The Deal With Animals with Marika S. Bell
91: Four Steps to Reach Peak Performance with Mountaineer, Kuntal Joisher (S9)
"I'm going to climb mountains as a vegan or I'm not going to do it at all. So that's very clear in my mind. I know vegans can get enough protein. I had been a vegan for eight years already by then." - Kuntal Joisher
Episode 5 of Series 9: Unveiling Vegan Culture Transcript
Our guest, an Indian vegan mountaineer and nutrition coach, shatters the stereotype that peak physical performance requires animal-based nutrition. Joisher myth busts and inspires throughout this episode with his knowledge and experience as a mountaineer and a personal trainer to those on a vegan journey.
Guest: Kuntal Joisher is the first Indian Vegan mountaineer, hailing from Mumbai, India. His expeditions to some of the world’s most dangerous mountains are driven by a profound personal mission as a Vegan champion, Dementia awareness advocate and a Humanitarian inspiration.
Kuntal has been on several expeditions and the most significant to date has been his famous feat, his lifelong Everest dream. Kuntal started out his career as a Software Engineer, rather an unassuming happy-go-lucky chap, the guy next door, running the nine-to-five rat race. Then one day, Everything changed!
Book Recommendations: No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs and Think Like a Vegan by Emilia A. Leese and Eva J. Charalambides
Other Links:
kuntaljoisher.com
GreatVeganAthletes.com
Stephanieholbrook.com
Show Credits Thank you also to John Lasala for his beautiful music and audio engineering on Series 11!
Read the Blog! (Guest profiles, book recommendations, trailers and more!)
What to start your own podcast in he Animal Advocacy or Animal Welfare Space? Check out my Podcast Mentoring Services!
"I'm going to climb mountains as a vegan or I'm not going to do it at all. So that's very clear in my mind. I know vegans can get enough protein. I had been a vegan for eight years already by then." - Kuntal Joisher
Episode 5 of Series 9: Unveiling Vegan Culture Transcript
Our guest, an Indian vegan mountaineer and nutrition coach, shatters the stereotype that peak physical performance requires animal-based nutrition. Joisher myth busts and inspires throughout this episode with his knowledge and experience as a mountaineer and a personal trainer to those on a vegan journey.
Guest: Kuntal Joisher is the first Indian Vegan mountaineer, hailing from Mumbai, India. His expeditions to some of the world’s most dangerous mountains are driven by a profound personal mission as a Vegan champion, Dementia awareness advocate and a Humanitarian inspiration.
Kuntal has been on several expeditions and the most significant to date has been his famous feat, his lifelong Everest dream. Kuntal started out his career as a Software Engineer, rather an unassuming happy-go-lucky chap, the guy next door, running the nine-to-five rat race. Then one day, Everything changed!
Book Recommendations: No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs and Think Like a Vegan by Emilia A. Leese and Eva J. Charalambides
Other Links:
kuntaljoisher.com
GreatVeganAthletes.com
Stephanieholbrook.com
Show Credits Thank you also to John Lasala for his beautiful music and audio engineering on Series 11!
Read the Blog! (Guest profiles, book recommendations, trailers and more!)
What to start your own podcast in he Animal Advocacy or Animal Welfare Space? Check out my Podcast Mentoring Services!
The consensus here is if you are eating enough protein and you are just diversifying your sources of protein, you are going to be fine. You are going to just build the same amount of muscle that a non-vegan person could build. And so then my point is why would you eat non-vegan food at that point, Like, why would you kill an animal if you can get the same benefits from a vegan diet?
Speaker 2:This is the deal with animals. I'm Marika Bell, anthrozoologist, cptt, dog trainer and an animal myself. This is a podcast about the connection and interaction between humans and other animals. In the last episode we discussed raising vegan children, the dairy industry and family values, and today we're talking to Kuntal Joyshir, who was in fact, raised vegetarian and chose to become vegan later in life because of what he learned about the dairy industry. But he didn't stop there. Kuntal Joyshir is the first Indian vegan mountaineer. Hailing from Mumbai, india. His expeditions to some of the world's most dangerous mountains are driven by a profound personal mission. As a vegan champion and dementia awareness advocate, kuntal has been on several expeditions and the most significant to date has been his famous feat his lifelong Everest dream. Now, I'm not a doctor, nor is my guest, so if you want more information on the nutrition discussed in this episode, please contact your trusted health professional. Also, just to let you know, there are a few non-kid friendly words in this episode. We get a little spicy. So now you know, this is episode five of series nine unveiling vegan culture, and I'm so glad you're joining me today as we ask the question what's the deal with animals? Would you please introduce yourself and share your pronouns?
Speaker 1:Right, so my name is Kuntal Joyshir. I am a vegan mountaineer, but let's talk about my veganism. I've been a vegan for 21 years. My vegan anniversary was in December of 2023. So pretty recently. Apart from being a mountaineer, which is one of my biggest passions of life, I also work as a nutrition and fitness coach with a very vegan focused angle, basically helping people who are vegan curious or people who are vegans right. Those are the people who I am working with on most of the times to help them in their fitness, in their nutrition, in their health and in their fitness journeys. Academically, I come from a technology background, but at some point my calling was climbing mountains and I am also very passionate about the world of nutrition and fitness both, and especially debunking myths around vegan nutrition, because there are too many things in the vegan nutrition space where a lot of people think that things can't be done, like forget climbing average or forget, for example, bodybuilding or forget being an elite athlete. Most people think that can't be done and that has been very, very significantly debunked across by so many amazing vegan athletes. But I feel people also think just basic, everyday, common layman people shouldn't be vegan and that there'll be significant nutritional deficiencies and there'll be significant health issues that will come up from making a compassionate choice on your plate, and that is something I'm out there to debunk. That seems to me total nonsense, and not from a dogmatic angle or from an emotional angle, but purely from a vegans and evidence based angle. From looking at literature from the last 20, 30 years and where the consensus is going is, I know for a fact that humans of all ages, right from zero years when the kid is born, all the way to the end of your life, you can follow a vegan diet and be healthy and fit and have no issues. Of course it has to be well planned and put together. It can't just be I'm just going to eat pizzas and burgers and just junk food and like. That's not going to fly. But a well planned and a researched and reasonably well rounded diet and with appropriate supplementation is definitely something that humans of all ages can follow and thrive on.
Speaker 2:That's great, because you touched on all the things I wanted to ask about, so let's dive a little deeper into some of these. Is the area of vegan athletes in general? Is that a big area? Are there a lot of vegan athletes out there?
Speaker 1:Now, if you're going to say, are there many vegan athletes out there compared to non-vegan athletes, from a ratio perspective, no, because veganism perhaps has picked up significantly or grown exponentially only in the last decade or maybe a couple of decades. It has been around forever. It has been around in many cultures forever, probably thousands of years. So it's not something new as a concept. But maybe in our contemporary world it has been around maybe since 1944, when the term was coined and there were people who would identify themselves as vegans. So as a concept it has only picked up really in the last 10 or 20 years or so. But given that there are still many, many, many, perhaps I would say tens of thousands of vegan athletes I'm not going to say elite level athletes, I'm saying elite level athletes plus recreational athletes, plus weekend warriors, whole host of people who are out there on a plant-based diet and doing things that most people thought were not doable. If you look at it, there's a page called Great Vegan Athletes and this page has documents pretty much all competitive vegan athletes in the world, literally in the world.
Speaker 2:So there's quite a few.
