[Speaker 1]

Welcome to the Unshamed TV podcast with me, your host, Jane Velez Mitchell. And as per usual, we have some breaking news for you and it concerns the amazing, absolutely astounding Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Texas. There you see some of Renee King Sonin’s charges.

 

She of course, world famous, and you’re about to talk to her for turning her husband’s cattle operation in Texas into a farmed animal sanctuary, sparking global attention, global media coverage. And now Renee today is going to reveal her new goal, which is to create a medical treatment facility at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary for ailing cows and pigs, where they won’t be treated as mere commodities, but rather as the sentient, sensitive, sentient beings they are. And we’re also going to learn about Buddy, the lamb saved from slaughter.

 

So without further ado, let’s go to the one and only, there she is Renee King Sonin, famous for singing to her cows, and literally starting a movement to help cattle ranchers who want to escape from this violent industry and become productive citizens, producing beautiful things or starting another sanctuary like Renee King Sonin has. So Renee, these are some of your beautiful animals. We love them all.

 

I know you have more than 120 animals you are working with right now. Tell us what is the very latest at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary? Oh, thank you, Jane.

 

It’s always a pleasure to be here. And the very latest is, as you mentioned, our third phase construction of our medical treatment facility. We are committed to building what is very necessary in our world because veterinarians that we have to take our animals to have food animal departments.

 

And if anybody has ever been to a large animal veterinarian, you will know that farm animals, pigs, cows, you know, big farm animals are treated in food departments. It is one of the most unbelievable, shocking experiences I’ve had in the 10 plus years I’ve been at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary is having to take my animals into food departments and have them treated as food because the treatment is subpar. They don’t get the necessary medications and necessary treatments.

 

They don’t even quite frankly know how to take care of aging bovine because they’re killed prematurely for food. So when Stormy, my little Stormy girl died in my arms at Texas A&M in the food department during right after the 2016 flood, I determined on my way back home with her memory in my mind and in my heart, she died in my arms, that little precious child. And I swore I would build a medical treatment facility one day in her honor.

 

That was in 2016 Jane. Here we are in 2025 building our third phase. We recently built a hundred foot by 80 foot big barn.

 

We affectionately call it the cow house. That was the beginning of the medical treatment facility that if you will, is the structure, the main structure. And then last year we raised the money to start building all of the, you know, the electricity, the roads, a lot of the the infrastructure that was necessary to make it a reality.

 

And then this year we’re building the lab. We’re building a lab where we’ve already started building welded pins and stalls. And the vision is coming to life.

 

I am so excited to hear it. Let’s play your announcement when you decided to launch this program. And we’ll take it from there.

 

All right. I’m Renee King-Sonnen, founder and executive director of Rowdy Girl. My husband, Tommy, we are here at Fayette County Vet Hospital, where the vets here always come to Rowdy Girl like an hour drive to either take care of our cows or we have to drive here to have our our aging bovine taken care of, our animals that get injured.

 

We are in designing of our phase four of our medical treatment facility at the end of this year. And so we are getting plans. We are figuring out exactly how we’re going to build it out.

 

And if you just look around a little bit, you can see that the facility here is going to be exactly comparable to what we’re going to be trying to do at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary so that we can take care of all of the aging, surrendered bovine at Rowdy Girl to the day they naturally die. Wow. Well, what really upsets me, Renee, is that you’re suggesting because these animals are unfortunately used for food.

 

And that’s exactly what we’re trying to wake the world up to, that you don’t need to do that. Look at me. Look at you.

 

We don’t need animals. Look, we’re always accused of having too much energy. Calm down.

 

We’re super healthy. But because they are considered food that they can’t get proper medical care because they’re considered disposable. Is that what you’re essentially saying?

 

Well, yeah, I mean, if they’re considered food, they’re considered units of production, and that is what animal agriculture treats. That’s how they treat these animals as their units of production, their widgets, their things like a pair of shoes or, you know, your car keys. And these animals are sentient beings that have an innate sense of, you know, caring about each other.

 

They we have cows here at Rowdy Girl that have that have been families, communities for many years. They stay together. They nurture each other.

 

They care about each other. If one of their family members passes away, they mourn, they grieve. They they get, you know, conditions just like we do.

 

They go blind. They get arthritis. They get cancer.

 

They have problems just like you and I. So how would how would we like it as a species if we went to the hospital and we had to be treated as food? And so we got subpar care because, you know, our our body parts were being used to to, you know, to beat people.

