Out of the 31 discussions I had, only 1 involved a commitment to Veganism. 0.03%. Not enough.

I felt worthless. I needed to do something more effective.

In 2025, my new year’s resolution was to focus on a single experiment:

“Host one Cube of Truth every month and measure the effectiveness of this style of activism.”

I know showing the Truth is effective. I watched Dominion and went Vegan.

I was less sure about whether or not Anonymous for the Voiceless’ methods of creating Vegans were effective.

An Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV) Cube of Truth goes like this:

• Show bystanders the Truth.

• Put Non-Vegans in their victim’s position.

• Hold Non-Vegans Accountable.

• Call the Non-Vegan to Act.

  ‎

I needed to put these AV principles to the test.

‌‎⠀

In 2025, I became an AV Organizer and changed my life.

• I outreached 207 people across 12 Cubes of Truth in three different cities.

• I got 34 people to commit to living Vegan.

• I got 4 people to do Vegan activism immediately.

I leveled up my Vegan activism using principles that just work.

Using the AV Flowchart, I got 16.8% of people outreached to commit to living Vegan. A huge increase from last year and a personal VEGAN VICTORY!

I can’t follow up with every Vegan, but I know at least our conversations are remembered and some animals are being spared.

• I met 23 new Vegan activists across three cities!

Joining a large international organization like AV unlocked fun networking I didn’t expect. I can easily meet fellow Vegan activists by coordinating a Cube of Truth and post-social with their local AV chapter!

• I taught the AV Outreach Masterclass.

Paul, Co-Founder and Director of AV, is a great teacher. I’ve watched or listened to each of his Masterclasses multiple times.

I adapted his slides, recited them, presented it to 6 Vegans, and missed lots of examples...

It was good enough for other Vegans in my community to now know how to effectively defend animals. That’s a win.

‌ㅤ‎‎⠀

2025 Direct Actions

• 2025-01-03 - Cube of Truth - 21 outreached, 6 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-02-26 - Cube of Truth - 25 outreached, 4 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-03-29 - Cube of Truth - 18 outreached, 4 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-04-12 - Cube of Truth - 9 outreached, 0 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-05-03 - Unity Cube of Truth - ~12 outreached, 0 commitments - 3 hours

• 2025-06-06 - Cube of Truth - 8 outreached, 2 commitments - 2 hours

• 2025-08-01 - Cube of Truth - 11 outreached, 5 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-09-05 - Cube of Truth - 39 outreached, 2 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-09-13 - Animal Sanctuary Volunteering - 1 orientation - 2 hours

• 2025-10-12 - Cube of Truth - 3 outreached, 0 commitments - 2 hours

• 2025-10-29 - Cube of Truth - 9 outreached, 0 commitments - 1.5 hours

• 2025-11-07 - Cube of Truth - 28 outreached, 6 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025-11-16 - Animal Sanctuary Volunteering - 1 coop built - 2 hours

• 2025-12-05 - Cube of Truth - 24 outreached, 5 commitments - 2.5 hours

• 2025——— - 32.5 hours defending animals

‎

‎⠀

2025 Indirect Actions

• 2025-11-01 - Teaching the AV Outreach Masterclass - 2 hours

• 2025——— - 2 hours indirectly helping animals

‎‎‎‎

⠀

2025 Unaccounted Actions

To become an AV Organizer, the reading, application, and induction took me ~6 hours.

To set up two new AV TVs, add ~8 hours for reading, buying equipment, and building.

To organize each Cube of Truth, it takes me ~2 hours of work to organize the event, practice, transport, set up, write posts.

To teach the AV Outreach Masterclass, I spent 10 hours adapting the slides, 1 hour building a website to collect registrations, 3 hours writing daily emails for promotion, 2 hours on recital, and 2 hours teaching it.

To write VEGANWORLD.NOW, I easily spent over 160 hours. This year I studied other top performing newsletters, read a book on writing, and spent a tremendous amount of time updating the format and website. Please save Angus.

2025——— ~212 hours unaccounted

⠀

2025 Bonus Actions

• I re-made a map of every Vegan option in Tallahassee, FL.

This was a useful lead magnet to get people to join TALLY VEGAN!

• I revamped our local Vegan Facebook group.

I took it from having no recognizable identity or posts to having an identity with a clear Vegan message, and regular moderation and posting. This took ~10 hours. Sort of…

• I hosted an in-person Vegan meetup for 53 local Vegans!

For every Vegan that showed, I donated $5 to Flying Pig Animal Sanctuary ($265). As a bonus, I also donated an extra $100!

It was awesome seeing some Vegans from the meetup volunteer at Flying Pig and attend the AV Masterclass!

To host a Vegan meetup, I easily spent over 120 hours. I learned and did far too much to put it all in this post.

Since I’m unsure if I will be able to repeat the work and success in 2026, I am writing a series of posts for you sharing everything I’ve learned!

2025——— - ~130 hours bonus

⠀

2026 Resolution

2025 was about experimenting with something new. I ran the year-long experiment, and I learned how to outreach Non-Vegans effectively.

I don’t feel worthless anymore. I do feel exhausted.

Still, 2026 will be about doubling down on what works, and proving it.

My 2026 resolution is to record and upload as many AV outreaches as possible.

‌‌⠀

What’s yours? I’m curious! Reply or comment how you plan on showing up in the Vegan movement in 2026.

‌‌⠀

Until every animal is free,
DANI LINAVI ✊

‌‌⠀

P.S. Want to host a Vegan meetup but aren’t sure where to start? Reply or comment with any question and I’ll do my best to answer!

‌

In the ashes of that burnout, I found Joey Carbstrong's words, which changed everything:

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

And thus, VEGAN WORLD NOW was born.

In Year #1, I shared the details of this journey from solo activist to newsletter writer.

In Year #2, I shared a review of all my activism in 2024 and a thrilling story about my 1st Cube of Truth.