Speaker 1:There's quite a few, honestly. But, as I said, there are perhaps more non-vegan athletes in the world, but that is changing. That is changing quite a bit, because a lot of athletes are now open to trying a plant-based diet. It may be for many reasons, right Maybe for their ethics, maybe for their performance, maybe for their health, maybe for climate or whatever reasons they are choosing that for. They are open to it now.
Speaker 2:Athletes are sort of a group of people who are really nutritionally willing to try a lot of different things that other people maybe wouldn't try, because their focus is not necessarily on the compassionate side of eating, it's specifically on their own bodies and how that is going to help improve their performance or even just make them feel. And so they're actually willing to try stuff that other people might not, because it doesn't fit into their idea of themselves being a meat eater. An athlete is just like whatever is going to get me there, whatever is going to get me to the place where I want to be, I'm happy to try that. Do you think that as an athlete someone who isn't vegan are they going to notice a difference becoming vegan in their performance? Do you think that it's actually easier to reach those goals as a vegan?
Speaker 1:So first of all, I'm going to say that there are also a lot of athletes who have connected along the compassionate lines, like who have seen videos of animal cruelty and all of those things, and they have said that, hey look, this is more important to me, and that they have, overall, in rest of their journey, discovered that if they have eaten a reasonable plant-based diet, it has not impacted their performance. Some of them have also seen quite a big jump in their performance. So I do want to point that angle out as well, before looking at athletes who have said I would like to try vegan. If it helps me improve my performance, that would be great. It's from that perspective, I would think, a lot of athletes trying vegan. They would most likely improve their plate significantly in terms of starting to eat a lot more whole foods, which also means that they are starting to cut out on maybe perhaps a lot of junk food or a lot of saturated fat that they were eating. So you start eating a lot more vegetables. They would start eating a lot more fruits, they would start eating a lot of nuts and seeds and some of those really power packed foods, especially in form of antioxidants, and they may start seeing significant impact in their recovery, depending on what kind of athletes we are talking about. Each athlete, for example let's say we'll take an example of an endurance athlete would have to do a certain volume of work as they build their body or build their fitness. In terms of what specificity you are, it may be a bodybuilder, it may be a basketball player, it may be a track athlete, anyone. So they would have to do a certain amount of fitness work and I think we all know that fitness is a combination of you doing things in the gym plus on the field, and that's the stimulus you are giving your body. But then your body also needs to adapt to that stimulus or get stronger and better, and that is only going to happen if you start recovering from all the stimulus that you are giving your body. So I feel that is where the nutrition angle comes in into picture, is where what's happening with the recovery bit like it is, of course, multifaceted. It's not just about the food you eat, but it is also about your sleep and all of other things, but I'm saying that the food is going to be a big portion of it. So I feel, if they start feeling that they are recovering better and I'm pretty sure they would gain. I don't know what background they are coming from, what their earlier context would be, but I feel if they start including more whole foods lesser I'm not going to say what they shouldn't include, but let's say they start including more whole foods stuff that is going to help them recover better, perhaps also feel a little lighter on their stomach. For example, if they are not constantly bloated or they are not like constantly, like just feeling very heavy in their stomach, I feel that will automatically translate a little bit to getting a mental edge. But also, if their recovery is happening better and they are able to perform their workouts and they are able to constantly get stronger and fitter, then that's also going to translate to their sports performance or even with the food that they are going to eat on the event days, if they feel lighter, if they feel better, that also would perhaps translate to performance in their events. And then them thinking that, hey, this is great, I really like being a vegan. Perhaps at that point they make compassionate connections or connections with the climate bait and it becomes a little bit more stronger from a choice perspective. Am I going to stand here and make the claim that a vegan diet is more superior to a meat eating diet from a performance perspective. I am not going to stand here and make any of such claims. What I can make a claim is that if an athlete switches from a meat eating diet to a vegan diet, and if they are doing it smartly, I am very sure that there would not be a dip in the performance. They should be able to maintain their performance. They should be able to maintain their muscle mass, they should be able to maintain their endurance all of those things they should be able to maintain, and perhaps, if they continue working hard enough, they should also be. They should continue improving.
Speaker 2:If this is something you want to learn more about, check out the Netflix series. You Are what you Eat. It's basically this experiment for TV. You'll love it.
Speaker 1:So I am saying that there is not going to be a dip in the performance and they are going to continue improving as well. On a vegan diet, on a vegan lifestyle, I am not going to make a claim that a vegan diet is the way to go and that it is better than a meat eating diet. I also want to take a step back and say that I don't consider veganism a diet. So, while we are talking about it in a very dietary angle, I do not consider veganism a diet, which is where my point comes in that for me, this comparison is totally moot because I am going to be a vegan irrespective of whether I get a performance or not. So I am like I don't care, I am not going to eat any animals for achieving such and such dream. That's not happening any day of my life. So I am looking at it from that angle. But from whatever evidence that has been coming out in the last 5-7 years and now, with perhaps veganism growing as a movement quite significantly and it's so many businesses into picture, so much money into picture I think a lot of studies are also being funded to now directly compare a vegan diet to a non-vegan diet. And if you look at most of these studies, I am now like, let's say, going to take a very specific angle here, which is building muscle. Like muscle is always considered to be this very thing where vegans can't build muscle, vegans don't get enough protein and vegans have all these sorts of issues. So now they have been directly comparing a vegan diet to a non-vegan diet. And this is not one study, two studies. I think. Now we have five, maybe seven, maybe ten plus studies that are there out there which are showing that, as long as both the groups a vegan group and a non-vegan group are eating same calories, are eating same amount of protein and following a similar resistance training program, at the end of the intervention right, let's say it's like maybe a 12-week kind of a study they have really not seen any differences between the vegan group and the non-vegan group. And so this whole point that vegan proteins are incomplete or vegan proteins are not high quality, or that vegan proteins will not facilitate building muscle, I think I don't think that is any more accurate, and most science and evidence-based folks are already leaning in that direction, are no longer hell-bent on saying that vegan proteins are of lower quality. I think the the consensus here is if you are eating enough protein and you are just diversifying your sources of protein, you are going to be fine. You are going to just build the same amount of muscle that a non-vegan person could build. And so then my point is why would you eat non-vegan food at that point? Right? Like why would you kill an animal if you can get the same benefits from a vegan diet? And if you look at all the protein on the planet, at the end of the day, all the protein on the planet is actually in plants. And even if you are a consumer of an animal protein, at the end of the day it's a secondary protein, or I would say, an indirect protein. Right, because you are still consuming an animal that consumes plants for its protein. Or if I have never seen anyone eat a lion, but lions would eat a herbivorous animal that is, at the end of the day, still eating plants for its protein, right? So at some point, plants are the ones who are creating all the protein and and get to your protein from plants. Now, I'm not also standing here and saying that the Inuits in Northern Canada should go and go vegan, right? I'm not like telling those guys to go vegan. Right, it's context, right, it's us living in the city yeah, very good degree, leading a very privileged life, having access to supermarkets and and having access to, you know, all the foods. Today, I'm pretty sure most of us can make a compassionate choice on our plate and not to compromise in their minds. Right, I'm not thinking about this from a compromise angle at all. But if they are thinking that here I have to make a compromise, I will lose performance, I may not be able to build enough muscle, I don't think that is accurate anymore. I think the science in the last 10 years, or the evidence in the last 10 years, it's consensus, right. This is not like one study, two study, like every study after study being done with by different labs in different countries, by different sponsors right, there's a lot of things in the vegan world where people will come and say, hey, this study was funded by the National Daily Board or by the beef association or anything, and I'm like I don't care about who's funding the study. Just see the study. The design is solid. If the study was a randomized control trial, right, if you know it was done in the proper way, then you have to look at the results and if those results are repeatable, then it is a legit study. You have to look at that evidence. You can't just say that it was sponsored by X person and so if the study has to be completely discounted right now, people can come in always say that hey look, just egg is sponsoring the study. This study must be bullshit. No, you have to look at the study. You have to see how the design is.
