Nadia Fragnito has always had a strong connection to Italian food and culture, with her father being born in southern Italy. Nadia reminisces of the times her mother and Nonna created hearty homecooked Italian meals and holds dear food memories with her family. This deep connection has influenced Nadia's love for southern Italian cooking, with her passion projects including cooking, recipe creation and cookbook development. Nadia enjoys the creativity and experimentation of 'veganising' classic ...
Oct 18, 2021•46 min
Zak is a passionate fourteen year old activist from southeast England. Zak went vegetarian when he was twelve years old. He started questioning veganism and began researching it on Youtube. He came across Joey Carbstrong where he learnt about the dairy industry and saw slaughterhouse footage. Zak found this extremely confronting and decided to go vegan. Zak was eager to become an activist, asking his parents if he could join a Cube of Truth as soon as he went vegan. Having gone to his first acti...
Oct 11, 2021•21 min
Hannah Pledger-Firth is a full time university student and Chairperson of the newly established Young Animal Justice Party Victoria Branch. Hannah was raised vegetarian and hadn't given eggs and dairy much consideration until she saw a short video on the dairy industry. Hannah did her own research, realised the animal cruelty involved and decided to go vegan at age 14. Much of Hannah's family is now vegan including her mother, step father and sister. Hannah regularly attended activism events wit...
Oct 04, 2021•22 min
Rebecca Veale was born and raised in a small farming village in the United Kingdom. Rebecca and her sister went vegetarian in their teenage years. Rebecca moved to Australia in 2005 and a then few years ago, she had a chance encounter with an Anonymous for the Voiceless Cube of Truth in Southbank. She went vegan on the spot after seeing footage of male chicks in the egg industry. Rebecca has always loved cooking, being an avid baker as a child. She regularly develops and shares vegan recipes on ...
Sep 27, 2021•32 min
Peanuts Wellbeing Sanctuary began when Tracey decided she could do more to help animals and people suffering abuse. Tracey quit her job, rented a property with acreage and began taking in animals that needed help. She quickly realised the dire need for more space to be able to help more animals, so she set about buying a property near Goulburn, south of Sydney. It was during the establishment of her new property, that Tracey met her partner Mick. Mick, a builder by trade, helped set up the requi...
Sep 20, 2021•47 min
Johanna Lostao is a university student studying intercultural communications and media studies in Germany. Born in Argentina, her family immigrated to Germany at age seven. Johanna speaks six languages and lived in Italy last year to immerse herself in the language and culture as part of her studies. Johanna went vegetarian at twelve years old after seeing a tv commercial about chicken and making the connection with what was on her plate. Just before she turned eighteen, Johanna went vegan and h...
Sep 13, 2021•29 min
Aline Dürr was pregnant with her first child, when she started to move away from eating meat. After Aline's daughter was born, she came across a short video about the dairy industry and she connected with it so deeply. Aline received an invitation to the premiere screening of Dominion and she felt the need to attend. This bought about big change, as Aline came home and told her partner she was going vegan and wanted to raise their daughter vegan. Aline is an interior designer and after going veg...
Sep 06, 2021•42 min
Hudson Tarlow was raised vegetarian and during his freshman year, he was scrolling through YouTube and came across content from a vegan activist. Hudson binged watched hours of animal rights content, learning the truth about the animal agriculture industry and realised he had been living a lie as a vegetarian. Hudson went vegan in June 2017, at age 15 and he knew at that point, he wanted to be an activist. Less than six months later, he convinced his parents to drive him to a Cube of Truth event...
Aug 30, 2021•25 min
Emma Hakansson always thought of herself as an animal lover, but her actions didn't always align. Emma was on exchange in Sweden when she made the connection with the animals on her plate. A year later at age 16, Emma went completely vegan and started attending demonstrations and volunteering with animal rights organisations. At the same time, Emma began modelling through an agency as she enjoyed the aesthetics and creativity involved. She quickly became conscious of her values and felt a sense ...
Aug 23, 2021•28 min
Bre Wigley is a professional vegan bodybuilder and new mumma. She has always had a passion for fitness and decided in 2015 that she wanted to compete vegan. She had been vegetarian before that, but after watching a few documentaries, Bre recognised that she knew better, so she had to do better. Bre was raised in Tennessee (USA), so she went entirely against the grain when she stopped consuming animal products. Despite people and other athletes saying it would be impossible for her to gain muscle...
