talking about the culture, really interrogating what is culture? When did it become culture?

How do you shift culture? They'll talk about habits, they'll talk about social pressures, confusing information being another thing. And then they really get into how do we overcome those obstacles? How do we engage in a conversation with Dr. Means or whoever else it might be? How can we live by example? How do you... And I actually do want to hone in on that point. I think it's really important.

that our students understand that their impact isn't just through their own individual food choices, but on how they're influencing others, the additional actions that they could be taking, all of which reinforces who they are as a person and what they stand for. So I don't know if you have any other thoughts there, but I do think, again, it's really important that we explore these conversations. And I think that schools are just a really great place to be doing that. Well, I love that image of the flying pig.

I don't know how many pigs you had to audition before you got that picture. You know what I can say about our wonderful founder, Katie Cantrell, is she used to do these things called cuteness interludes in every single section because it is, you know, sometimes a pretty heavy information and a lot of times students don't always have any connection to some of the

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animals that are farmed and you sometimes we've been showing videos of chickens being the amazing creatures that they are so it is it serves the purpose of like you know providing a lightning lift and it also can be really good for the students to like be like hey I do see some commonalities between this pig and some other species that I might have more positive associations with. All right so

Then, and feel free to stop me at any time, Glenn, I thought I could tell you more about how we're recruiting students into our leadership programs. So this is what we were talking about earlier. We are recruiting fellows right now for the Leadership Academy, which is a six week program. It's essentially a course. And then during the academic year, those students have the opportunity to continue and run campaigns. then the third- What age students are we talking about?

High school and college. just have to be a student, any age college student. We've had college students. So in high school, that could be 14 or 15 years old. Correct. And a college student could be 60. Grad school counts as well. So here are some of our incredible fellows. I'm actually all over the world. We have the majority of our fellows in the United States. That's where we have the bulk of our campaign partners as well.

And we also had fellows from 20 different countries. And I just thought I'd share a little bit more about how our Leadership Academy really does go into the implications and impacts of factory farming. We do want to, I mean, you're talking to me, Glenn, about how I'm able to have these conversations in a non-judgmental way. That's what we train our students to do as well. We want them to be able to go to the sustainability director at a campus dining hall.

be able to share information and be very compelling for why it might make a lot of sense for this university to have a plant for default vegan, whatever it might be menu at their school and how that would Do your presenters use the word vegan or do you prefer to use plant-based or how do you phrase them?

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It's all context specific. And that's a really key point also, Glenn. I think that when you're talking to somebody in dining, they are used to seeing labels like vegan. Like they will put Vs with circles, you know, their menu. So then it makes sense to use that. In other cases, like that particular word might be unnecessarily divisive and you shouldn't use it. So it's really helping our students like understand their audiences. We talked to them a lot about like

the skills and strategies for creating that behavioral and structural change in their cafeterias. We are really thoughtful about the leadership skills that our students need. I think that there are so many different components to what makes a good leader, but what I've learned is that leadership is not about getting people to follow you and idolize you. It is about training others and helping them.

succeed in their work. So the kids all know that you need to be tracking what you're doing, teaching others how to do it. If you run a campus veg fest as an example, that's great that you did that, but you need to be documenting that so that another college fellow in another place could run that same veg fest and train other people to run those veg fest. Like that's how we scale, right? The network is just so important to our fellows, right? And you can imagine

how isolating it can be to be somebody who cares about an issue like this so deeply and not have that community. And so I know how valuable it has been for our fellows to have that network with students now across the world and also with their potential employers. And then there's all the work on institutional and legislative campaigns. So this is just a little bit of what the Leadership Academy curriculum looks like.

All virtual except for the in-person events that don't occur with the same frequency as the live virtual programming of the course seminars, the leadership labs, the guide discussions. So there's like the whole fellows of, know, which might be 150 fellows. And then they're split into cohorts based on geography and area study or where they're at in school. And there's

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different again, emphases as well.

So I think that these concentrations around media arts and journalism, policy and law, it's all really interesting because Glenn, we're not going into a high school with an animal rights class, like that doesn't exist, right? So a lot of these students have really strong interests because we got them through a journalism class or we got them through a law class and that's what they want to do in their work. So being able to meet those students and show how you can have

work to end factory farming like within these different spheres and here are all the other people who are doing that work is really exciting for them. That's really key Glenn because when I was a student, probably when you were a student, we didn't know that you could be doing this work, that you could be working for a better food system. There's a lot of pathways for students that are very clear. Like if you want to be a doctor, it's pretty clear the pathway and the tests that you need to take and the jobs you need to get in order to.

pursue that pathway. It hasn't been like that when it comes to transforming our food system. So we really want to be able to help our students see those pathways.