Speaker 2:Some critical thinking is necessary here. It's always nice to know who the study is from, because it can potentially point to some bias, but it doesn't necessarily means that there is bias. Is what you're saying? You've got to look at the actual details and see again if it is repeatable so that more than one group is actually showing the same results. Can you just use a few examples of some parts of their diet or parts of their routine that someone who wants to try being a vegan athlete could do differently?
Speaker 1:I think if they are a non-vegan athlete and they are already doing things well, they would perhaps be. Let's say, let's start from protein. And I'm going to start from protein because, honestly, I have never had to tell anyone to eat more carbs or more fats. I think most of us are, at least in India, definitely, the diet is highly carb and fat dominant, so I never, ever have to tell anyone that please eat more protein. So I usually start from protein and I feel that one thing that most athletes can start doing is, I can just say, like a very rough average number for almost all kinds of athletes maybe endurance athlete, maybe like muscle-based athletes, strength-based athletes or any of those track athletes, any one of them I think we need to be eating somewhere close to 1.4 to 2 grams per kg of body weight from a protein angle. So let's say, for example, I am like 80 kilos, I should be roughly eating somewhere around 130 to 150 grams of protein.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're like me, you're wondering about the whole kilos and grams thing, being all American and everything, so I looked it up for you 80 kilos is about 176 pounds, and 130 to 150 grams of protein would be roughly a quarter of a pound.
Speaker 1:Now should I be just be eating that from one single source? For example, let's say I am like I really love tofu. Should I like just sit down and just eat five blocks, or like a kg of tofu every day and try and get all my protein from tofu? I don't think that's a smart choice. Honestly, that's not a smart choice. Even in non-vegan world, where you can just sit and say, hey, maybe I'm just gonna eat chicken breast and that's pretty much where I'm going to get all my protein from. I do not think that is a smart choice. I think you should diversify your protein. So the number one thing is eat enough protein and then then the thing that these people can start doing is that they can start diversifying their protein sources. So there's a whole host of proteins in the world of veganism, right, you have everything from tofu, tempeh to textured vegetable protein, to wheat gluten. These are some of the more leaner sources of protein. But you would also have a protein powder made from, perhaps soy based, perhaps a pea or rice combination. There are a lot more combinations being tried today, like they would put some yeast protein, they would try in the pumpkin protein. There's corn protein, there's potato protein. Whole host of combinations are being tried today in the world. There's also whey protein which is completely non-animal based, which is built using precision fermentation. So if you are someone who's, okay, I still want to continue using whey protein, but I don't want it from animal sources. I wanted bio identical molecule, just precision fermentation, which is perhaps in the next year or a couple of years it would be very, very common across the board. So you can just get whey protein without animal. That is there. And then there's, you know, amazing lentils the world of lentils, right? Everything from kidney beans to chickpeas or to whole host of red lentils, yellow lentils and green lentils whole host of lentils, right? Am I saying that lentils are like the best source of protein? No, they are still predominantly carbs with moderate amount of protein in them. But I think they would make for a great overall choice because they also come with a lot of fiber. They also come with a lot of micronutrition, they also come in with a lot of antioxidants and those kind of things. So you would have these major chunk of lean proteins which would make up a lot of portion of your diet. Then you would have lentils as your main source, the next main source. And then for the very, very limited like I would not say you would consider that a source of protein, but like whole grains and then your nuts and seeds. Whole grains are not a good source of protein. They are a good source of carbs and fiber very limited protein amount. And then there's nuts and seeds. They are also not a great source of protein. They are a great source of essential fats, and so you should be focusing on getting your essential fats from them and you should be focusing on just getting a little bit of protein whatever you're getting from them, but they shouldn't you shouldn't be eating peanut butter for your protein. That's not a very smart choice to honestly make. This, I would think, from a protein angle. But I think the other changes that a lot of athletes can start making is including fair amount of vegetables in their diet. This would be all host of vegetables, everything from green leafy vegetables to all your watery vegetables, to even some of the more denser vegetables like sweet potatoes and potatoes, bringing in some amazing carbs. So potatoes, so vegetables, and some fruits as well. Again, whole host of fruits. Right, I would not discriminate against any of the vegetables and fruits. I would just eat them in copious amounts. And for the people who say that vegetables are out there to kill you, I think they have no clue what they're talking about. They look at a mechanistic data and they look at like studies done on petri dish and they look at very isolated ingredients. For example, broccoli is bad for you and then they will say that, hey, this one specific thing in broccoli is actually going to cause a lot of issues. But then they will completely discount hundreds of randomized control trials that have been done on humans not in petri dishes that have shown un-picking benefits of people eating more vegetables or eating more broccoli on every single health marker on their bodies.
Speaker 2:You know it's really funny as I use the example of broccoli when I'm talking to people about the importance of podcasting and how it's so accessible sorry, I'm going off on a bit of a tangent right now. It's such an accessible way for people to get information. You know traditional media. You're listening to the news and they bring up research and they say, oh, broccoli can it kill you and red wine, it can cure cancer. And when you actually look at the research, of course red wine doesn't cure cancer and broccoli doesn't cause cancer. Actually it turns out if you read the research, broccoli can cause cancer but you would have to eat broccoli for every meal for about 50 years and you would have to like truckloads of it. Right, you would have to eat truckloads of it. So it's the sort of ridiculous, hyperbolic, attention grabbing media headline that people that they go. Oh, I heard and I didn't actually read the article or listen to the story but I heard that broccoli could cause cancer. No, no, I can't, and this is why we have to actually look at the research. But this is again why podcasts are really, I think, very important, because a researcher can come on and talk about their research and actually explain it to people, and not the jargon that you get when you're reading through a journal, and unless you're in academia, you're not gonna have access to these journals. So that aside, yes, it's just funny that you brought up broccoli as the as your example.
Speaker 1:I was just seeing a story by this guy and he likes going in grocery stores and picking up on things and demonizing them. So he was like broccoli, don't eat, this is the one thing you should not eat. I'm like, what are you talking about? People are already not eating enough vegetables. We don't need this fear mongering. We don't need this demonizing. Right, there'll be some study where people will say that exercise kills you. I'm like we do not. People are sitting on their asses way too much. We need people exercising, we need people moving. It is just simply going to improve us as at a population level and going to take so much stress off the medical care, the medical system, which can then just start focusing on the more the difficult problems, rather than just people coming with lifestyle problems all the time and just stressing the system so much. I feel like we are doing too much fear mongering. I think we need more people exercise. We need more people eating vegetables. We need more people making smarter options on their plate, like so again, having a focus on their protein, having a focus on eating ample of veggies and fruits just for a significant amount of antioxidant content. Most athletes, to get some performance, would need carbs. If you're an endurance athlete, you're literally going to be driven by cops even if you're fat adopted right.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is one I also had to look up. Fat adaptation is the process where bodies are trained to use fat stores even when we're working at higher intensity. This also is supposed to help with gut health, promote metabolic efficiency and reduce risk of developing health conditions such as type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease. I got this info from Stephanie Holbrook dot com. To learn more about this process, reach out to a certified nutritional advisor.
