Our actions affect everything around us, and during this time in our world, we see the power of empathy and compassion. As part of the SAVE—Sustainability at Veritas Empowered—employee resource group our mission is to engage our community and learn how together we can make more sustainable choices and minimize our environmental footprint.
We were delighted and grateful to have Monica Chen, the Executive Director, of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition (FFAC) spend her time with us and empower us all with knowledge on how to be more compassionate through our food choices. She also led a cooking demo and showed us all how to make her favorite brookie (the best of a brownie and cookie) dessert – it was such a treat! We all learned so much about how the food choices we make can help Mother Earth, animals, and each other.
The SAVE event with Monica was eye-opening for me on three points: 1- factory farming and the abuse of animals that have been converted into machines to generate meat, milk, and eggs. 2- We have been fed false information around animal protein, no we do not need it to survive 3- ways to incorporate plant protein into our diet and help SAVE the animals and our planet.
Thank you for setting up the SAVE event with Monica. At first, I didn't know what to expect. I learned so much hearing Monica share how many in the US get our food, corporate farming, and the impact on people and the planet. It was eye-opening to know that there's a lot of marketing out there that can be misleading like "free-range" when it's really not. I'm now a more conscious shopper now when I get groceries and am trying to reduce the amount of meat I buy and introduce more fruits and veggies into what I eat. So far I'm really liking the new choices I'm trying.
Big thank you to the SAVE event with Monica Chen from the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition. I have switched to a mostly plant-based diet and was curious to see what I could learn from this talk. I was absolutely floored by the information shared: I had no idea how much ecological and economical impact factory farming has had on the planet. I will definitely be sharing the information gathered and recommending others attend future events to help increase and spread awareness of the dangers of factory farming.
It was shocking to learn about the negative impact of factory farming on the environment and that ten billion land animals die for meat, eggs, and dairy every year in the United States. After learning these facts, it was comforting to hear alternative options that are less harmful to the environment and easily accessible. Finishing the presentation with Monica's vegan brookie recipe was a fun and tasty way to put environmentally aware food consumption into practice.
Going into the SAVE event I was already about 80% vegan in my diet, did so for various reasons but environmental impact being up there. Monica certainly went over the environmental issues in a thoughtful way that was a good refresher but something I hadn't thought about before was the disproportionate impact that the animal products industry has on the poor. I am not sure I needed more reasons to diminish my consumption of animal products but this event certainly helped my resolve to keep on course.
I had an eye-opening experience learning about how my daily meals end up on my plate. I was quite surprised to find out that even when being more contentious about my food choices at the store, the most important thing is to change the overall composition of my diet. Overall, it was awesome to learn how to make smarter decisions with my nutrition, without sacrificing performance.
Thanks much to my fellow SAVE team members, Melanie and Jay for setting up this amazing session with Monica. This session was super insightful for me considering I am always looking for sustainable solutions for my day-to-day activities. Food being our prime agenda, especially in the times of Pandemic, when we are locked up at home with nothing to do but to cook, is one place where it’s not easy to identify sustainability. Am grateful to have found material on identifying the issues in the current groceries that we get and also get to know about the options that we could choose for.
Also, this was a great session to know how many of our fellow Veritas(ians) are into saving the environment and bringing about the change, one egg at a time.
To end it with the scrumptious brookie was cherry on the pie and left me happy and hungry
I thought it did a good job of raising awareness of how the things we consume on a daily basis can impact the environment. It introduced some healthy alternatives that people could use that could make a great impact. Even if people just change how they do things for a couple of meals a week, if everybody did that, the impact for the environment could be substantial.
Thank you so much for the SAVE event with Monica. I really enjoyed the education. I did sign up for the newsletter and watched "The Game Changers" which I thought was fascinating. I think we all should make an effort to help the environment and of course preserve our health. Great event!!
Karen Lee | Sr. Corporate Counsel
I attended the talk that Monica hosted a year ago, and attended again this year. Listening to the discussion has inspired me to reconsider my family’s food choices, and to keep this as a priority in our daily lives. After that talk, we quickly proceeded to try out various plant-based milk products out there. I look forward to attending more events held by SAVE in the future.
Thank you Monica and to you all for making this event very special and so much fun! :green_heart:
To find the recipe and more resources on how to be more compassionate through checkout :
- The yummy recipe Monica walked us through
- Brookie - How to make a brookie
- Monica's Favorite Cookie Recipe - For the chocolate chip part of the Brookie she utilized her favorite cookie recipe
- Are you interested in going vegan? Check out a free guided 10-week challenge to vegan
- If you would like to support the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition you can donate on their website