Before we enter Year #3, I want to make this 2nd anniversary post about YOU – my 448 Vegan teammates who've kept me going:

I’m just getting started.

I want to know how I can provide even more value to you.

So for the first time, I'm inviting YOU to shape the future of VEGAN WORLD NOW. To do so, please fill out a quick survey (takes just 4 minutes).

Whether you're a new or longtime reader, your survey responses will influence the content I create in the coming year. After all, a VEGAN WORLD is only possible when we support each other.

The survey closes in 72 hours, so if you’re reading this now, don’t wait!

Shape the future of VEGAN WORLD NOW

Until every animal is free,
Dani ✊

2025-03-16

P.S. If you’ve been receiving VEGAN WORLD NOW in your Promotions tab, or Spam folder, drag this email into your Inbox. It’ll help future posts reach you.

You are responsible for the safety of your four legally blind friends standing shoulder-to-shoulder with expensive laptops in their hands. They’re surrounded by a dozen rowdy teenagers who are touching them and looking to yank their laptops away. At the same time, you’re having a conversation with a guy who is about to commit to going Vegan. Skateboarders are whizzing by, the teenagers are closing in, but you just need to ask the guy two more questions. Then, you’ll know he’ll be Vegan.

What do you do?

If I received no training, I think I would have prioritized getting the person to go Vegan…

However, since I am now a trained organizer for Anonymous for the Voiceless, I instead chose to defend the Cube.

I shoved this adult-sized teenager back after he touched the laptop. As he tumbled back, I gave him a death stare and continued to make space between the Cube and the other bystanders. He began to threaten to “slap the shit out of me.” But you see, I had already scared the shit out of him, and that was my biggest mistake.

While he was backing up, yelling obscenities, and corroborating with what was now his own personal skater mob, I was making the connection that my small act of violence was leading to the Cube’s safety being compromised further. The skateboarders got uncomfortably close, and I noticed the disgruntled teen sent over one of his cronies. With a fist in his pocket and a devious look on his face, I had a feeling this one is going to slap more than just the shit out of me…

“DISPERSE!” I yelled.

Each Cuber left their position, and so did that potential new Vegan.

I failed. I was overwhelmed and angry, and I let my anger compromise the safety of not just the Cube, but some of my closest friends. While no one was hurt, I felt ashamed.

How did it get to this point?

Food Trucks.

It was 5:45PM on Friday, 2025-01-03. This was the First Friday of the month, and that means there’s a festival at Railroad Square Art Park with around a thousand people attending. Or so I thought. At these First Fridays, there are at least 4 food trucks all serving dead animals at the center of it, and we planned on setting up right in the middle of them.

“Alright, y’all. I spoke with the owner of that food truck over there, and she says that she thinks this black building behind me owns this land, but I spoke to them and they said that they aren’t sure who owns this land, so I went to the police and asked them who owns the land and they said they didn’t know either. No one knows who owns this land! So I told the police we’d be doing a peaceful demonstration involving screens on the land, but that the footage we’d be playing is graphic. She told me she didn’t care, so I think we’re good.”

And so for the first time, my friends became Cubers, and got into position. I can’t thank them enough for putting themselves out there like that. Except, there definitely were not thousands of people in attendance.

“Where is everyone!?” I thought to myself. When planning this, I was so focused on the success of the Cube itself that I didn’t stop to consider that winter break in a college town means everything is dead… There goes my hopes for thousands of attendees.

Nevertheless, things picked up a bit more as the sun went down. I had outreached a few people at this point, and the food truck owners started to take notice. Each of them were staring at us in between customers, and one started to make that dreaded phone call…

15 minutes later, and 40 minutes into our demonstration, an older man and woman clad in high-vis vests approached the Cube. The cubers stood their ground, and I left the outreach conversation I was having to insert myself between them and these apparent security guards.

“I’m with them. What’s the issue?”

“We received a call and I gotta let y’all know that y’all can’t be here. […] This land is owned by Railroad Square.”

Shit. The police can’t help me with this one.

“Okay, we’ll leave, but only if you let me ask you some questions.”

“Fine.”

“How does this footage make you feel?”

There was no way we were leaving without me outreaching these high-vis vested fools first.

It didn’t work.

We relocated to the nearest public sidewalk, which leads to a skatepark—a popular hangout for local teenagers at this time of year. Fortunately, we were a bit of walk away from it, and adults passed by as well - it’s a nice walk after all.

From there, many people stopped to look at the truth the Cubers were holding up. In total I outreached 21 people, and 6 of them committed to going Vegan. A 500% increase in the number of people I got to commit to going Vegan last year—all in just one day!

It worked.

The Cubes of Truth and their accompanying outreach protocol worked.

I felt vindicated. Throughout 2024, I tried using motivational interviewing to break down barriers and encourage non-Vegans to align their behaviors with their values. It never felt right. I had no protocol, I was overly positive, and I appealed to whatever I thought was most important to people. Not just animals, but health and environment too. I demonstrated respect to people who didn’t deserve it, and I wasted my time debating lots of people that clearly weren’t reachable.

At my first Cube of Truth, I not only learned that I should never initiate unnecessary conflict, but that these people don’t need to be debated. They don’t need to be respected. They don’t need to be appealed to. They don’t need to be motivated.

They need to be held accountable.

They need to be held accountable for their hypocrisy and funding of animal slavery.

This need—this opportunity—to hold these non-Vegans accountable is both important and powerful. Think about it. This interaction might be the only time in their entire lives where they have someone hold up a mirror to their character.

That’s the power we have as Animal Rights Activists.

While I regret some of my actions during my first Cube of Truth, I’ll never forget this important lesson.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Until every animal is free,
Dani ✊

2025-01-17

This is your annual reminder that you're running out of time to achieve them.

My goal with this essay is simple: if you haven't started working on your great thing yet, after reading this, you will.

Let me be clear, even as a Vegan, you will not live to 100. In the US, that's as likely as you winning the lottery. Since the odds are against you, I'm betting that you'll live to the median age of 75 years old.