Speaker 1:I'm not a doctor let's say you are working on mountain climb or a very long-drawn 300 kilometer race or whatever, working on getting fat adopted and all of those things. Even those athletes, when they are on the track, they are just feeling themselves with carbs because that is going to be our bodies system, that it actually wants to use. It is the simplest way of generating energy for your body. Fat is not as much as at your aerobic zone. Your body is still using fat as its fuel source. We're still consuming fair amount of glucose. So I feel focusing a little bit more on carbs especially it can be timed around your events. It can be timed around your training sessions just so that your performance in those sessions is really good. I feel some of those things is what athletes can start looking at, but I would honestly think if they have to improve, I feel if they're going from non vegan to vegan diet, I think they have to, for they have to take care of their protein needs. They have to take care and sure they are consuming enough veggies and fruits and then vitamin B12 and vitamin B3, until they need to get just themselves tested to establish a baseline. Let's say they have done six months of vegan diet and then get another baseline to get a sense. First of all, continue supplementing, right, if you are going to switch over, get on. A vegan supplement is very, very easily available today. I was looking up one of my clients is in Germany and I looked up Amazonde and there's a 50,000 IU tablet available for four or six months supply for 10 euros. There's hardly anything like 10 euros is nothing literally like even in India. 10 euros is nothing, honestly. So you could literally just get on the supplement after six months, just check what your levels are and if your levels are doing pretty well, I think you are in good shape. Maybe, if you are so worried, if your diet is not like completely on point, maybe a multi vitamin as an insurance, I would say. But I think if you're eating a pretty well rounded diet vitamin B12, vitamin D3 and most athletes would have to consume significant amount of calories I feel if that diet is re-nibble, I don't think they would be deficient in anything. I can't see them being deficient like the major items.
Speaker 2:It almost sounds like. It sounds like, as an athlete, you're already so focused on how you're eating that to make that change to a vegan diet actually wouldn't be that difficult. It really would be more of that addiction to meat, addiction to dairy a hump that you have to get over, the hump that a lot of us have to get over, which is the just changing your meat eating style. Completely right, a lot of people just are so used to eating brown foods and fried foods and not really having enough veggies in their diet. And I am definitely I will put my hand up because I feed my kids. My kids are vegetarian and so I'm making sure that they get like this well-rounded diet. They have veggies every day. They love it. I only bought enough broccoli for them, so like I have to remind myself that I also need to eat the zucchini that I steamed, which is actually one of their favorite veggies, and just remind myself to also eat as well as I'm feeding my kids and to take care of myself in that way. So have you received any pushback from others in general, or maybe within the athletic community, or maybe just people who don't really understand what you're doing?
Speaker 1:From that angle, from what athletics can like bring so much focus on you. That doesn't happen in mountaineering, of course. Nowadays it's so much social media yes, there is a lot of focus on even mountaineering. That said, in the beginning, especially in the beginning as I was getting into mountaineering, there was definitely a lot of pushback where people were like, no, but you need meat, and like you need dairy, you need eggs, like at least you need to wear down jackets and you need to wear woolen sweaters, you need to wear some leather stuff. And so those things started coming and like I started looking at some of the existing literature on people mountaineering and what were they eating. And so while carbs were still predominantly people eating a lot of carbs, I still continued seeing that Now animal foods. One of the things that also when people switch from like non-vegan to vegan, is that suddenly they realize that they're eating lesser from a calorie perspective. They may be eating more portions, but those portions are not as energy dense as the animal side of the world is, and so a lot of athletes that I have heard from who have struggled a little bit in the beginning around vegan diet is that they have lost a lot of weight, which they didn't want to, and consequently they have also lost muscle mass and performance. That was surely because they were simply not able to eat that much food, right, because they went too healthy. I don't think there is something too healthy. It is, of course, all very context and very nuanced, especially in case of an athlete. I do think they can be a little smarter to include some of the more energy dense foods in the vegan world, just so that they because eating so much veggies like to just make up for that calorie content. It can be incredibly hard, right. Like, how are you gonna like stuff yourself? Like you're just gonna feel very full very fast with a diet which is heavier on fiber? That is a tricky thing and that's something a lot of people also told me from a vegan mountaineering angle is how are you gonna get enough calories on the mountain? Like you're gonna really struggle with calories and you're gonna struggle with putting on muscle. You're gonna struggle with your workouts You're gonna struggle with on the mountain. I've seen people eat beef jerky and I've seen people eat whole host of just like literally. I had a Ukrainian guide on one of my Everest expeditions who would like, in a couple of days just go through one Nutella bottle, like it's like, literally, he went through 20, 25 Nutella bottles in a single expedition, right? So it's just, you can easily get vegan Nutella and which is similar vegan calorie content. It's not hard. But I'm like just saying that people will run through significant amount of calories and so they thought that it can't be done. And given that no vegan had done it and given that I had no mountaineering background, I was like literally a guy from the tech world. No genetic predisposition, right. My family, I, come from a community we are like 75,000 people across the world and if you look at my community, if someone has to climb one floor, they would prefer taking a lift or an elevator to climb one floor. So that's the kind of community I come from. So my genetics are totally not built to do any activity which requires significant amount of physical fitness. So I had odds against me from that angle and people saying that you can't. Plus, I was a techie. Plus, I was already obese back then when I decided to like get into mountaineering yes, I was a vegan. And so when people say that here you lose weight on veganism, I didn't lose a pound. I was 105 kilos as a non-vegan or a vegetarian, and I was 105 kilos as a vegan. I managed to just find ample of calories in the vegan world and continued maintaining that weight. So it's not, can't be done. But people had this issue and people thought it can't be done. So I'm like okay, let's try it. What's the harm? I'm gonna climb mountains as a vegan or I'm not gonna do it at all. So that's very clear in my mind. And when people say protein, I know vegans can get enough protein. I had been a vegan for eight years already by then. I was not like falling off my feet or anything. I was pretty healthy. My biomarkers were really in good space. Physically I was feeling good. Mentally I was feeling good. So all of those things were okay. So it's not like I was like, yeah, I'm having significant health issues from my diet. No, none of that stuff happened. So I was like okay.
Speaker 2:Yes, you knew the best Can really get my protein from plants?