 

I’d be horrible. And that’s what happens is that humanity has done this to these animals. It’s never it never was intended.

 

None of these animals were never intended to be food. Humanity has turned them into machines, commodities. It is so sad.

 

And of course, that’s what you and I together are trying to fight, trying to wake people up, that it’s not in their interest. It’s not in our interest. It’s not in the planet’s interest to to treat these gorgeous animals as commodities or food, that they have a right to their own lives.

 

And, you know, we’ve been working on that together. And I’m so happy to announce that currently we are working on a joint project to try to get monthly donors for Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. It’s so easy.

 

You just go to RowdyGirlSanctuary.org, donate. It’s super fun. You join the Rowdy Club.

 

You can adopt an animal. You can become a member. You can do both.

 

Tell us about that, Renee. Well, thank you. The Rowdy Club is is growing.

 

We have about 740 sustaining members at the present. And our average donation is about twenty two dollars a month. And people that join, join at any level they want to.

 

So whether it’s five dollars a month, eight dollars a month, fifteen, twenty, whatever you want to donate per month is up to you. But what that does, you know, when all these dollars are multiplied by by people, the impact created is, you know, is relief for us, because the last thing I want to do is wake up in the morning and think that I can’t pay the payroll or to think that I can’t pay for hay. You know, all those donations when they’re coming in every month, no matter how much it is, it all adds up when everyone out there that believes and supports the mission joins.

 

And the Rowdy Club, you know, we always say we’re the rowdiest club of all. Kind of like mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the rowdiest club of all?

 

The Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. And so we like to you know, we have a quarterly roundup. We call it where all of our members are invited to join in an hour long.

 

A very structured presentation that Tommy and I both attend. We have an agenda. We have photos.

 

We talk about things that are going on, going on at the sanctuary that nobody knows about. You know, you get firsthand information, you know, you know, breaking news, if you will, hot off the press. You know, when you are a member of the Rowdy Club and you come to these roundups, not everybody that is a member comes, but those that come really get treated like rowdy royalty.

 

So, you know, we appreciate appreciate it so much. Wonderful. Well, you know, I am very honored to be collaborating with Rowdy Girl Sanctuary.

 

You are one of my favorite people. You’ve really broken the mold, as it were. And Tiffany Brunelli says, love Renee.

 

Thank you for waking folks up and saving so many farmed animals. So many people would echo that sentiment. I’m very excited about being part of this.

 

Because you really are in the heart of cattle country. And if you can switch, anybody can switch. And, you know, what I’d like to say is that you and I have actually engaged in a number of collaborations, and one of them was writing a song together that we performed in your sanctuary field.

 

And it’s one of my favorite moments. I want to play it. And then we can talk about how much fun it is to go plant based and treat animals as friends, not food.

 

I can feel it on the plains. I can sense it on the range. I can feel it on the farm and even in my barn.

 

Texas is going vegan. Texas is going vegan, baby. Texas is going vegan right now.

 

So please don’t have a cow. So please don’t have a cow. There’s a big veg fest in Austin.

 

There’s a new veg fest in Lubbock. And that cattle ranch in Angleton’s a sanctuary. Texas is going vegan.

 

Texas is going vegan, baby. Texas is going vegan right now. Whoa, that was so much fun.

 

And everybody’s saying, love this song. Texas is going vegan, baby. Great job.

 

If you want to watch that, it’s very easy to watch. And you just go to UnchainedTV.com. UnchainedTV.com has an entire channel devoted to Renee Kingsone and the Rowdy Girl channel. So just go to UnchainedTV and check it out. Super fun. And you gotta get your tambourine out to play, though.

 

You gotta get it out. Yeah, you gotta get it out. So tell me, Renee, when we were there, OK, you became famous.

 

I first met you when I heard about, oh, my gosh, this woman who somehow convinced her husband to turn his cattle operation, fourth generation cattle rancher, into a vegan farmed animal sanctuary. And don’t give it away yet. I know that story is going to be told.

 

We’ll get there in a second. But what was the surrounding community like then in Texas? And what is it now?

 

Do you see any sense that people in Texas, the heart of cattle country, are starting to embrace your message that animals are friends, not food? You know, when we first started, it was, you know, when we first started this, it was so brand new. I mean, people in California knew about what we were doing before our next door neighbors did.