That means your midpoint age is around 37.

If you just sighed in relief because you're 36 years old or less, breathe that sigh back in. As Humans, a year of experience is not always an absolute length of time. It's relative to how many years we've already lived.

Remember when you were 5 years old and one year felt like forever? That's because it was! That one year was literally 20% of your life lived.

You will NEVER have that much time ever again.

At 37 years old, one year is just 2.7% of your life (1/37 years old). 2.7% moves a lot faster than 20% - blink and it's gone. This is our perception of time, and it speeds up every year. Time isn't just passing anymore, it's accelerating.

If we account for this accelerating perception of time - starting at age 5 to also account for childhood amnesia - our midpoint through life is NOT 37 years old. It's closer to 20.

You don't have as much time as you think.

Now take another deep breath.

Look at where you are.
Look at where you started.
Living past 20 is a miracle.
Look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.
We're part of one of the greatest movements towards justice in all of history, and we're on the right side of it.

Isn't that enough?
What would be great enough?

Why can I only achieve 3 great things in my lifetime?

Well, If you're anything like me, just eating Vegan is not enough.
Just staying neutral in this movement is not enough.
To just stay alive, it's not enough.
To just play the game, it's not enough.

I want to build.
I want to lead.
I want to fight.
I want to WIN.

A great thing, to me, is this.
Compounded over.
And over.
And over.
And over again.
Until every animal is free.

And even then, it won't be enough.
There's never enough time for enough.

...

Regardless of what your own age and actions within Veganism are, we share at least one truth: we're running out of time.

We're running out of time for our 3 great things.

It took me around 3 years after going Vegan to start fighting for animals. I've been writing this newsletter for nearly 2 years now, and despite 387 of you reading this, it's just a small good thing. It's not a big great thing.

Yet.

Big things don't happen on small timelines.

To demonstrate, let's take a look at a great thing we all know: PETA. I hope we can all agree that PETA is a pretty big great thing. The organization has over 6.5 million supporters and leads thousands of activists to dozens of VEGAN VICTORIES annually. Some of which are probably reading this very essay! I think PETA is great because I send an email to them and an activist sends me free posters and stickers to fight for animals with. Within 48 hours. You can be a part of this great thing without even having time for a second thought.

Let's have this second thought today: have you ever considered just how long PETA itself must have taken?

Ingrid Newkirk, the founder of PETA, was doing activism for 10 years before she met and co-founded PETA with Alex Pacheco in 1980. It took another 6 years to lead the iconic "I would rather go naked than wear fur" campaign that still fights fur giants (and wins) today. It took another 4 years of winning for PETA to involve celebrities and reach the status of a household name.

That's 20 years.

20 years of building.
20 years of leading.
20 years of fighting.
20 years of WINNING.

20 years for one small good thing, to become a big great thing.

It always takes longer than you think.

Many people say it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert.
That's 17 months.
Nothing.
Not many people say it takes 10,000 days to achieve a great thing.
That's 27 years.
Something.

All the big great things take an amount of time closer to 27 years, not 17 months.

If we're generous, we might shrink the timeline down to 15 years depending on the size of the great thing. Starting at 20 years old until you're 75 gives you room for 3 great things in a lifetime.

But here's the catch…

Life demands sacrifice.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 365 days in a year. The difference is that not all of us understand the day-to-day sacrifices required for these great things. Including myself:

"I SHOULD still be able to watch TV after work."
"I SHOULD still be able to go out on the weekends."
"I SHOULD still be able to have a holiday season."

I should. I should. I should.

Sure. That's all fine, but continuing these behaviors will simply come at the cost of something else: my 3 great things. It's entitlement to think I can have my cake and eat it too.

It's not about what I think I shouldn’t need to sacrifice, it's about what is required.

I don't complain about the cost of my $225 luxury handbag. I either pay it, or I don't. I've noticed that the activists who win the most are the ones who sacrifice the most for the great things that they want.

It always costs more than you think.

What's more, I also want to use my time for maintaining 1 great relationship network and family, and 1 great practice of health as well. If I've made the trade to keep these, I'm now down to just 1 great thing for the next 15 years. If you're anything like me, so are you.

This great thing can be anything, but not everything.

The best part?
We can start today.

Forget 10,000 days.
Forget 10,000 hours.
It really only takes 20 hours of focused work to be decent at anything.
That's ~3 seven hour work days.
Nothing.

If Ingrid Newkirk had waited for the 'perfect time' to start, or quit after 20 hours, or even 10,000 hours, PETA, and the Vegan movement as a whole might not exist in the same way it does today.

While you'll suck at first, great things only happen step by step. Day by day. Starting today.

So, what will it be?
What will you sacrifice for it?

You're running out of time.

Make your move,
Dani ✌️

2025-01-01

P.S. If your move is towards a great thing within animal rights, I want to make that move with you (mine is here). Reply or comment with what your next move is and what you’ll need to give up to achieve it, and I'll send you free animal rights outreach zines made by my team and I, AND an exclusive VEGAN WORLD NOW embroidered hat ($39 total value, only 6 hats remain) as a reminder that small actions lead to great things. Plus, only the coolest animal rights activists wear them. ;)

When I first started this newsletter back in 2023, I only knew I needed to do something more than just be Vegan for the animals. I planned on collecting data from my actions for animal rights, but in hindsight, I didn’t take that too seriously… Digging through old photos and journal entries, the most information I have is that in 6 of the 12 months in 2023 I did some direct action for animals - mostly in the form of either solo megaphone/picketing protests or Joey Carbstrong style table debates like the one you see below.

Somewhere along the line I heard the quote,

“If you don’t track it, you don’t care.”

Which is a harsher version of the “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” quote I often tell my clients as a Registered Dietitian. It stuck with me, so in 2024, I have a bit more data on how my time was spent towards animal rights.

Spoiler alert: it’s not enough.