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And this is just a little bit about all the work that goes into our campaigns. We really want them to be building, launching, and leading campaigns on their campuses. And we're able to do that through a lot of different partnerships. I'll actually skip this slide and just go into the students get to choose the campaigns that they work on. So these other nonprofits might come to us. And a good example is Planted Society in Texas, for example.

Planted Society is running an Eat for Impact campaign. Those students are working, they pitch to our students, the students who are interested, work with them, and they are going to the various restaurants in their cities, really promoting, like, eating plant-based foods, you know, for a specific week or month or something that's, really connected to the city councils and the spirit around being more sustainable.

We create a lot of the infrastructure for these campaigns. So we work with our campaign partners because we know that students are very capable, but they need the structure. They need to know what the milestones are. They need the coaching. And it helps an organization like Planted Society, again, shout out, because now they have fellows and students who can do that on the ground work in their communities. So it's helpful to them. Have you been having much success in changing university dining, getting more

Vegan options? There you go, Glenn. Yes. Well, I set you up for the next slide. Yeah, here are just a few highlights, and it varies by university. Some of them are working on removing that those up charges that charge 50 cents extra for oat milk. Some of these students got like jobs in UCLA dining so that they could actually like meet the key stakeholders.

would lead to something like a 50 percent plant based dining hall commitment. So we get them to charge five dollars extra for the dairy milk. That's a campaign that I've not yet heard of, Glenn. I'd like to leave that one. Anybody wants to reach out? And as the price of eggs goes up, which I do not regret, you know, maybe people will stop eating these products. Definitely a lot of conversations about eggs right now, for sure.

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So yeah, there's a lot of different ranges of campaigns. And again, I think another really big piece is around the educating that the students do themselves. Sometimes people come to me and they say, I can't do this because like I'm not from that community. I'm like, well, fine then don't do that. Focus on your community. I think that each of us is uniquely positioned to create change within our communities. I see on this slide here, somebody named Casey secured a congressperson

from North Carolina to co-sponsor a bill banning octopus farming. That's pretty cool. Yeah, she's doing a lot. I wonder how many congresspeople are going to go along with that bill. We'll see. As listeners, if you're looking at the slides, I hope that you are motivated by these students.

once one of those young people that people said they were inspired by. And it bothered me a lot as a young person because I felt like elder generations were saying I was inspiring but doing nothing themselves. I hope that all of these students, and even if you're a student yourself, you look at this and you're like, hey, this is motivating. I want to be doing stuff too. Like I want to be taking action. And this, can't stress enough like how important I believe.

motivating each other is like this, this can be challenging work and being able to be a part of a network, inspiring each other, motivating each other like that. That is absolutely a big part of the community that we need to be building. And I see that UCLA has gone along with a 50 % plant based dining hall commitment. Yeah. It's going to, but that's going to start in a few years, right? Yep. Yep.

It's going to take them a few years to get 50 % of their food to be healthy. But small steps. Yeah, I mean, obviously that's a big step compared to some of the other campuses. Shout out to Humane World for Animals. I know that several UCs have done this, and that is kind of our right. think UC Berkeley was the first university to do that and being able to say, this university did that. And then others in the UC system can follow suit.

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All right, and then I guess just in this last slide, I really wanted to reiterate how important it is that our students are able to continue receiving support from New Roots Institute, continuing to advocate for a more just and sustainable food system in all these different spaces. I gave the example of New York City Health and Hospitals, how important it is to have an ally or a champion to push some of these changes through. Even some of these big corporations like

Another example might be LinkedIn. I know that LinkedIn has dramatically changed their food over the last few years. They're doing basically default vegan, or making sure that a buffet line has a lot of vegan options at the beginning and then the meat options at the very end. That's amazing progress because you know that those nudges do make a difference. And again, that happens because there are so many champions in this work.

One of my goals also is for food to be really connected to environmental work in lot of ways that it just hasn't been. And so I'm very eager for a lot of our fellows who go on to work for environmental organizations to continue to constantly be bringing up food. So that's really exciting to me is, you know, how can we make ending factory farming a cornerstone of the environmental movement?

That is all those are our social media and also please do connect with us. There's plenty of pages on the website where you can reach out to us and we are very good at responding. Folks can reach out to you at New Roots Institute dot org and young people who want to become fellows and spread the message have that opportunity. Let's talk for a few minutes about the fact that as you point out and as is so important for people to understand.

