I’m constantly meeting more and more people raising their children vegan from conception and even multi-generational vegans. But, this isn’t really all that new of a phenomenon. It’s more a change in terminology. Before the term “vegan” was coined people were already raising their children vegetarian and “strict” vegetarians were the vegan most vegan. And long before this ancient Indian philosophies and religious traditions, like Jainism some Hindu, advocated veganism. Even the bible and early Christianity followed vegan diets as part of their ascetic practices. And with these practices people were raising their children this way.
Veganism has grown astronomically since the late 90’s. With so much access to information people can easily find out all they need to know about raising their children this way. But most people still haven’t given veganism enough consideration for their self much less their children. Unless you venture outside of your family and circle of friends you may not realize how many people are vegan and raising their children this way. Large communities across the US have had many vegans from conception like in Oregon, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania esp.
Who Am I?
My name is Jeff. I am a happy grandfather-to-be and have been vegan since 2011. Since 2017 I have traveled all over the country exploring the vegan world through capturing incredible presentations by world renowned physicians & scientist and producing hundreds of on location in-person interviews for my channel YouTube.com/VeganLinked. As an advocate and content creator I can’t think of a more powerful thing to focus on than raising our children vegan.
Evolving into an Advocate
I have always had a strong passion for helping others. I first expressed this desire through my work as a mental health counselor for 15 years. In 2011 I went vegan for the animals. It wasn’t until 2016 that I began to learn how ideal this way of eating is. Then I realized that a well planned vegan diet isn’t just healthy and appropriate for every age, it may also be most protective against chronic diseases and all cause mortality! So I set off to social media and asked “is there justifiable one reason to eat animals?” and no one could give me one. It was then I became an advocate.
Eventually I would start VeganLinked. At first it was mostly going to be a website. But, my knack for videography drew me into spending the overwhelming majority of my energy creating videos for the channel from festivals and conferences.
The Transition into Doing Interviews
In March 2020, at the onset of COVID chaos, I met with Dr Garth Davis in Asheville, North Carolina to discuss doing some videos together. Since I lived an hour and a half away, I proposed building a studio near him if he’d be game to come in and shine regularly. He agreed and said it’s something he’s always wanted to do! So, by May 2020 I closed on a house, fixed it up, rented it out because I couldn’t necessarily afford it, put a building on the other side of the property, turned that into a studio and after about 5 videos he unfortunately had to move back to Houston.
At the same time I was getting news about Dr Davis moving, my very dear friend Dr Joanne Kong approached me about a book she was working on called “Vegan Voices”. She asked if I’d like to be in it along with the other 50 vegan authors contributing. Instantly I wanted to interview as many of these voices as I could. Because air travel was cheap in 2020, Dr Kong covered my travel for this first run and that’s when the interviews for VeganLinked started.
Honing in on the ultimate purpose
Several hundred interviews ago, about 3 interviews into that first run I knew I needed to do a documentary. I had already helped shoot and entirely edited a documentary for Jane Velez Mitchell in 2019 called “Countdown to Year Zero“. But, that was entirely to help her, the cause, and stylistically her vision. I felt like eventually I would want to do something different.
The first vegan from birth I ever met was Sarina Farb. That was in passing at “Vegan World 2026 Conference” in Arizona 2019, a week after agreeing to help Jane with her documentary. I was there shooting for Jane’s documentary. When I met Sarina and found out she was vegan from birth I was BLOWN AWAY. I had never even thought about this. I was in shock really. I wanted to interview her SO BAD. I finally did on a bit of a whim rush but you can see that interview here: Sarina Farb Interview I also have two talks from Sarina here: Most Destructive Industry Worldwide and Veganism Key to Solve Climate Change
In 2020, on that first run of interviews I was thinking about a conversation I was having with a friend online. She was essentially against having babies because of overpopulation. I kept saying population size isn’t the problem, we need more vegan babies. Then I met Curtis at DxE in Berkley for his interview. I explored with him if being a busy activist is conducive to having relationships and having babies came up again. I kept chanting in my head “more vegan babies, more vegan babies”.
The last interview I did for that first run was with Dr Milton Mills. On my drive to Dr Mills I had already called my primary care physician, Dr Beth Motley, who has several vegan babies from birth, and told her I need to do a documentary on vegans from birth. She thought it was an awesome idea, gave me some references, and so did Dr Mills!
Building an Audience as I Learn
Before I could do a documentary I felt the need to explore veganism as far and wide as possible. So, I interviewed longtime vegans who have been for many decades, even longer than I’ve been alive, doctors, athletes, advocates, etc. and built up the channel to now over 82K Subscribers.
As I grew more confident in my interviewing, shooting, traveling, editing, archiving, the structure of the documentary was beginning to naturally develop in my mind. A few years ago I started holding onto certain interviews; specifically longtime and lifelong vegans. I decided to release all the less impressive length vegans first (less than 10 or 20 years). I saved as many of the longtime and lifelong vegan interviews as I could so I could eventually reach a point where that is all I release.
Transitioning into A Documentary
Nearing the end of 2023 I had been consistently releasing a new interview with a different vegan every week, sometimes every day even. I new going into 2023 it would be loaded with athletic vegans. As 2024 was approaching I accumulated enough interviews with longtime and lifelong vegans to release every week for the entire 2024 year. So, as 2024 progresses the interviewees will be longer and longer time vegans and people like dietitian Brenda Davis, pediatrician Dr. Tiffany Nguyen, mothers having several vegan children one after another, very long time lifelong vegans & multigenerational vegans.
Some of the interviews I have already shot have been with pregnant vegan women who I hope to follow up with before I finish editing and publish our talk. I have enough interviews to do the documentary. But, I have created a structure for a documentary that involves shooting mostly all new content as well as pulling from the old content. For more information please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Moving Forward
Thus far I have been doing all of this on my own dime and time, solo. The current structure concept is viable to do solo. However, with a proper budget and enough support the structure, pruduction quality, and timeline can all be improved.
As of April 2024 I am almost done editing everything I’ve shot up to this point. After it’s all soon finished I will schedule it to be released throughout the remainder of the year. The interview schedule is already determined. After everything is scheduled I will be freed up to focus wholeheartedly, 100 percent on the documentary.
I already have a workbook of locations with lifelong vegans I need to interview. Once I’m ready to start shooting again I may try to involve others who have expressed interest in helping me accomplish this. From there I’ll make this happen one way or another.
If I have enough support I’ll be able to hire others to help step up production quality. Otherwise I’ll just peice this together the best way I can.
The closer I get to starting to shoot interviews regarding lifelong vegans the more excited I get. The several hundred interviews I’ve already shot have had a big impact. This progression to longtime and finally lifelong vegans is the most precious, perfect way to cap off the work I’ve been doing all these years. If you’re reading this, thank you for being a part of this.