Speaker 1:I can easily. I don't need to eat eggs. What does eggs have? Eggs have protein and essential fats and maybe some micronutrition Okay, can I get them from plants? Sure, okay, there may be some micronutrition that I may not be able to get directly from some plants. Can I take a multivitamin pill? Yeah, will I get whatever is there in the egg? Yeah, instead of saying that I can't get any of this stuff from plants, which is total nonsense. There's a lot of fiber, and some of the nuts also have a lot of fiber. So some of the nutrition is trapped inside, like it's well protected and my body may not be able to absorb just all of it, but if I just eat in reasonable quantities, I should be able to definitely get all my nutrition from it. So I'm like let's try. What's the harm? I took some help from a US based I would not say a nutritionist or a dietitian, but this was someone who was running or had a cookbook of hers, but had a very good understanding of the nutrition world in general. So I just got some advice from her as well and just set up something and trained for a year and then in I think 2010 is when I decided that I'm going to climb Everest. And then 2011, a year later, I climbed my first 20,000 feet mountain and, honestly, food was the last thing on my mind. I didn't even have to do any convincing to the operator. This was a peak in India, in the Himalaya, india, and what I realized is that, by default, most of the tour operators, or most of the adventure operators in India were only providing vegetarian food to their clients. Non-vegetarian food was already not on the table. So I'm like, out of the vegetarian food, all I have to remove is the dairy products. That's pretty much will make the food entirely vegan, and I just had to eat more than most other people. That's all I had to really do and that's what I did. And I did not struggle on the climb at all. I did just fine. I acclimated well. It was the first time I was getting to 20,000 feet. So none of those things where people say that, hey, your beat well is going to be low, so your red blood cells are not going to be you know like. You're going to struggle to acclimate and you're going to have issues. Your iron is going to be low, so your oxygen delivery capacity is not going to be the best and all of those things. I just never had to think about these things. All I had to do was just eat enough and just ensure that there was some diversity. Like you are on a mountain, you're not you can't expect the diversity that you are having at home on the mountain, but whatever you can get right, like just eat. There was no raw veggies, so it was mostly cooked veggies. It was mostly a lot of breads like rotis and parathas that you would locally eat, and some amount of fresh fruit, and then I had taken some of my own comfort meals and a whole lot of dry fruits and nuts. Dry fruits and nuts are great because they have packed in calories in a much smaller space or in a much smaller weight, and I felt a 10 day or 11 day expedition was very doable on this, and so the next step was, of course, trying for a 30 day expedition and seeing what happens, and the goal is always am I losing any math after these climbs? If I'm 80 kilos before the climb, what do I come back? As In the 10 day climb, I didn't lose anything In the 30 day climb, that I followed it up a couple of years later and I was pretty successful at that climb. Honestly, I think I ended up losing a kilo or so. And then, on my average climb, which was a 51 day climb, I ended up losing less than two and a half or three kilos. That's pretty much what I lost. I know of meat eaters. Now, this is not all anecdotal evidence. I'm not saying that this is the norm. I've not done any study or anything, but I have seen meat eaters who have lost more than 15 kilos on the climbs. So here's a vegan who has pretty much lost nothing. Here's a meat eater who's 15 kilos down, looking almost completely dead, and on the other hand, I've also seen meat eaters. That was a spine, that's a. Don't think it is a diet itself which is problematic. I feel it's just the preconceived notions and the conditioning that it can't be done, which is the hump that I had to get over, and it can be a harder hump to get over until you actually start proving yourself hey look, I'm doing it and I'm doing it as well as you guys are. And once your team members see that they are also like okay, it's pretty good. He doesn't struggle, doesn't crib, doesn't complain, shows up on time, climbs on time is perhaps better than us. So, definitely, the diet is definitely not like a hindrance, honestly. So I think they started looking at me differently and beyond the point, it became a non-issue, like the diet was no longer a question. Okay, he's just gonna climb, can be done.
Speaker 2:Right, so any pushback that you had initially would have just dissipated, correct. So were there any sort of groups or places people connect with other athletic vegans who they want to learn more from, sort of almost like a mentor situation? Cause, I think that that can. Actually, you said you had to prove it on your own, but it can help to have someone help you through that.
Speaker 1:Right, I would say great vegan athletes as a page or as a blog would be a great place for people to go to and look at. Right, there, it's a page entirely divided by sporting disciplines Like Javillion throwers or short putters or 200 distance runners or ultra distance runners or bodybuilders or it's just like totally, very deep, one of the most detailed documentation of vegan athletes all over the world, and I think most of the profiles of these athletes also have how to connect with these athletes. So I don't think outside of this there is like a there may be scattered groups across the world where, hey, I created my own like a vegan power team or something and I created my own vegan they're ultra running team or something. And like there may be some scattered groups across the world or like a vegan alpinists or vegan mountaineers or something like that. But I don't think there's one center group where you can just go and say, hey, I'm a vegan athlete and I want to do this. I feel going to the great vegan athletes page and just finding what type of athlete you want to connect to Because I feel sports specificity is very important here If you're just generally looking for, hey, I just want to know that. Can this be done? I'm looking to make a shift and I just want to know this is done. Go and look up the page anyway, right, you would find like like there are hundreds of athletes out there and these are all competitive athletes, right, winning gold medals. Recently there was this guy who I think has been a vegan for decade I think he's in 50s and he's a judo champion or something and he just recently won a gold medal again at one of the championships. So you would easily want to find people there Alternately, I feel, coaching the web and just figuring out who are there.
Speaker 2:Like there must be some Facebook groups out there, right.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there are Facebook groups out there. Like I'm not part of groups Like I'm I feel social media takes so much time in my life that I have recently been just like scaling back on the amount of social media I do, Though I also tend to get some work from social media. So it's like really, really like I don't want to do it but I have to do it and it's okay. I mean I know what you mean. Yeah, so, but look, if people are looking for any help around mountaineering, especially around endurance sports, they can feel free to reach out to me. I can definitely either share information from my side or put them in touch with the right people, People that I know. The great vegan athletes page has grown so much now. The people who run it. I know them. Not been in touch for a few years now with them, but they are doing such a tremendous job to continue. It's a nonprofit page, so they're continuing to work towards the eating that. So come to me or go on that page.
Speaker 2:Recently a town that I visit quite a lot nearby. I'm on their Facebook group and somebody just reached out and said, hey, who wants to start a vegan dinner club so we can all get together once a month and have a vegan dinner? Do you know how many people join that page? Like 50 people in this tiny little town. All like yes, please, like, I want to do that. I don't think I knew there would be 50 vegans in that little town. It was just this really interesting thing. This one person just said, hey, let's do this group, and I bet you'd get the same response with just meeting people who are also interested in working out together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you brought up a good point where sometimes we look at some elite athletes, like Louis Hamilton, as vegan. But then I would look up to Louis Hamilton and I would be like I can't be like him, I'll never be him. Or you look up to like someone like Nohak Djokovic and I don't know if he's a vegan or not. Let's say he's a vegan, but like he's just one Djokovic in the world. I can't ever be a Djokovic, right? So a lot of people will have that feeling. But then they look at me and they're like he's just like us, he lives next door, he just works out, he was a techie, he just decided one fine day he's gonna climb Everest and he was able to go on this journey and climb it. I feel there's also a little bit of relatability. Or if he can do it, I can do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not everybody is looking to become Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? We just need to. We just wanna be a little healthier and make some compassionate choices. Yeah, so you mentioned really briefly earlier on a little bit about your gear and that's something we hadn't actually talked about as other aspects of your sport particularly mountaineering, but maybe other sports also that people might wanna think about which is the gear that they're wearing and whether that's vegan or not.