99 % of the animal food products are from CAFOs, concentrated animal feeding operations. And I can't tell you how many people I come across who say, yes, I eat meat, but boy, I'm against those CAFOs. I'm against factory farming. I try to have pasture raised beef or regeneratively raised meat.

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I don't think when they go to restaurants, they demand that the steak they order be regeneratively raised. I don't think that when they get a chicken salad at a restaurant, they ask if it's a regeneratively raised chicken. And there isn't enough land on earth. When you see the pictures of all those

pigs in crates and chickens, 20,000, 30,000 chickens in a warehouse. Just try to imagine them roaming freely through the land. It's not possible, is it Monica, for people to eat as much meat as they eat and have it all be pasture-raised, so-called free range, regeneratively raised.

There wouldn't be enough room on Earth, would there?

There has to be some reduction in everybody that I talk to can agree with that. really. In meat, animal product consumption, like just across the board. The demand does have to decrease. And I really.

want to say thank you to everybody who is trying to be really thoughtful about their food choices and is questioning these things. And a lot of it is confusing. Sometimes in our lessons, we'll talk about what does the cage-free label actually mean? What does that actually mean for animal welfare? What does free range actually mean? It means that there's a door, but that doesn't even mean the door is open. We'll talk about what organic means, all of that stuff. And I really see our students trying. They're thinking about their

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If you're going to grocery store and you don't have all this information, you rely on the labels and there's you want to trust the labels. And unfortunately, sometimes labels lie and they're selling a picture of what something can be. I'm a big proponent of, you know, progress over perfection and really, again, meeting people where they're at. Sometimes I'll talk to folks who are like, you know, I'm really into biking and recycling and I'll be like, yeah, I was really excited to start doing a lot of that, too.

And then I also learned, you know, insert fact about the food system. And now I'm starting to, you know, cook more of this and this. And it's just like opportunities to share information without trying to prescribe something. like, again, just like leading by that example and just nudging and saying, yeah, just ignore. I think people need acknowledgement, acknowledgement that they're trying, acknowledgement that they're not trying to be bad people. I think that a lot.

And, like I'm not even like you, Glenn. I don't eat Whole Foods plant based all the time, but I'm trying. And I think that that should be celebrated. when I was your age, my diet wasn't as good as it is now. So just keep evolving. But do you find that there are people who who who

want to keep eating animals and are looking for an excuse to do so so that they fall back on this pasture raise nonsense. I think that. Change is really hard for everybody for the most part, it's not even just I mean, and again, appreciation to the people who are really thinking very deeply about what they're eating. I mean,

people, it's not just that. mean, people are saying, you know, like, I really just like the taste of cheese or burgers, and I'm not giving that up. And the more that you push them on that, the more they get defensive, the more it becomes a part of their identity. So I've just really learned not to be like, you don't have to eat cheese to survive, you know, just be like, okay, so I just have to think to myself, like, what is more effective in this situation?

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It might be like bringing in some more like plant-based cheeses, sharing more about what I eat, know, something like that. There are so many excuses. People will say that, you know, they can't afford to eat plant-based foods. And we have to like really get into that because every single person has a different situation. And I think that a lot of vegans can be really quick to be like, beans are so cheap.

And then I also know that there are plenty of situations where it's difficult to get those beans. And so we have to be able to talk about that. Beans are pretty widely available, aren't they? Beans? I mean, at least people buy canned beans in Walmart or different box stores or supermarkets. They're pretty, pretty widely available. But, you know, when people talk about the taste of meat,

Dr. Milton Mills has a video he did where he talks about how actually people don't like the taste of meat. It's the taste of all the plant-based flavorings that are put on the meat to make it palatable because nobody gets a raw burger and then just heats it up and, you know, or boils a

steak or something. isn't really the meat that they like. It's the plant-based sauces on it. What they like, I think, is the fat. That gives people a sense of satiety. so they feel full. They feel like they've eaten something that is satisfying because they feel full when they finish the meal. And that's why it's important

important when you go on a vegan diet that it not be a diet of just leafy greens as healthy as they are and as much as you should eat them, you're going to not feel full. You need those potatoes or beans or rice, starchy foods to make you feel full. And that's why some people experiment with a vegetarian or vegan diet and they eat too many salads and they get hungry.

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So thank you so much, Monica, for joining us and for showing that slideshow. You know, it's really amazing if you think about it, with the work you're doing, how much good that guinea pig did for the world by sensitizing you to these issues. So a shout out to the guinea pig. What was the guinea pig's name? Her name was Becca. Shout out to Becca for really

doing a lot of good work for the world. Thank you, Monica, for joining us. People could go to newrootsinstitute.org for more information. Thanks, Glenn.