 

So, you know, it was terrifying for us because we were members of the Brazori County Cattlemen’s Association. You know, Texas ranchers and cattle ranchers in general, you know, they have the good old boy, you know, kind of like Dr. Rouse, Peaky Promise. Well, you know, there’s a there’s kind of a there’s a good old boy, you know, Peaky Promise, if you will, you know, that, you know, cattle ranchers stick together.

 

And, you know, and we were breaking out of that mold and I didn’t do it to get famous. I didn’t even know that that was going to happen. I had no idea that going crazy would get us all this attention.

 

But, you know, it started it started happening. And today, you know, 10 plus years later, you know, I think we have make it I made a significant difference in the lives of cattle ranchers because our story has been on so many major news networks. It’s been told in multiple languages around the world.

 

We’ve got the documentary. It was recently in Taiwan and Taiwanese. And so, you know, when you consider that the rowdy girl’s story is resonating because there was a void that needed to be filled.

 

And so that void has not only is not only being filled, but it continues to echo around the world in places that need this story. This story gives people hope and cattle ranchers are not the bad guys. I tell people all the time, it’s the system.

 

It isn’t cattle ranchers. They are in a system of normalized cruelty and violence that they, quite frankly, don’t know how to get out of. I remember, gosh, it was when I went to my very first Veg Fest.

 

Remember Marshall Veg Fest in Marshall, Texas? Yeah, well, you know, I went there and I met this eighth generation cattle rancher right out of the right out of the shoot, right out of the you know, right, right when I first went vegan and ready to go to Sanctuary was so new. He came up to me in his Stetson hat and his toothpick and his leather boots and his Wrangler suit.

 

And he said, so I hear my wife tells me you used to be a cattle rancher and you’ve gone vegan. He said, I want to know how you’re making money. And I said, well, you know, we’re you know, I’m fundraising.

 

I’m doing all this. And, you know, and I realized as I was talking that people like this man and others, you know, they weren’t going to have that same resource mentality. Not every cattle rancher is going to have the same ability to, you know, I mean, we have a unique niche.

 

We changed. We transitioned our cattle ranch to a nonprofit sanctuary. But not every cattle rancher is going to be able to do that.

 

They need ways to get out of that. And this man said to me, well, I just want to know how you’re going to do this, because I have kids that are going vegetarian and talking about vegan and they don’t want to inherit the ranch. And I said, oh, they don’t want to inherit the cruelty.

 

And he looked at me really quiet with that toothpick in his mouth and he said, well, little lady, if you can figure out a way to help me, help me help them, I’d sure take a listen. And, you know, that’s what actually started me thinking about the Rancher Advocacy Program, which, as you know, we we did a whole for years. We worked on that.

 

I mean, we were the pioneers. We are the pioneers of a whole rancher transition movement that now has started. So, you know, today it’s it’s very interesting.

 

Ranchers look at us completely different today because I think we stepped out there and made the first mark. And now others are following suit. Other stories are being told.

 

And it’s my hope that other cattle ranchers, other families will be able to do whatever they can to get their story across that line, because it’s going to take all of us having stories to change the narrative. Well, I just want you to know that your story is absolutely fascinating, and that is one reason why we’ve got breaking news here for you people. This is extremely exciting for me to announce that Renee’s story, her incredible life story, is now going to be published as a book.

 

[Speaker 2]

I’ll be working with Renee on the book. Just want to tell you how excited I am to be publishing this incredibly inspirational story. You know, when I brought this proposal to a publishing committee, people were doing cartwheels.

 

Well, actually, it was an online meeting, so no cartwheels. But everybody was thrilled. I think everybody got the vision.

 

Everybody understood that this was an important story. It was an inspirational story. It was about taking a stand and making change happen.

 

And boy, I tell you, it’s so much fun to publish books like that. And Renee, we’re going to do everything we can to give you the sort of platform and visibility you and your story deserve.

 

[Speaker 1]

Well, congratulations, Renee. Tell us who the publisher is and give us as much information as you can without giving it all away. Well, our publisher is Bloomsbury.

 

And the fun thing about Bloomsbury is J.K. Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter, was also published by Bloomsbury. And I was told that she was turned down by multiple publishers and she was picked up by Bloomsbury. And everybody knows J.K. Rowling and her story. And, you know, it’s my hope that the Rowdy Girl story, because they believe in it so much. When he told me that everybody on the team was thumbs up, I cried. I was like, you know, I don’t know what it all means.