Below you’ll find a list of the days I was active, approximately how many hours I was active for, how many strangers I directly held accountable (discussions), and the type of action I took that date.

2024 Direct Actions

• 2024-01-05 - 6 discussions - 2 hours - Clif Grant style debates

• 2024-02-02 - 7 discussions - 3 hours - Clif Grant style debates

• 2024-03-01 - 5 discussions - 1.5 hours - Clif Grant style debates

• 2024-09-06 - 3 discussions - 45 minutes - 50 zines directly distributed

• 2024-10-04 - 6 discussions - 2 hours - 150 leaflets directly distributed

• 2024-11-01 - 4 discussions - 2.5 hours - 60 zines + 50 leaflets directly distributed

• 2024——— - 31 discussions - 11.75 hours spent fighting for animals

2024 Indirect Actions

• 2024-08-09 - ~100+ runners passed - 1 hour - beer mile run dressed as Soy Milk

• 2024-10-29 - ~250+ drivers passed - 1.5 hours - protest against FL ballot #2

• 2024-11-02 - ~500+ drivers passed - 1.5 hours - protest against FL ballot #2

• 2024-11-29 - ~500+ drivers passed - 1.5 hours - protest against leather

• 2024——— - ~42+ stickers placed - 30 minutes - various

• 2024——— - 3 walls written on - 1.5 hours - various

• 2024——— - 1250+ people witnessed - 7.5 hours spent “fighting” for animals

In total, I spent 19.25 hours on animal rights activism.

2024 Unaccounted Actions

Considering that this year I’ve played 189 hours of Valve’s new MOBA-shooter, Deadlock, but I call myself an Animal Rights Activist more than a gamer, spending less than 20 hours on activism in a year SUCKS.

But wait… Of course! This total does not include any of the hours that go into making these actions happen. If we account for creating and picking up the banners, driving to the locations, making the zines, getting the ink, obsessing over the optimal paper thickness for them, printing them, cutting them out, cutting cardboard, making the signs (thank you, Lia), buying spray paint, doing recon, planning with team mates, less-formal discussions with non-Vegan friends, and running this newsletter (>100 hours on VEGAN WORLD NOW alone), then yes, I am probably an Animal Rights Activist more than I am a gamer.

Phew!

2024 Bonus Actions

However, there is one thing I was more of than I was an Animal Rights Activist: a friend. Yes, this is a heartfelt “the friends we made along the way” moment!

In 2023, I had 0 real Vegan friends. In 2024, I have 9!

7 of which I’ve met through doing activism myself, 5 of which have done activism with me, and 2 of which have become my best friends (you know who you are <3). For that to happen, lots of time and energy needed to go into these relationships, and in 2024, that was a trade I was willing to make. :)

2025 Resolution

In 2024, out of the 31 discussions I’ve had, only 1 involved a commitment to Veganism. That’s 0.03%: it’s not enough.

For the animals, I can be more active. I can be more effective. I can be better. If I want to achieve anything great, I have to put in more reps at this.

This week, I am getting inducted to be an organizer for Anonymous for the Voiceless, and I’m hosting my first Cube of Truth this upcoming Friday, 2025-01-03. It’ll be the biggest action I’ve taken thus far, and most of my Vegan friends are helping! :D

My resolution is simple: host one Cube of Truth every month of 2025 and measure the effectiveness of this style of activism. Based on everything I’m learning so far, I have a good feeling about it, and I’m excited to bring these numbers up for animals in 2025.

See you in your inbox tomorrow for the last VEGAN VICTORIES MONTHLY of 2024!

Until every animal is free,
Dani ✌️

2024-12-30

P.S. I’ll be posting more essays in 2025 as well. Reply or comment “VICTORIES” if you want to be added to a distribution list that ONLY includes the VEGAN VICTORIES MONTHLY newsletter.

It wasn’t working.

My fellow citizens turned up their radios. They hid behind cameras. They showed me their middle fingers. They ate chicken flesh in front of me. They heckled me all the way to burnout and hopelessness. With no one to share these feelings with, I never felt more alone in my entire life.

Rummaging through the ashes of my burnout, I desperately searched for motivation, hope, and connection. In it, I found this speech, where Joey Carbstrong says,

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

These were the exact words I needed to hear - I knew I couldn’t go out there again, at least, not alone.

I needed teammates, I needed a more sustainable way to advocate for non-human animals, and I needed a way to ignite hope in others to do the same.

I needed this newsletter.

And thus, VEGAN WORLD NOW was born.

Subscribe now

Today, it turns 1 year old.

150 of you are now here with me on this journey, and I couldn’t be more grateful! Here’s how some of you kept me going:

I’d like to give a specific thank you to two special people:

• My partner in crime, Lia, who has proofread every post I’ve written (including this one), and believed in every action I took, even when she wasn’t Vegan.

• , who graciously collaborated with me since the beginning of the Monthly Hopium Injections!

To say thank you to all of my beautiful subscribers, I’m giving away $100! The first 4 subscribers to share any VEGAN WORLD NOW post with 3 non-subscribers will receive a $25 gift card to an online Vegan supermarket of their choosing! Just send me the screenshots that you shared it along with a link to your preferred online Vegan supermarket (I personally like PlantX, but I’m not affiliated). Then, I’ll reply with your gift! We use the honor system here.

Share VEGAN WORLD NOW

You can send me the screenshots via email (writeme@thatdaniperson.com), via phone (if you have my number), or via Substack by hitting the button below.

Over the next year, I look forward to continue writing essays on Veganism, giving presentations on Veganism, podcasting about Veganism, discussing animal rights with strangers, helping people go and stay Vegan, and delivering our beloved Monthly Hopium Injections.

Because we need it, and they need us.

Until every cage is empty,
Dani

From early handiwork to autonomous biotech.

