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While cooking and sampling vegan comfort food, four friends spoke honestly about why they haven’t stopped eating animals, in spite of their best intentions.  Shecky Beagleman, Danny Cohen, Jodie Wasserman and Rena Zager met in New York City almost 20 years ago when they started doing stand up comedy. Over the years, as they have learned about the impact of eating animals on their health, the planet and the animals, they talked many times about making the transition to a plant-based diet.  But all of them have struggled.  Will a frank discussion about the challenges coupled with “tuna” sushi, a vegan Caesar Salad and rigatoni with an “unreal” ricotta cheese move them further along?  

In 2007 at the age of 24, Michele Graglia moved to Miami Beach from Italy in order to expand his family’s floral business in the United States, but, within a week of his arrival, a modeling agent discovered him on the street and convinced him to pursue a career in modeling. Enriched but unsatisfied by the profession, Michele walked off of the runway in 2012, shortly after stumbling upon a book about ultra-running  – a book that dramatically changed his life. 

Michele Graglia gave up his modeling career to pursue ultra-running. Today, he is one of the top ultra-runners in the world.

In this interview with TheirTurn, Michele recounts his journey from a small-town salesman to international supermodel and world-renowned vegan ultra-runner.

Michele’s book, Ultra, was published in Italy in 2017 and is scheduled to be released in the United States in 2019.

Michele Graglia documents his journey as an ultra-runner in his new book, Ultra.

As hundreds of New Yorkers took to the streets to march in the 2018 Veggie Pride Parade, many onlookers spoke on camera, giving their honest feedback about the parade and its message.

Pedestrians lined up in NYC’s Union Square to watch a four minute video in exchange for $1, but many were so profoundly affected by what they saw that they declined to take their reward and instead engaged with the advocates on hand about transitioning to a vegan diet.

The “pay-per-view” event, organized by the 12,500 member NYC Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup Group, aims to expose New Yorkers to the cruelty of animal agriculture and help them transition to a healthier and more environmentally friendly plant-based diet. TheirTurn interviewed people who were willing to speak on camera about if and how the video, “Ten Billion Lives” (see below), would affect their behavior.

“One of the biggest challenges we face as advocates in our day-to-day lives is convincing people to watch footage of industrialized animal agriculture and slaughter,” said David Greene, who runs NYC Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup Group. “The ‘Pay-Per-View’ approach helps us overcome that obstacle and provides us with a platform to engage with a captive audience about making more compassionate choices.”

Activist Joyce Friedman conducts vegan outreach with a woman who was disturbed by the farm animal abuse in the video.

Here is the 4 minute video that the pedestrians were paid to watch:

If you live in the NYC tri-state area and would like to participate in pay-per-view events, other forms of vegan outreach or social events, please visit NYC Vegetarian and Vegan Meetup Group.

Activists with Friends of Animals United (FAUN) screened the documentary Earthlings in Union Square, a public space in New York City with a high concentration of pedestrians. The following video, which was viewed almost 300,000 times in the 24 hours after it was posted on Facebook, shows some of reactions generated by the film:

Phyllis Letthembe, the organizer, told TheirTurn that the activists show Earthlings and distribute information in an effort to open peoples’ eyes to animal cruelty and tap into their empathy.

Pedestrians in NYC stop to watch the documentary film Earthlings

During the two hours that Earthlings was screened, hundreds of pedestrians stopped to watch the film and talk to the activists who were standing by to answer questions. “We can tell based on the discussions we are having that people are profoundly affected by the video,” said Letthembe. “We wouldn’t be out in the streets if we didn’t think we were making a difference. After all, it was videos like Earthlings that made me and many of my fellow activists go vegan.”

The next outreach event takes place in the same location on September 15th.

To watch Earthlings, please visit the website for the film.