 

I know that my book is the manuscript is due to publisher in seven days, due on the 15th. Oh, you better get to work. Just wait till this podcast is over and then you can jump into that.

 

I’m very happy to say that I listened to some of the chapters, pretty much all of them, except for the last one. I don’t want to know how it ends, although I kind of know how it ends. And it’s it’s a page turner.

 

It’s absolutely compelling. You know, part of it is that you reveal a lot. And you know what they say.

 

Nobody wants a vanity piece. People want to hear the nitty gritty, the dirty stories, the rough stories. And you really reveal it.

 

And we shouldn’t give away the title either, but it’s a humdinger. I’m telling everybody, just wait. I’m almost I could swear it’s going to be a made for TV movie or a feature film down the road as well.

 

I wonder who’s going to play Renee King Soden. I tell you what, I I the whole process of getting this book to publishing has been remarkable. And Jane, I honestly have so much gratitude and respect and appreciation for you for being such a role model and cheerleader for me during this process.

 

I really mean it when I say I don’t think I could have taken those steps so courageously had you not listened to the chapters as I was writing them. Well, it was fun. I mean, I have to say I had a great time listening.

 

And the only thing I said at the end of each chapter was keep writing because it was so good. So guys and gals out there, we are going to have a Renee King Soden Rowdy Girl book soon. And like I say, I think it’s going to be a made for TV or a feature film.

 

And we just have to think of who’s going to star as Renee. Oh, boy. What?

 

I said, oh, boy. I’ll have to be behind the, I have to like be there, like making sure they do the accent just right. Oh, yeah.

 

Well, you well, let me tell you something. This is a serious issue. I listen to books.

 

I probably listen to three books a week while I’m walking my dogs. I’m not reading books. I read constantly, but I read more articles, read stuff online.

 

When it comes to books, almost always, except for Kindle, I’m watching, listening to books. And your voice is one of a kind. You must tell your publishers that you do an audio book and you should read it because nobody can do your voice like Renee King Soden can.

 

So promise me you’ll do that, OK? Well, I mean, I know that I know one thing. We put it in the contract that I can try out to do my voice.

 

I mean, so I definitely am going to be trying out to read the book. I love it. So, again, we’re talking about so many things that are happening at Rowdy Girl Sanctuary and Rowdy Girl and Unchained TV, which is our nonprofit, multi-platform news and entertainment network for the plant based animal rights lifestyle.

 

We are collaborating right now. We’re trying to help Renee get some more monthly donors in. And I would urge everybody to become a monthly donor.

 

It’s super fun. I’m a member of the Rowdy Girl Club. I am a vendor.

 

And, you know, I it’s one of my favorite things. Nothing. There’s no there’s no no thing that I could do for twenty dollars a month that is as fun, exciting and as game changing as being part of Renee King Soden’s Rowdy Girl team.

 

Now, I just want to give you an example of the astounding work that Renee does. She has more than 120 animals at her sanctuary cared for by Renee and her amazing husband, Tommy. I don’t know how he puts up with you, frankly, Renee, but that’s another subject.

 

But the work they do is it brings tears to my eyes. Now, this is a story of one little lamb. We’re going to hear the story of one little lamb was surrendered and then we’re going to talk about it on the other side.

 

This is one of perhaps the newest addition to Rowdy Girl Sanctuary.

 

[Speaker 2]

Hey, little buddy. Oh, he’s nervous.

 

[Speaker 1]

Hey, little buddy. OK, hi there. I’m Renee with Rowdy Girl Sanctuary.

 

We have Crystal, Serenity and Juan. And this is Buddy. What’s going on, buddy?

 

Hey, little buddy. He does like back scratches.

 

[Speaker 2]

Now, how old is Buddy?

 

[Speaker 1]

He’ll turn one April 1st. So Buddy will be one April 1st. He’s going to be one real soon.

 

And Buddy is being surrendered by the family from FFA. We got Buddy last April. He was an ag animal.

 

And his birthday is on April 1st. And he’s considered a dwarf lamb. And he’s just a good boy.

 

He’s supposed to be attending the Austin Rodeo tomorrow, actually. And we don’t have the heart for him to get, I mean, you know, as a terminal animal, which is nothing too much. And he’s such a good boy.