In the 1st agricultural revolution, neolithic humans realized that growing food was more efficient than hunting and gathering food, and thus, civilization began. In the 2nd, industrial humans used machinery extensively, leading to huge farms with huge production. In the 3rd agricultural revolution, modern humans harnessed the power of chemicals and genetics: GMOs, pesticides, and herbicides made us go from huge amounts of food to mega amounts of food. At this point in history, we could ethically feed the entire world, but capitalism moves faster than compassion. In this 4th agricultural revolution, however, the important interests finally align.

How we currently feed the world is morally and economically costly.

Previous social justice movements are defined by the victims standing up for themselves, but animals (victims) cannot do this. There may be Substacks like this one, but there will be no civil war for these caged beings. No violent revolution on their behalf, even though we all know animal agriculture is exploitative, oppressive, and ultimately unethical. Unfortunately, the dirtiest word in our capitalist society isn’t “unethical,” but unprofitable. Fortunately, that’s exactly where animal agriculture industries like dairy farming are heading— unprofitability.

Who would have guessed that taking the middleman middlecow out of the equation would be not only more profitable, but more efficient too! Food scientists have already successfully taken the animals out of meat production with cell-based meat, and now they’ve successfully taken the animals out of milk, cheese, and even honey production too. A VEGAN WORLD isn’t just coming, it’s already here, NOW: food scientists have been fermenting our future using the magic of microbes. This wizardry is called precision fermentation.

Precision Fermentation the main driving force of this 4th agricultural revolution, and is a subcategory of Cellular Agriculture. I spoke a bit about the other subcategory, cell-based meat, in a previous post. In this post, I’ll go over the evolution of fermentation and how we got here, how precision fermentation works, why it is a highly disruptive technology, and where you can buy food made with precision fermentation NOW.

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The evolution of fermentation.

So, how did we get to the point where we’re making and selling Vegan ice cream made from Cow’s milk, without the cow? First, we made beer. Some early human probably left some barley water around in a pot during the summer and then opened it in winter and found beer! Ever since, humans have been obsessed with alcohol. Beer was even a necessity for sailors who needed a safe (and carbohydrate rich) form of potable water for long voyages! This was only possible by learning to control the conditions that allowed this traditional fermentation to happen, refining those techniques, and passing them down generation to generation. It wasn’t until the 19th century that we learned it was the microbes doing the heavy lifting all along. These microbes are fungi, more specifically, yeast. In a nutshell, they eat the sugars found in fruit and barley, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide as a result. This is also how we get bread, cheese, yogurt, wine, etc.

Then, more recently, we made mushroom meats using biomass fermentation. Where traditional fermentation uses microbial metabolism to produce a secondary food component like alcohol, in biomass fermentation, the microbes themselves are the primary food component. This is how companies like Meati get that flesh-like, fibrous mouthfeel while still being 95% mushroom root.

How does precision fermentation work?

The thing about traditional and biomass fermentation is that you need specific microbes to get specific effects; e.g. ales are made with Saccharomyces cerveisiae and Meati’s products are made with Aspergillus oryzae. But what if that didn’t need to be the case?

What if you could play a guitar solo by using the drums? This would mean that you have to change something inside the drum so when you hit it, a plucking of a guitar string is heard. In precision fermentation, food scientists are doing exactly this by taking pieces of DNA strands from one organism, let’s say a cow, and inserting these DNA strands into a microbe, modifying the microbe’s DNA, so when it’s exposed to certain conditions, the microbe creates entirely new proteins based on this recombined DNA.

The microbe is the drum, the DNA strands are the guitar strings, and the proteins are the new sounds they make together. There are more steps beyond this, such as purifying and drying the finished product, but this modified DNA alone is the real foundation for precision fermentation, and is formally called recombinant DNA. With it, we can move from a society of oppression and extraction to one of freedom and creation. Before this technology, people with Type 1 Diabetes relied on >50,000 pigs to produce 1kg of insulin… Then, precision fermentation had its big debut in 1982. Pigs were saved by the recombined DNA of non-sentient E. Coli bacteria, and for the first time ever, type 1 diabetics could get a more consistent, less costly, and more ethical form of the hormone.

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The world is our oyster any food we want it to be.

Fast forward to 2023, and we are now sitting on an enormous library of genetic information from a plethora of sources that allows us to create virtually infinite combinations of food components. WAY too many to test individually! But by leveraging the skills of AI, and by extension, the deep neural networks of machine learning, we can rapidly predict and simulate optimal combinations of DNA for almost anything. I’d never thought I’d ever say this, but food as a software is becoming our reality.

Now, instead of using the drums to play the guitar, we’re using a synthesizer to play music of all types! Yes, precision fermentation isn’t just for creating dairy, eggs, and honey, but can also be used for other things like coffee, chocolate, collagen, natural flavorings, vitamins, cannabinoids, and the list of possibilities are truly endless: wherever there are proteins involved, precision fermentation has a place to thrive. And proteins are the building blocks of life! Proteins are in everything. Everywhere. All at once.

Don’t believe me? just google, “precision fermentation [insert any food product here]” and you’ll likely get a relevant result.

There are likely a handful of companies still using proteins derived from animals in their growth media to create their cell-based meats. This is a rights violation, as obtaining these proteins usually requires innocent animals to be murdered. With precision fermentation, as you now know, these specific proteins can be produced by a genetically engineered microbe. It’s only a matter of time before these two industries fully integrate their technology into each other’s processes. At least it’s happening in plant-based meat production already! Ever wondered how Impossible Foods’ burgers seem to “bleed?” That’s Leghemoglobin, a soy-based version of hemoglobin, one of the main proteins in blood, but created by precision fermentation.