Aug 16, 2021•26 min
Katrina grew up in a compassionate household, with her sister and father going vegetarian in the early 1970s because they could not cause animals to suffer. She followed in their footsteps, becoming vegetarian at age 17, and soon started her animal rights activism journey, volunteering with Animal Liberation Victoria during her university studies. Katrina had been holding onto the label of vegetarianism until she stopped making excuses for herself seven years ago and finally went vegan. She has ...
Aug 09, 2021•46 min
Ashkr was raised vegetarian until age seven, when he began eating seafood. He had quite a nomadic upbringing, travelling around Australia while being home schooled, until his family decided to call Melbourne home at age 10. Ashkr always loved cooking and undertook a chef apprenticeship during year 11 and 12 VCAL. During this time, he organised a food stall at a local school and raised money for Sea Shepherd. He became so passionate about Sea Shepherd's work, that he joined their Onshore Crew and...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Dim Kailaris was raised in a Greek family, with strong ties to culture and traditions including eating meat, dairy and eggs in every meal. He could never understand people being vegan, until seven years ago when he watched Earthlings. Dim saw what happens inside slaughterhouses and went vegetarian. Two months later, he learnt about the egg and dairy industry and went vegan from an ethical standpoint. Being vegan was not enough, Dim needed to speak up about what was happening to animals, so he be...
Jul 26, 2021•39 min
Kim is a working mother of three, who studied law and moved into the public service to contribute to her local community. She was born in Vietnam and at age four, Kim and her family set sail on a small fishing boat to Hong Kong in search of a better life. At age 11, Kim and her family were accepted into Australia as refugees and Kim quickly learnt English as a second language. Kim was raised eating a traditional Asian diet, with meat in every meal, because it was seen as a luxury. It wasn't unti...
Jul 19, 2021•46 min
Matt Stellino watched in horror, as he saw a 4 Corners exposé on cattle in the live export industry. He looked online for footage that disproved what he had seen, only to find all of it was as horrible as what he had seen the night before and as a result Matt went vegetarian. In 2015, Matt and his partner went to Vegan Day out to learn more about the vegan lifestyle. After reading all of the information, it became obvious to Matt that he had still been contributing to the suffering of chickens a...
Jul 12, 2021•53 min
Cam Sherry is a 40 year old husband and father of two energetic boys. Cam works in the liquor industry and was a national track and field representative in his younger years. Cam describes his journey to veganism as a slower one, because little seeds were planted along the way. Cam's wife Hannah is a veterinarian and after she spent time with piglets, Hannah declared to Cam that they were no longer eating pigs. Cam and Hannah volunteered at Free the Bears Sanctuary in Cambodia for their honeymoo...
Jul 05, 2021•41 min
Asal grew up in Iran and moved to Australia as a student. The catalyst for Asal becoming vegan was when she saw fur farm footage on PETA's social media. Asal recalls feeling so upset, angry and helpless, she continued her research and decided going vegan was the only way forward. Asal became active soon after she went vegan, getting involved in local campaigns, however she didn't feel like she was being effective. Asal met her partner Paul in 2015 and in 2016, they started Anonymous for the Voic...
Jun 28, 2021•47 min
Georgie went vegetarian when she was four years old after witnessing a truck full of innocent pigs being taken to a slaughterhouse. Later in life, during her first year of university, Georgie watched "A Bloody Business" and "Earthlings" and recognised she needed to do more for animals, so she went vegan. Studying Law and Communications at university, Georgie knew she wanted to help protect animals and began work on three major animal campaigns at the time - Victorian puppy farms, jumps racing an...
Jun 21, 2021•26 min
Avalon Todaro is a well regarded vegan tattoo artist in Melbourne. Almost a decade ago, Avalon became aware of the horrors of meat, dairy and eggs from her older sister and became vegan after realising she couldn't support these industries. After following Edgar's Mission for a little while, Avalon saw they needed homes for a large number of rescued battery hens. She was drawn to the opportunity of providing a loving home and put in her application. Avalon and her partner Josh adopted their firs...
Jun 14, 2021•54 min
Jack Rock, also known as That Vegan Dad, is a husband and father of two young boys. Jack and his wife decided to go vegan after trying many ways to clear their youngest son's eczema. The family adopted a vegan diet and found great health benefits, but also understand the ethical and environmental aspects of living a vegan lifestyle. Jack is an avid cook, mastering quick and easy vegan meals for his family in under 30 minutes. His social media and website showcases simple vegan recipes, grocery h...