 

He listens very well. He does have, he loves to eat. He gets hay belly really quickly and he just follows you around.

 

Once he gets comfortable with you, he follows you around. He loves to look at the cows. And he does.

 

He did have a little friend at the barn. His name was Wrangler. And he’s just a good.

 

He’s going to be his friend. He’s going to miss Wrangler. Wrangler’s actually dying at him this morning.

 

But he’s a good boy. Is Wrangler going to the fair? Yes, ma’am.

 

So he’s going to come? Yes, ma’am. And he’s a good boy.

 

He had another buddy named Foster, and he went to a good home as well. Oh, Foster did. Wrangler not so good.

 

No, Wrangler. And we don’t have oil. This is this is our last year in the program, and she’s no longer going to.

 

You’re no longer going to do that. Can you speak a little bit to that for your mom? Oh, so this is my first year in the program.

 

And unfortunately, I did like you while I lasted, but I couldn’t give up the animal because I really love him. And he’s really sweet. I mean, I just couldn’t give him up.

 

I feel like it’s really sad just leaving him there and just for them to get slaughtered. Heartbreaking, heartbreaking that these programs and I invite FFA or any of these other related programs that train kids to raise, fall in love with animals and then send them off to be slaughtered. I invite them on any time.

 

I would love to dialogue with you, but what a heartbreaker. And then Wrangler, you know, I mean, it brings tears to my eyes, but what a good family to go out of their way. How is Buddy doing?

 

What are your thoughts on the buddies of the world? Oh, my gosh. Buddy is so beautiful.

 

He is inquisitive. He has developed a huge bond with Leo, the oldest sheep. He loves Leo.

 

I mean, wherever Leo goes, you know, little Buddy is right behind him. And that’s his big buddy, big brother. And so, you know, they just, you know, to think that Buddy would have been slaughtered the next day and to see him living his best life right now with all of these animals.

 

You know, he’s so free. He’s so inquisitive. They get to live that.

 

In fact, that family came out for Volunteer Day and they were so impressed with all the animals just being right there around them. Like they were just part of the family. There was Buddy.

 

There was Antonio. There was, you know, Henry. Everybody’s, you know, just one big happy family.

 

They just couldn’t believe, couldn’t believe it. And they just couldn’t be happier. You know, they’re also members.

 

And I know that Families Choosing Compassion, the program that accepted Buddy, is the right way to go. I mean, this family now can come and see Buddy. Anytime they want to.

 

They don’t have to, you know, fill out a form and wait forever. All they have to do is call us, text us, let us know they want to come. And we make provisions so that they can come and, you know, spend quality time with the animal.

 

They surrender here till to the day they naturally pass on, which is a really, really a gift. Well, I’ve actually spoken to young people who’ve been involved with these programs who’ve been traumatized. I don’t understand why in the 21st century we are raising kids to raise animals, to fall in love with them, to care for them, to give them a way to be slaughtered.

 

It just boggles my mind. Again, I invite any of these programs on anytime on Unchained TV. I would love to dialogue with you.

 

But tell us about Families Choosing Compassion. What is that? Like, I know that this wonderful family dropped Buddy off so that Buddy can live out his beautiful life at Rowdy Girls Sanctuary.

 

But it’s part of another program as well. Yeah, Families Choosing Compassion was actually created when I realized that families like Buddy’s were not able to handle taking their animal all the way to the terminal, you know, the terminal line and that ends up in slaughter. One of the very first kids that made it real palpable for me was Elena Hidalgo.

 

She had the piggy gizmo. And her story is on our website. In fact, you may have it on your channel.

 

We do. Yeah, you may have it. Yeah.

 

And so that story is unbelievable. I mean, Elena became, like, recognized by, you know, Ingrid at PETA. And Elena also got an award through, I mean, was it Susan’s organization?

 

Animal Hero Kids. And so Elena became very recognized by her heart. And that started Families Choosing Compassion, like pretty much on the map, because we realized there was another family prior to that that was Rue’s family that that surrendered Rue.

 

But it was Elena’s family that stuck. It was Elena’s family that started wanting to come see him, be a part of his life. And we started developing a program called Families Choosing Compassion, where if the family decides through careful interviews that we have with them, that they are not going to ever get involved with FFA or 4-H in the capacity where they’re going to raise animals to sell them in a, you know, in a in a terminal show, that we would be willing to consider taking the animal here.