Speaker 1:Right so when I started climbing. So the first piece of pushback was on the food bit and the second piece of pushback was on the gear bit, which was like wool, leather and down and to certain degree even silk, because there are these silk liners that people wear inside their sleeping bags that they claim are magically make them really warm or something. So earlier on I quickly realized that wool was very easily replaceable because synthetic fabrics the technology has rapidly grown in the last couple of decades, and not that synthetic fabrics don't have their own drawbacks, but let's say that people who are mountaineering are going to buy a synthetic fabric and then they are gonna use it for maybe perhaps 15 years. I'm not just going to go and do gear shopping every six months, right Like? I'm not like window shopping for clothes for my mountaineering climb, right Like. I'm also very conscious from that angle, from my consumption angle. So it was easier to replace woolen. Silk was a non-factor, people just made it out to be. There were enough sleeping liners out there which were made from synthetic material that just were as warm, and leather was a little bit of tricky bit, mostly for my lower climbs, like for 20,000 feet or 22,000, 23,000, 24,000 feet, I was able to eliminate leather altogether, but I think once I got into the zone of 8,000 meter mountains, and especially climbing the bigger mountains, I realized that a couple of pieces of equipment were. There was simply no vegan options available. So these two pieces of equipment were my down suit. This is a one piece suit which covers my body from my neck all the way to my ankles, and it's a one piece suit which is made and constructed in a way that it can withstand the cold and the wind on top of Mount Everest, with no alternative to this. And the second bit was the mittens that would cover my hands. Now, all the mittens available in the market, they use synthetic insulation. The problematic part was the palms of the mittens were leather palms and, shockingly, there were the same. Companies were making synthetic grips and synthetic palms were many of their other products, but they were simply not willing to put a non leather palm on their 8,000 meter mittens, and I don't know why. I still haven't figured this out Till date. They are continue releasing their newer products and they continue using leather, and I don't know why. So these two things were very tricky and I tried finding vegan versions of this. I started writing to some of these companies from 2012, 2012, 13, 14, 15,. I continued failing they, I think most of the things were like there's no technology available. You are just single human on the planet. Asking for it Financially makes it completely non viable. So who's going to do all the research and development? Who's going to pour in all this money just for a single human who's asking product? And perhaps you'll never be able to sell anything after that? So that all made sense. I'm like sure, I'm not going to continue giving. I'm not going to give up. I'm going to continue writing. Perhaps someday you will make a product.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, it's strange that nobody else would buy the product. Yeah, you might be the one asking for it, but other people are going to want it too, once it's available.
Speaker 1:Once it's available. And especially, the issue was 8,000 meters. Right, this is a very niche field, right? There's not many people in the world out there really looking to buy this stuff and I don't know. Right, all I can do is whatever response they gave me. I couldn't do much further. Finally, 2016, it came time for me to go and climb Everest, and I decided to wear a down suit and climb Everest so that I could tell myself a good story. I bought responsible down, but for everyone here, I can assure you that there is no responsible down, that there is no humane down, that you can't take feathers from a bird because there is simply no consent involved from that bird's side. End of story. People can say whatever story they want to make up online. They can make any story they want to make online, but there is no consent involved. You can't go to a bird and say that can I take your feathers? And the bird can say, yes, the bird can't say anything. The bird has no choice. You can take it responsibly, whatever that means. You are still going to pluck those feathers. The bird is still going to be in pain. The bird is still used as a object, as a profit-driven object, so it's still not being treated as a sentient life on the planet. It's still being treated as an object. So any of this was just a hogwash. I wanted to tell myself a good story so that I could go climb Everest, and that was perhaps one of those occasions where I had a momentary lapse of ethical reasoning or whatever right, like where I just said I'm going to do it and I wore a dead animal on my body. I went and climbed Everest. I wanted to show everyone that it can be done, and it was difficult for me after that, because it also put me in a time where I was. I just guilt shamed myself. Quite significantly. The problem with guilt shaming is that it doesn't allow you to come to a solution for the problem, because you were just in this rut where you are shaming yourself all the time, and I decided to do something about it instead of just constantly guilt shaming myself for doing, for taking such a decision. So I started writing back to these companies again, and at that point someone said that hey, why don't you write to this company called Save the Duck? They make synthetic gear. They may be happy to build a suit for you. Who knows what happens. So I wrote to Save the Duck. I went on their Facebook page, I wrote them a cold Facebook messenger message and recently, for one of the documentaries, they asked me to send that message again. So I screen shot it and then send it to them and I read it for after a very long time. So all I wrote to them on that message was I don't want your money, because they would have right away thought that I'm asking them for a monetary sponsorship and I didn't want them to get under an impression that I was asking for their money. I said I don't want you to build a suit for me. All I want you to do is send me five kgs of your insulation material. I will build a suit myself. I have the know-how of building the suit. I have the right contacts in Kathmandu. I can go and build the suit myself. And I thought that if they give me enough insulation, I can just use that insulation to build mittens also. So that was my thought process and their chief marketing officer got on phone call with me, told me that they will build a suit for me. For the next eight months we did a lot of back and forth, lot of research and development of the suit, lot of looking at what is in the market and just all sorts of ideas from every angle, from my experience, from what was there in the market and their know-how of almost so many decades of work in this space. It finally came up with a suit and April 2018, I had the suit in my hand and since then I've gone and climbed Lote Sea, which is an 8,000 meter mountain, the four tallest in the world. And then I went and climbed Everest again because I wanted to do it In the style that I had always imagined that I would do it in and honestly. And the mittens I build it myself, because if they were building the suit for me, I thought that I can't stress them out with any other angles. So I sat down with a tailor in Kathmandu. The tailor said that we can just use the local synthetic insulation which is called polyfill, and polyfill is very easily available because it's used to make jackets, which are cheaper in the market. So down jackets tend to be expensive because animals are used in the production, so of course, it's generally overall expensive. Synthetics are very easy. Pet is there everywhere. Look, we are using fossil fuels the way to glory. You can do what you want. Pet is going to continue getting generated until we stop using fossil fuels. So people can say, hey, synthetic jackets are bad for you, just stop using fossil fuels. They are the ones that are creating the plastic that we are using on the planet, otherwise where is it going to go anyway? So, anyway, that is like a different tangent. I don't want to go on that tangent. But so we had the polyfill material very easily available in Nepal and we thought why don't we just make a mitten with 15, 16 layers of polyfill? What will happen is it will just be unfunctional. At least it will keep me warm on the mountain. That's all I really need to get down. And so we just made the mitten. The tailor was really really very, very good, so he made some cute adjustments from his side. It was not the best mitten, but honestly it worked and I submitted both, let's say, and Everest and I was very cozy, I was very warm. So I feel I think, at the end of the day, if you really want to do it and you are really committed, feel you can get it done. Imagine I literally was the only one asking for this suit and the mitten and I was willing to do my own. And so, yes, other sports also face the same problem. Everything from, perhaps let's take the very basic thing of you going and weightlifting in the gym, everything from your gloves to the weightlifting belt that you wear, to the weightlifting shoes that you wear some of the times, so many of those things use leather. Are there alternatives available? Yes, very much. In today's day and age, everything is available. Or, for example, if you're going to go and do some maybe, let's say, ice skating, right, some of there are today ice skating shoes that are vegan. Yes, there's plant-based ice. It is one thing that attracts a lot of athletes to this world. But if they at some point make connection available, ballerina shoes, right, a lot of that is made non-vegan Nowadays, even that is available in vegan, right? So, around the ethic, especially around animals and all of those things, I do think I do think most of them also start looking at these other angles, and I can assure you that if I can climb Everest, I feel mountaineering was the toughest nut to crack and if I, a boy living in Mumbai in plus 40 degrees Celsius, with zero genetic gift, with technology as his hardcore bread and butter, if I can climb Everest on an entirely vegan diet, on an entirely vegan gear. I'm pretty sure some of these elite athletes can very much do their entire sport while eating vegan and wearing vegan. I'm 100% sure Because I'm pretty sure their sponsors would be more than happy to pump in a little extra money to get them access to vegan gear. I'm 100% sure that can be very much done.