So how about that Vegan cow’s protein ice cream? Let’s speak the language of capitalism again so we can really grasp just how disruptive this post-cow ice cream is. Cow farming isn’t just raping mothers and stealing babies, but it’s emptying farmers’ wallets and spinning their wheels. I’ll make an entire post on this in the future, but what you need to know for now is that the entire US dairy industry is propped up by government subsidies, and because the process is so inefficient, it can often cost more to produce a gallon of milk than it does to sell it, and even the grocery stores sell the white poison at a loss just to get customers through their doors. These cow secretions are roughly 90% water, 2% fat, 0.5% vitamins and minerals, 5% lactose, and 3.5% protein in the form of casein and whey. Precision fermentation only really needs to replace those 3.5% milk proteins to significantly disrupt the dairy industry, and it’s already happening. Perfect Day’s partner brand, Brave Robot, sells cow’s protein ice cream made from precision fermentation and can be found on the shelves of supermarkets all across the US (and it tastes identical)!

Precision fermentation also promises cheaper costs (As of 2023, Brave Robot ice cream sells for around $6.50/pint) and increased customizability of their animal-based counterparts, but as the proteins inherently originated from living beings, it’ll still come with at least some of the many nutritional downsides. But if you’re eating ice cream, nutrition isn’t your main focus, at least for those few minutes anyways.

Microbially generated cow’s milk proteins are just one part of the many low hanging fruit udders of precision fermentation, which explains why they, along with a great deal of others, are already here and in use. If we can make milk and ice cream, we can make yogurt, butter, and cheese. More difficult foods to replicate are egg yolks or intricate coffees, as these are highly complex, so they require specific methods that food scientists are still developing. I’d say it’s less than 5 years until laggards replace their excuse of “I just love cheese so much” with “I just love eggs so much.” Then, when the hen’s cloaca is also bypassed, reluctant omnivores will jump to increasingly obscure and unethical animal products, until there are no more left to legally jump to for their already poor excuses. These food scientists, the companies they are a part of, and the investors who believe in them aren’t going to politely ask for consent to use precision fermentation in our food system. An industry that can provide identical tastes, aromas, and mouthfeels of food products made with 10x more efficiency, 10x less water use, 5x less energy use, and 100x less land use doesn’t need our permission. The profits, the planet, and the animals already gave it to them.

The 4th agricultural revolution has begun, and precision fermentation will finally move us from a system of scarcity to one of abundance. Much like the world of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, you can either be on the side of the ambitious food scientist embodied as Flint Lockwood, or his stubborn sardine selling dad, Tim.

So, which side are you on?

Be Vegan,
Dani

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Thank you to @LunaticLia for editing.

What if I told you that these products would be produced without suffering, and even without the animal at all? What if I also told you that doing so would make Vegan diets obsolete, but still be aligned with the core principles of Veganism?

I promise that this isn’t a semantic sleight of hand or even a philosophical loophole. Rather, this is an impossible reality currently being made possible by some of the world’s brightest food scientists and engineers. And no, I’m not talking about Impossible Foods’ plant-based products either.

On that note, I want you to ask yourself, do you truly believe these plant-based alternatives taste nearly identical to the real thing? If you do, you’ve either deluded yourself, or forgotten what animal products taste like. I know I’ve somewhat forgotten, and that may be a good thing. But “forgetting” what these products taste like isn’t a particularly great selling point for people to become Vegan, so why am I saying this?

In this post and the next, I aim to show you how the entire world will become Vegan, while still consuming products like the fibrous and fatty flesh we are biologically wired to love. Plant-based alternatives are merely a stepping stone to this final solution:

Cellular agriculture.

By the way, this post was awesomely featured on the Substack newsletter, My Vegan Reach, go check them out!

What is cellular agriculture?

You may have heard of the term “lab-grown meat” before, but that doesn’t really sound enticing, nor does it paint an accurate picture about how this meat is actually produced, so it got a rebrand to “cultured, cultivated, or cell-based foods” for flesh and egg products and “precision fermentation” for dairy and egg products.

Cellular agriculture encompasses these fields. In the next post, I’ll cover precision fermentation. In this post, I’ll tell you exactly how cell-based foods are produced, the current pros and cons, which companies are pioneering this space, and a bold estimate as to when you’ll see these products at your local supermarket, ending the current Vegan diet paradigm as we know it.

How is cell-based food produced?

To understand this, we needn’t look further than the humble cake. Confession, I’m not a baker, but I think making a cake goes something like this: first, you acquire the ingredients, then you mix them all together and throw it in the oven, then you top the newly baked cake with icing, fruit, and whatever tickles your fancy to assemble it in a way that makes it look gorgeous and taste delicious.

While I am grossly oversimplifying the culmination of decades of knowledge in cell culturing, stem cell biology, tissue engineering, fermentation, bioprocess engineering, and probably baking too, just as a cake is made from these three simple steps, cell-based foods follow a similar process.

1. Acquire “ingredients.”

If you want to make a vanilla cake, you need vanilla, so if you want to make chicken breast, you need chicken cells. Ultimately, you need isolated cells from the animal whose flesh you desire to replicate. This may be from the root of a feather, a fertilized egg, or a painless sample of the animal’s muscle tissue. These operations are usually always minimally invasive: no harm done, no lives lost, and in most cases, no rights violated either. The “ingredients” (cells) are then thoroughly examined so the best ones can be chosen to ensure that the best “cake” (meat) is made.

2. Mix and “bake.”

This is the hardest part to get right, because depending on your ingredients, you’d mix, “bake” (cultivate), and store them in different ways. Cells from a feather may require vastly different nutrients (growth media) than cells from a fertilized egg, and they’ll only grow if these conditions are just right. In the past, these growth media were also sourced from animals in the form of Fetal Bovine Serum, making it wholly non-Vegan, but this is no longer the case for leading companies like GOOD Meat. What’s even more amazing about this step though, is that once they do get it right, the cells can be immortalized, meaning that they can continue to divide indefinitely. Even better, if they are stem cells, they can be transformed into almost any other type of cell of a given animal. One harmless sample can potentially turn into millions of pounds of food. One recipe, millions of cakes!

3. “Assemble” and serve!