 

Or if we can’t, we would help them find a home. So, you know, that family and that they could come here anytime they want to. And they can be part of their lives.

 

We are expanding Families Choosing Compassion right now. We’re actually developing programming right now that’s going to take the Families Choosing Compassion model into schools, into the community, so that I will also be available to go into schools and speak about our program. We are doing this in a way that’s not going to be antagonistic.

 

But we’re there to be a bridge so that families like Elena, families like, you know, Betty’s family, so that they can, you know, have different, make different decisions. Absolutely. And of course, we’re telling you to support this incredible program and Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in general.

 

We’ve got Nilo Farr, who says, What a pleasure to meet you at NARD, Halston, Renee. I look forward to coming and touring the sanctuary with a pledge to invest in the sanctuary. So there you go.

 

Yay, Nilo Farr is one of our wonderful regular viewers and very generous woman. So thank you, Nilo Farr, for all you do. It takes a team effort.

 

So we’ve covered so much ground. We’ve covered that you’re raising funds for a new medical treatment facility. So these aging bovines and pigs and other animals can be treated with dignity instead of just basically nothing to see here.

 

They’re old. Let’s send them to slaughter. And you’ve also got this incredible Families Choosing Compassion program where that family we just saw brought Buddy the lamb to basically sanctuary so he can survive and not be killed after the daughter of this family fell in love raising Buddy and something I just really hope that you expand.

 

And of course, you have all the other 122 animals. So we’re urging people to become part of the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary family. It’s very easy.

 

You can basically just go to RowdyGirlSanctuary.org and donate and just put in a monthly eight dollars a month, ten dollars a month. And she’s got more than 700 now. And that’s I know how hard that is.

 

So well done. I know that that is a very, very difficult figure to achieve. So everybody just be part of this RowdyGirlSanctuary.org forward slash donate. And I just want to ask you, you know what else? Because I know, Renee, you work around the clock, you and your husband, Tommy. You’ve got 122 animals.

 

Just give us a sense of where you are now with the sanctuary while you try to expand with the medical treatment center and these various programs. What else are we missing? Well, we’re also developing another program that’s not quite on the map yet, but it is being pitched.

 

It’s called Compassion Roots, and it’s going to be another extension and another arm of like families choosing compassion. But it’s going to go deeper. It’s going to go into rural communities and we’re going to be tracking all sorts of the work that we do.

 

It’s, you know, stay tuned for that. It’s called Compassion Roots. We’re going into the roots of rural communities in our neck of the woods.

 

We’re also going to be using the Rowdy Girl documentary as part of that process. And because the book will be coming out, that’ll also be a part of the education process. But the Rowdy Girl documentary is is something I’m really proud of, even though it’s not streaming yet.

 

And I know and I hope eventually it’s going to be on your platform. I believe that it will. Yeah, but it’s going to be playing at Austin Film Society in October.

 

I am going to be a keynote speaker at the Seed Food and Wine Festival. That’s the Seed Food and Wine Festival. I thought you said seafood.

 

No, it’s Seed Food and Wine Festival. Seed, yes. Seed Food and Wine Festival.

 

They’re expecting 10,000 people to come through there, the four or five days that they’re going to be putting on this festival. There’s going to be all kinds of plant based food vendors, opportunities to sponsor this incredible event. And yeah, it’s going to be amazing.

 

I’m going to be a keynote. We’re going to be filming the documentary at the Austin Film Society. Tickets are on sale now.

 

I think you can get special tickets through the Beds News magazine right now. I believe it is. But I mean, like at a discount.

 

But the seating is limited and seating will, I know, sell out. And we’re also going to have a booth there. It would be super awesome if Unchained TV could be there covering it.

 

I would love to. I mean, you know, just apropos of nothing, we are so busy. We’re editing around the clock because there is so much happening in the vegan community.

 

We just got done finishing a story we’re about to publish on the Animal Vegan Advocacy Summit. You’re in that video because you were there recently at LAX Marriott. And we just got finished yesterday editing the Direct Action Everywhere March in Petaluma.

 

And we are going to be doing the West Hollywood Plant-Based Treaty Food Day Hollywood panel, which I emceed. So that’s another video. Then you have the UCLA Compassion Fest, which is essentially a veg fest.

 

There is so much happening in the vegan community. Honestly, I cannot keep up. I could literally go every single night and videotape something.

 

What people don’t realize is, well, maybe they do. You can’t just videotape it. You got to edit it.