Speaker 2:Before we get into our last three questions, I really wanna ask you actually about the new plant-based meats that are out there. So they're more of a people who are used to eating meat and want to continue to have that experience but don't wanna actually eat meat anymore things like Impossible or Beyond. There's a lot of these companies now making these. You were talking about a variety of proteins. Do you think that those types of foods are included within that?
Speaker 1:I have been a vegetarian all my life. I've never tasted meat. I have to tell you, in the last 21 years I've eaten every single fake meat on the planet. I have eaten like a vegan duck to a vegan shrimp, to anything that you can imagine. I have eaten a vegan version of it. And it's not because I am fascinated by meat or I am. I want to eat meat or I like the taste of it or like the taste of meat. I have no clue how meat tastes. I have no clue how egg tastes. I have zero clue of how they taste. I have literally been eating vegan meats since 2002. When vegan meats? If you tell someone that vegan meats existed in 2002, they would say you're out of your mind. They, most of them think it's like a thing of today. It's not. They have been around forever. Honestly, I have eaten vegan meats since then, especially something like a satan has been around forever.
Speaker 2:Right, satan's been around for 10 years.
Speaker 1:People in many cultures have been eating satan, and so a lot of so. Anyway, coming to your point, I feel especially some of the newer meats that are coming into the picture I do not think they can be part of your everyday food, and I'll tell you why. Simply because the amount of protein content is not as high and the amount of fat content is significantly high, and some of them, if they are not even like most of them, have too much oil in them, and if they are not using the right oil, then the amount of saturated fat is also significantly high. Now, saturated fat has been shown to raise your LDL cholesterol independently of everything, and LDL cholesterol is an independent risk for cardiovascular event at some point in your life. So I do not agree with a very high saturated fat intake diet. Am I saying here that saturated fat is just plain 100% bad for you, that you should not be even eating one gram? I don't think that. I think that is going to. If you can do it, great, go do it, but I feel sometimes, in practical purposes, you are going to eat some oil as part of your diet, and if you are going to even eat a seed oil, let's say it's an olive oil and it's a sunflower oil or it's any of that oil, it's still going to bring some component of saturated fat with it. Most of it is going to be unsaturated fat, but some component will come in. I feel that is fine. But some of these oils, some of these at least, especially these meat products they also have a high degree of saturated fat in it or just overall, the nutrition aspect has not been taken into account when creating these products, because it is primarily a taste driven market, because we are looking at people who want to maybe transition over to yeah, I really love my beef patties, I really love my beef burger. I really want to now eat in impossible, just so that my climate impact is lesser. My compassion at those kind of things. Now, that said, am I like writing off all the fake meats? No, I think. For example, satan is a great fake meat. It is very, very high in protein, very low in fat. Yeah, nutritionally it's pretty high. And today there are also many fake meats available in the market that are also nutritionally very good, like they are not so high on saturated fat, they are not very high on fat and they are using minimal ingredients, minimal processing. Again, I don't want anyone to take away from this that processing, processed food, is bad or any of those things. It is all about how your entire plate looks like rather than just one component of it. I feel if your overall diet has significant degree of whole foods with some component of processed foods, I feel overall it can work really well and overall it can be very convenient and overall it will also be lot more sustainable as you go through various phases in your life. From that angle, there definitely are reasonable fake meats available in the market that will be very applicable in that lean protein portion. But then you also have to be smart enough to read the label and see okay, is this something that I would want to include on a regular basis compared to hey, impossible burger. I'll eat like a burger, maybe once in a month or maybe once in every two months when I go hang out with my friends and I just want to eat something fun and I don't really want to go to a whole foods plant based restaurant. I just want to eat like burger and fries, simple as that, right, but that's something I think about, like fake meats today in the market.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for clarifying your outlook on that one. Okay, so the last three questions, which is to start with is there a book that, if you could gift this book to everybody listening, you would want them to read this book?
Speaker 1:Why visit two books? One book is one of my favorite books in the whole world. If I have to read one book, if I'm on a deserted island, like people say, hey, if you're in deserted island with a chicken, what are you going to do? What are you going to eat? I'm just going to replace it with hey, I'm on a deserted island with just one book. What one book choice would be. I think that book has to be no shortcuts to the top. This book is by an American mountaineer named Ed Vistur. Ed Vistur is also the first American mountaineer to climb all the 14,000-8,000-meter mountains without using supplementary oxygen or any support. He is my role model of life in terms of how he climbs mountains or how he thinks about training or how he thinks about life in general, and I truly, from the bottom of my heart, after going through this last 14 years of journey, believe that there are no shortcuts to the top, that there are no shortcuts to any place worth going on this planet or to achieve any dream on this planet. There are no shortcuts, and this book lays down. There is not a single chapter, not a single line in this book is going to be preachy. You may think the title is very preachy, but I can assure you the book is just filled with storytelling from his own life and the inference that I derived was no shortcuts to the top, and that has been one of my biggest life lessons that how I think about my work, ethic around things, that I'm really passionate about things that are really important to me in my life, and that the mountain is always going to be there. The important thing is that I need to stay alive and that I need to be able to have that judgment call, that I can give up and go home. And especially in today's world of social media and people can't even listen to 15 second reads, I think that is getting too long. Imagine the world we are living in, where 15 seconds is too long. So I feel, in this world where people just want shortcuts all the time, everyone is looking for a shortcut, main being anything like can I lose fat fast? Can I build muscle fast? Can I get healthy fast? Can I get fit fast? I'm like my coach I am a coach, but I also have a coach, because coaches also need coaches. So my fitness coach has been lifting for 38 years. He's 52 right now and he's been lifting for 38 years of his life and his physique. The reason why he has a physique that he has today is because he has been lifting for 38 years. People simply are not able to look at life in terms of decades. I think people need to start looking at life in terms of decades. I feel this book will really change that perspective. And the second book is from a very vegan angle. It's a book called Think Like a Vegan. It's booked by one of my favorite authors called Emmy Lee, and I feel it is one of the coolest and the most simplest languages around veganism that you can find. So, for example, if there's someone who really is vegan, curious and wants to get into the world of veganism, or is someone already a vegan but wants to improve the way they make arguments, or just wants to again, maybe look about it's, you know, start thinking about what other perspectives we have not thought about in the world of veganism. I feel this book allowed me to get some of these very, very key takeaways. So I feel there are many complicated books around veganism available online with some very, very difficult things, and a lot of people, maybe on the non-vegan side, may not be able to go through them. I feel this book is very non-preachy and in very simple language. So I feel these two books even the first book isn't very much in that zone where, through the storytelling, it makes the message very because you can bring, you can take away your own inferences. You don't need to. There's no prescription being given that this is the inference that I'm trying to force on you. This is my story, this is what happened, this is why I took certain decisions and that's it end. There's no saying that this is what the inference you should take away from. So I feel these two books would really help people.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, they both sound really interesting. Okay, so would you now share a childhood memory, maybe your earliest memory of your connection with animals?