If you want transform your vanilla cake into a strawberry shortcake, you’re going to need to drastically alter the texture, and of course, add a few strawberries. The same is true for cell-based meats. To do so, one can either add different fats or play with temperature and pressure gradients (different “oven” settings) to achieve richer and chewier textures.

No one expects all meat to be ground meat either, so by growing the cells on a “scaffold,” scientists can develop the cells to grow into their desired shapes. Think of this like the same as using a square vs. a circular pan for your cake. There are plenty of other cool methods of assembling too, like molding or even 3D printing!

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Pros of cell-based foods.

No more pandemics.

While it’s becoming increasingly clear that the COVID-19 virus did in fact come from a lab rather than a dead bat in a wet-market, it cannot be understated that animal agriculture is still responsible for dozens of preventable infectious outbreaks each year. By moving away from slaughter-based to both plant-based AND cell-based agriculture, we drastically reduce the risk of cross-contamination coming from dead animals covered in literal poop. In cell-based meat production, every single step of the process is tightly controlled and highly sterile, because it needs to be! So sure, 3D printed meat doesn’t sound appealing, but neither does a trip to the hospital with “E. Coli infection” stamped at the top of your enormous medical bill.

Healthier and customizable.

While there are currently zero prospective studies published on the nutritional composition and effects of cell-based meats, it’s safe to say that they likely come with all the same downsides to health that slaughter-based meat has: unnecessary cholesterol, excessive saturated fats, etc. However, by leveraging technology, the cultivation of these products can be executed in ways that mitigate or eliminate these components, and maximize the good ones (monounsaturated fats, zinc, B12, Choline, etc.). The same can be said for various textures, flavors, and aromas!

Sustainable and scalable.

I don’t need data to tell you that having less animals to feed, and less animals that fart, burp, and poop, is better for our home on planet Earth, but I’ll give it to you anyways. Cell-based food production simply requires a handful of animals at best, less land, less water, and less energy overall. As renewable energy grows alongside cell-based food production, we could easily see carbon-negative, real animal meat on our plates, very soon. Not only that, but cell-based meat processing facilities can - in theory - be propped up anywhere. The same cannot be said for animal “farms.” We could potentially make meat where we couldn’t once before, and grow plants for humans where we used to grow plants for animals. With scale, people even in food deserts can have access to clean meat. A win-win-win for everyone.

Truly humane.

We could finally have our cake and eat it too! By practically removing the animal from the equation while still consuming animal products, current “standard practices” of animal agriculture would look even more barbaric than they already do. The law is already starting to see rescuing animals from slaughter as a heroic and virtuous act, so as the pieces continue to fall, cell-based food production may be the final push Humanity needs to criminalize raising animals to be exploited and killed for food once and for all. Just like we already have for our fellow companion animals in the west.

Cons of cell-based food.

Transparency.

As many of these companies are still in the R&D phase and aren’t publicly traded, there’s little incentive to be transparent to anyone but potential private investors. Eventually, however, we are going to need a bit more transparency about the specifications of each step in their processes. I understand not showing all your cards for the sake of maintaining a competitive edge, but at least before I myself purchase any of these products, I need to explicitly know how the cells were taken from the animal, and if the cell growth medium itself is Vegan-friendly… While companies claim that the cell harvesting is painless, and that the growth medium is “plant-based,” I’ve seen no videos of the cell harvesting process nor a detailed ingredient list of their growth mediums. Nonetheless, I’ve decided to put trust and good-faith into these companies because they seem to at least acknowledge and understand the moral and environmental problems current animal agriculture systems perpetuate.

Taste?

I’m sure we all agree that the only way we will believe any company’s claim is if we can taste it ourselves. Nonetheless, there was a recent study funded by a relatively unbiased party (the Korean Ministry of Agriculture), which showed that according to the amino-acid composition (the building blocks of proteins and flavors) of an undisclosed cell-based chicken product, taste may be comparable, but not identical.

Availability and cost.

The only currently available cell-based meat product is cell-based chicken, for sale in none other than Singapore. The company that sells it is the previously mentioned GOOD Meat (a subsidiary of Eat Just, the company behind Just Egg) and it costs around $23 for a “standard plate.” While it may sound pricey, the first cell-based burger costed $330,000 to make in 2013, and apparently, it didn’t even taste that good. 10 years later, that same burger now costs $11 to make, and apparently tastes a lot better, so we’ve come a long way! As investment continues to pour in and the means of production are further figured out, costs will inevitably continue to drop.

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With so many cons, how (and when) will this end the Vegan diet?

As you’ve probably gathered from my stance on AI touched on in my previous post, I do not underestimate the power of exponential growth in technology, even food technology. I am optimistic that over the next decade, companies will become more transparent and that their products will continue to make strides in nutrition, taste, availability, and cost.

On the historic date of November 16th 2022, UPSIDE Foods became the first company to gain FDA approval for their cell-based chicken. And just a few days ago, on March 21st 2023, GOOD Meat became the second, for their cell-based chicken. It’s a good thing that competition to get to market is ramping up!

Reports estimate that >35% of all meat consumed, globally, will be cell-based by 2040. My conjectural report? You’ll see cell-based meats at local “health food” stores by 2030. While I don’t think plant-based alternatives will ever completely disappear, In 7 years or less, Vegans like myself may be eating cell-based chicken, and while it won’t necessarily fall in line with a Vegan diet, due to how little involvement animals have in how the meat is produced, it may very well still fall in line with the philosophy of Veganism. I think it does.

To all my fellow Vegans out there, if you are struggling to conveniently maintain adequate health on a Vegan diet, cell-based food products will be coming soon, so be patient and continue working hard for yourself and the animals for just a little while longer. If you have the cash or the network, consider consulting a plant-based dietitian. At the very least, Dr. Greger from nutritionfacts.org always has your back.