Jun 07, 2021•23 min
Nanda grew up in Argentina and once finished at school, he began travelling to experience the world. Nanda was always looking for more from life and began to delve deeper into spirituality. Nanda found meaning in the teachings of Hare Krishna and within a few months of joining his local Temple, Nanda became a Monk at age 21. Around the same time, he watched a video by Gary Yourofsky and recognised he could no longer be part of another being's suffering, so he went vegan overnight. Nanda now mana...
May 24, 2021•42 min
Andy began his career in the construction industry and trade unions, always being a strong voice when it came to safety concerns and marginalised workers. During his construction career, Andy worked on a jobsite next to a pig slaughterhouse and could not bear to hear the pigs screaming in the facility. He recognised the injustice animals face and decided to follow in his wife April's footsteps and go vegan. Andy has always had a love for politics, teaching himself about Australian, American and ...
May 17, 2021•36 min
Angela’s vegan journey is a little bit different to most, she became an activist before she became vegan. After watching “The Cove” Angela attended her first dolphin protest in August 2013 and signed up to her first Sea Shepherd campaign in Taiji as a Cove Guardian. In doing her research for the Taiji campaign, Angela read a book by Captain Paul Watson’ (founder of Sea Shepherd) and decided to go vegan in preparation for her time with Sea Shepherd. In 2014 Angela witnessed the horrific capture a...
May 10, 2021•1 hr 9 min
In this episode, I welcome back Sam Vas who shared his story in an earlier episode of A Kynd Life. Sam returns to share his knowledge and insights into meditation, having practiced meditation from the early age of five. Meditation has always been part of Sam's daily routine as he believes it's the key to life - we cannot experience life fully without a mind, body and soul connection. In this episode, Sam discusses his favourite types of meditation, the benefits and myths of mediation and some ti...
May 03, 2021•36 min
Catherine Kelaher recollects trying to save spiders and adoring bottle feeding lambs as a young girl. Catherine wishes she made the connection to animal exploitation earlier, having been a vegetarian that ditched dairy for a number of years. In 2008 Catherine finally aligned her actions with how she felt about animals and went vegan. She was active in animal rights organisations and in 2010, Catherine became aware of a local hen farm during an Animal Liberation meeting. After seeing rescue foota...
Apr 19, 2021•1 hr 5 min
James McLauchlan watched Cowspiracy after it was mentioned by a friend during university study. When James watched the documentary, he recognised what was happening to animals at the hands of humans, did not sit well with him. He proceeded to educate himself and within a few days, James went vegan. James recently graduated from Monash with a Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) and plans to commence his Clinical Psychology PhD next year. James volunteers with the Anxiety Hotline and conducts Applied...
Apr 12, 2021•23 min
Jonathan Sarandis admits that at a younger age, he found veganism difficult to understand and was quite sceptical. After educating himself on how animal products were produced and recognising farm animals weren't dissimilar from his beloved dog, he went vegan overnight. When Jonathan decided to go vegan, he reassessed much of his life, goals and values to make sure he was living in alignment with his own values and not society's expectations. It was not long after this, that Jonathan recognised ...
Apr 05, 2021•52 min
Adam Cardilini is a Lecturer of Environmental Science at Deakin University. Adam's PhD involved studying the evolutionary ecology of a bird species, the non native Common Starling. He began to connect with the birds and struggled to kill the individuals in the name of science. Adam spent time at dairy farms as part of his PhD research and became vegan after witnessing the horrific conditions dairy cows were kept in and the blatant disregard for their welfare. Adam talks about how these images st...
Mar 29, 2021•50 min
Helen Seta went vegan after overhearing a work colleague talking about bobby calves in the dairy industry. Helen knew being vegan wasn't enough, so she quickly became involved in animal rights activism. Helen is the Oceania Liaison for the Animal Save Movement as well as organiser for Melbourne Chicken Save. Being a graphic designer by trade, Helen recognises the need for the development of effective messaging and brings together creative people to provide free resources for animal organisations...
Mar 22, 2021•32 min
Monique Medved and I walked 62km along the Surf Coast to raise money for a Nepalese man Sancha, his family and community who have been hard hit with no income from tourism as a result of COVID19. In this episode, Mon and I reflect on our thoughts and experiences during this massive physical and mental challenge. We chat about saying yes to experiences outside your comfort zone, not having expectations about how the experience was going to go, maintaining a positive mindset when physical barriers...
Mar 15, 2021•48 min