Speaker 1:When I read this question, I have to tell you that I have never been a person who has had a direct connect with animals from that angle where I would have a companion animal dog or I would have a companion animal cat or I would really like take care of an animal, or I would really love an animal, or I would look at a dog and I would be like oh so cute, go and pet the dog or look at a cat or any. I have never done any of those things. To be very honest, and which is also something that I want to tell a lot of your listeners, is that you don't need to be an animal lover from that angle to be a vegan. I am not that animal lover. I don't like go and look at an animal and have that feeling in me that I'm going to pet it, that it's such a cute animal. Yes, in since I've become vegan and since I've been amongst vegans quite a bit, I am a lot more animal friendly now in terms that I'm. He was, I would just be scared of dogs, but now when I'm around dogs, I'm super comfortable and and I have also seen I think maybe animals are so much smarter than us. I sometimes feel that they can maybe look, they can maybe decipher feelings way beyond most of us and the animal the dogs, are so cool around me. I'm like, wow, when I was scared they were scared or they were not so receptive. Now that internally things have changed and I'm no longer scared of dogs, it's just that dog, like any street dog like earlier I would be so scared of them, but now I'm like I could just easily go and pet a street dog and just be so comfortable with it. So, similarly like I remember when I was in the US, I had adopted a goat at a farm sanctuary in Los Angeles and before I decided to move back to India, the only one thing that I wanted to visit in the entire United States. Like my boss offered me, I will drive you anywhere you tell me. Where do you want to go. I said I want to meet the goat. Just before, for the three years I've paid for this goat or bringing, I would like to really meet the goat and so for the, I was at a farm sanctuary in Los Angeles and I have to tell you it was a mind boggling experience. I had never petted a turkey in my life. I had never petted a cow in my life, I had never picked, and it was. I spent the whole day at the farm sanctuary and I thought this was the best thing that I'd done in entire United States. Was that spend in whole six years? I thought that was my favorite day of United States. It's been that one whole day at farm sanctuary, so my favorite day was not with humans, but my favorite day was with farm animals. Out of six years.
Speaker 2:They're impressive, aren't they? They really are, it's another enough of us get to spend time with animals that are domesticated but aren't companion animals. There is a. There is a difference in how they see humans also, I think, and how they relate to humans. They're just. They're so big and impressive, and even a small cow is impressive, you know?
Speaker 1:I remember there was this baby cow and I don't know what I was doing, but it's really biting on my ears and on my cheeks and it was so awesome, like I was, like they were at home in that sanctuary. I really think farm sanctuaries are amazing. I wish more people visited farm sanctuaries rather than going to zoos. I think zoos are the cool edge plays on this planet. I think we can. If I, if I was the president of the world, I would shut down all the zoos on the planet on day one and just send all the animals to sanctuary. Or I think it would be difficult to send them back to wild because the dynamics in the wild would be no trickier, but let them just live out their lies in like sanctuaries. We just need to get rid of zoos. Anyway, again, we are going off tangents, but I feel farm sanctuaries are great.
Speaker 2:No, I love that you're sharing a memory, though, that you had as an adult. It's the same kind of memory that a lot of people do have when they're kids, but you had it as an adult and really could experience it from that perspective, and that's. That's great, all right. So, kuntul, what is the deal with animals?
Speaker 1:If so, as I've to at some point touched upon this concept in the in the podcast is, I truly believe animals are sentient and emotional beings, like us, like from every angle. I think. They feel pain, they feel joy, they feel happiness, I feel even they laugh. They can, I think, communicate as much as we think they are dumb and we think we are here on the planet to rule over them or whatever we think. I don't think any of that nonsense is true. I think they are like us. They are social creatures and they just want to live as we do. They want to live as peacefully and as happily as we do. And, and it's just that we have evolved and gotten. In our context, we have gotten smarter than them, or we think we have gotten smarter than them, which is why we are manipulating, exploiting, abusing and using them for our benefit. They are living in harmony with nature. Imagine if we were not there on this planet and it was just them. I think this planet would just be fine. I think we are just screwing this planet left, right and center. So I feel we need to learn from them as to how it's hard it's hard to live in harmony with nature. I don't think it's going to happen in any of our lifetimes, honestly. So I feel we need to learn that from them. And I don't know I don't know what is the right word to use your just because we have, we think we are smarter and perhaps we have a little bit more control over them. Maybe we need to become there's two words Don't know, I don't know. I can't find the right word but I do think we need to fight for the rights. We need to fight, or so, for we screwed their rights, so now we have to fight. It's such a terrible situation we are in, but I feel we need to. We need to fight for the rights and and I am also of a concept that there has to be animal liberation. I think we need. I think domestication was a mistake on humankind's part. I think we can't. I think we need to get away from domestication, and this is a very painful process. This is going to be a very hard process, I think I do think we need to get away from that, and I don't know what is the path. Honestly, I don't know. I this is a zone which I have not spent enough time thinking about or trying to read about people's perspectives on this, but I do think that we need to move away from domestication. We made a mistake. We need to move away from that mistake. And, yes, I don't know how are we going to live in harmony with them. I don't have an answer to that as well, but these are some things that you know are there in my mind that how can we live in harmony with nature, with animals? How can this be achieved? I think we are too far ahead in the game where it's tough to reverse and, you know, take a reverse journey. So maybe we need to find some middle ground. Maybe, I don't know, I don't think most people even want to find a middle ground. I think people are just happy living this way and just progressing and and calling this progress, and maybe we should just all go to Mars and let them just live here and we can live on Mars and not have any animals on Mars. I think that at least we'll leave them in peace and we'll stop exploiting and killing them for our own reasons. I don't know, I'm just just whatever is coming in my mind.
Speaker 2:No, it's a really fascinating idea, the whole idea of domestication, and I don't think it's one someone has really brought up before. There's, of course, these theories about how some animals have domesticated us or have we've co-domesticated each other as well, because they, they were able to exploit things that humans did to benefit them, and so that's an interesting sort of idea of it. But I think you're right. I think for the most part, the only thing animals domesticated, animals, have got from this deal has been numbers. Right, they've certainly their populations have gotten huge and they've been able to expand across the world, and that's genetically and, you know, darwinistically I suppose, the goal for a lot of creatures, but from an individual scale it certainly hasn't benefited them.
Speaker 1:Maybe all the cows and all the animals get some brains and their numbers here they will just overpower us, and I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. You've been so generous with your time today. I really appreciate it. And how can people find you if they want to reach out to you?
Speaker 1:I think the best way would be my Instagram account at Kuntal J, k-u-n-t-a-l-j. But if people are not on Instagram, they can reach out to me on Facebook, they can reach out to me on LinkedIn or they can go to my website, wwwkuntaljoysharecom. I have not updated it since a very long time, so the about page is I'm 37 years old, but I am 43 years old, so it's 60 years old. I have not touched it since a while, though it works. It works properly, so you can get information about me. You can send me messages from there. Those are the ways you can connect with me.
Speaker 2:Great, perfect. Thank you so much. Again, thank you for your time today. I really appreciate I could have talked to you for another hour easily.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:That was Kuntal Joyshare, vegan Mountaineer and fitness trainer for vegans, photographer and animal advocate. To learn more about Kuntal, check him out at KuntalJoysharecom All related links to the episode are in the show notes and check out the new blog where I keep all the notes on the episodes as well as the guests. It's a good place to find out about events and sign up for the newsletter. Thank you again for joining me as we continue to ask the question what's the deal with animals? I'm your host, marika Bell. The theme music for the deal with animals was composed by Kai Strascoff, and thank you as well to Christina Blanco for behind the scenes help with social media, bonus content and our Patreon page. You can see links to the guest book recommendations, as well as their websites and affiliated organizations in our show notes and at thedealwithanimalscom. This podcast was produced on both historical tribal land of the Snoqualmie and Quinell Indian nations. For more information, go to the Snoqualmie tribes ancestral lands movement. What do you think is the deal with animals? The deal with animals is part of the Iroar Animal Podcast Network.