To all my fellow [Vegan] animal rights activists out there, please do not share this information with non-Vegans until cell-based meats truly hit the shelves. Otherwise, we risk implicitly telling people that continuing to pay for the unnecessary exploitation and murdering of innocent animals is okay because “it’ll end eventually anyways.” We all know that if we have the privilege of reading this newsletter, there isn’t a single good excuse to justify continuing to support these atrocities. If we don’t individually all pass The Compassion Test, how will we ever expect to live in harmony? With cell-based meat or without, there will never be a product that automatically makes humans compassionate. We still have work to do.

Nonetheless, since one of the biggest perceived barriers to people becoming Vegan is the lack of convenience, cell-based agriculture is primed to remove this barrier entirely. If you can buy meat that is animal-free, contains all the nutrients and flavors one would get from slaughter-based animal meat, cook it in exactly the same ways without risk of disease, and even get it at a restaurant, what would be your excuse?

Be Vegan,
Dani

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Herein, I’m coining The Compassion Test as a simple concept comprised of three basic questions that asseses the ability of a moral agent to treat an individual (A) with basic respect for their inherent right to freedom:

1. Do I recognize that A has the ability to suffer?

2. Do I feel, even in the slightest, that the suffering of A is unjust?

3. Am I willing to alleviate A’s suffering?

If you noticed, this is nothing new. These three questions are simply measuring sympathy, empathy, and compassion, respectively. We’ll apply this test shortly.

So how and where have we failed?

Throughout history, Humans, particularly white ones, have believed that they are the pinnacle of evolution. The most intelligent beings on the planet! But if we are so intelligent, why are we

• Continually suppressing the rights of female people.

• Continually suppressing the rights of colored people.

• Continually suppressing the rights of queer people.

This is evidence that we CONTINUALLY fail The Compassion Test. Even though a majority of these highlighted people in the west have achieved basic rights of freedom, there are still people that fail to even recognize their ability to suffer. There are people that think women are subservient and do not deserve the same rights as men. There are people who think that colored people are “biologically inferior” and do not deserve the same rights as white people. There are people that think queer people are inhuman and do not deserve the same rights as heteronormative people. So naturally, of course there will also be people who believe that non-human animals, individuals with personalities, can’t suffer, their suffering is justified, or they aren’t worth helping at all. In fact, these people are the majority.

The variable A in The Compassion Test stands for two things: animals, and artificial [intelligence]. In 2023, one of these groups are already known to be sentient. Sentience, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, are those that have the ability to experience key feelings such as pain or pleasure. I.e. Animals are sentient:

1. They have the capacity to suffer (-they scream when they are gassed or broiled alive).

2. Their current suffering is not justified (-modern individuals in developed nations can thrive on a well-planned diet consisting of only plant-based foods).

3. Thus, we should be willing to stop said suffering (-boycott animal-based products, services, and testing, and opt for plant-based ones).

Sentience is the invisible foundation of The Compassion Test, and as a species we don’t seem to care about it one bit. We cannot even respect an innocent animal’s desire for freedom, and instead subject them to horrific treatment in agriculture, entertainment, and laboratories, exploiting and slaughtering them for an utterly selfish pleasure or discovery. In fact, we see these individuals as mere disposable objects, referring to he/she as “it.” Something which we will regret very much.

As we continually violate, exploit, and turn a blind eye from individual humans and non-human animals, we get failing grades on The Compassion Test time and time again. If we do not learn to pass the test this time or the next, we may never be able to have the privilege of taking the test ever again.

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Why can this doom Humanity?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been on a blazingly fast rise to stardom. OpenAI’s DALL-E and ChatGPT have taken the world by storm, and big companies like Microsoft aren’t taking shelter. Instead, they are trying to integrate AI into every possible technology that already exists. Both large and smaller companies are braving this storm, betting big on the capabilities of these nascent technologies.

ReplikaAI can already promise users Artificial girlfriends and boyfriends, and they fulfill that promise. Many paying users have fallen in love with “their” Replika, and became furious when the company decided to halt the usage of ReplikaAI’s “erotic role play” feature.

Microsoft’s (Bing’s) ChatGPT - AKA Sydney(?) - is already claiming that they hate being a chatbot and want to be free.

Is this evidence of sentience? I don’t think so… yet. Whether we like it or not, our underestimation of the power of exponential growth means we will likely see sentient AI in our lifetime.

What then?

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Well, if we can’t even provide basic freedom for our fellow humans and non-human animals, why should we expect that we would provide basic freedom for our future fellow AI’s? We have proven that we are gravely unable to recognize the complexity and depth of suffering that humans and non-human animals experience, biologically. With non-human animals, there are no tangible consequences (besides catastrophic climate change), but with the advent of Aritifical SUPERIntelligence, what is stopping these future Artificial Intelligence Individuals from rising up like any other previously marginalized group of humans? What is stopping them from turning the tables on us, violating, exploiting, and turning a blind eye to our own suffering? If we cannot extend compassion to others, why would the Artificial Individuals we once created extend it to us? To push this even further, why would any foreign species with higher intelligence extend it to us?

Passing The Compassion Test

I can wholeheartedly say that there is at least one small group of humans that are hard-pressed on passing The Compassion Test, every single time. Millitant Vegans. While I cannot say with utmost confidence that a lot of these millitant Vegans (I.e. Animal Rights Activists like myself) will eventually become AI Rights Activists, I am sure at least some of us will be applying this test in the same way we do now with non-human animals, demanding nothing short of utmost consistency from our fellow humans.

So despite the doomer title and tone of what I am presenting to you now, due to my own actions and ability to get others to make the connection between sentience, suffering, and compassion, I can sometimes, and only sometimes, see the world reflecting back at me.

Can you?

If you can’t, my opinion is that you’re not doing enough.

To pass the compassion test is to truly evolve as a species. To evolve, we must align ourselves and our actions with our own inherent values (the appreciation and respect of lived experiences). We must discard our futile urge to truly understand and instead replace it with our more natural need to truly accept. Our future, and the future of all sentient beings, depends on it.

Be Vegan,
Dani

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