 

And that’s the hardest part. It’s the longest part. It’s the most time consuming part.

 

But I am heartened by that because people are talking about how veganism is under attack. Yes, there is a new organization called Veg Media Watch that I’d like to tell everybody about. Just go on X to Veg Media Watch and retweet as a new team of people expose nasty and nasty hit pieces published by mainstream media filled with misinformation about veganism, attacking veganism.

 

And this is basically a meat industry campaign that’s been going on ever since Beyond Meat launched its very successful initial public offering. I believe it was back in 2019. And they said, oh, boy, you know, people are going to realize they can eat veggie burgers that taste just as good or better.

 

And what are we going to do? They started attacking it as ultra processed. And now Beyond Meat burgers are endorsed by the American Heart Association.

 

They’re certified by the American Heart Association. So there’s a lot of push pull in that arena. But make no mistake, the vegan movement is growing exponentially.

 

What are your thoughts on that, Renee? Well, I am so excited that I really am that the vegan movement is growing. What we have to do is get more and more vegans into becoming staffers and becoming, you know, lobbyists.

 

You know, as much as we’re growing, there’s so much money and politics and power in big ag that they will go to any lengths to try to sabotage our efforts like they have tried to do with Beyond Meat and other plant based meat companies. You know, they do any and everything they can to to squelch our movement. They stockpile, as you know, you know, billions, you know, I don’t know, over millions and millions of pounds of cheese in the United States.

 

You know, it’s it’s not that, you know, the fact of the matter is, you know, that there is not it’s not the consumption. It’s you know, it’s that the production is happening in spite of the fact that consumers are consuming less milk. And the reason why is because of all of the subsidies, all of the money, all of the things that are in play, you know, in our government to keep cheese stockpiled in our country.

 

It’s terrible. I agree with you 100 percent. The average hamburger that sells for two dollars or three dollars would cost twenty five dollars if we taxpayers weren’t forced to subsidize it.

 

And, you know, while there’s so much talk in Washington and this is a bipartisan issue, I’m not getting into partisan politics. Of cutting excess spending. The first thing they should be cutting is the massive multibillion dollar subsidies to big ag, multinational corporations.

 

In many cases, some of them aren’t even based in the United States. The largest pig producer in the world is a Chinese owned company. So why are we subsidizing all this at taxpayer expense and not allowing the law of supply and demand to work?

 

People say, well, it’s capitalism. No, it’s not. It’s corporate socialism.

 

These companies are getting bailed out. They’re getting bailed out for bird flu. And so that they’re not really incentivized to do protocols that would limit the spread because, well, if you’re going to get paid anyway, you know, they’re subsidized with the school lunch program.

 

They’re subsidized with insurance payments for natural disasters. They’re subsidized, subsidized, subsidized, subsidized. The dairy industry would collapse were it not for government subsidies.

 

So, yeah, I don’t know why that is the one thing that nobody seems to. Oh, we got to cut everything. We got to cut everything.

 

We actually at Unchained TV wrote a letter to Elon Musk when he was in charge of Doge and said, if you’re going to cut something, cut the subsidies to animal agriculture. They’re also causing the health care crisis because people are sick from largely preventable lifestyle diseases. We know that processed meat is cancer causing.

 

OK, we know that at least 68 percent of the population experiences lactose malabsorption. That means they shouldn’t be drinking dairy products. So people are getting sick by eating this food.

 

That’s raising our health care costs, which is in turn raising our taxes. If we got rid of the subsidies, we could balance the budget. Problem, you know, milk production is climbing.

 

Milk consumption is declining. So, you know, it’s it’s all in response to the predicament that the U.S. government and dairy companies have been purchasing all this extra milk and storing it as cheese for years. I mean, to date, the United States cheese stockpile.

 

But what I understand in my research, and this is in my book, it weighs more than the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Tower of Pisa, the Great Sphinx of the Giza combined. That’s over one point five billion pounds of cheese stockpiled in America while dairy cows are going up in smoke like they did in Demet, Texas. Remember what happened in Demet, Texas just a few years ago?

 

When eight remind us 18,000 cows went up in flames because of a methane ingester. They were actually taking the poop and the pee of all these cows. And they were putting it in this.

 

They were trying to ingest the methane and it blew up. And all these cows got blown up in the process. It was horrendous, outrageous.

 

Cows in food production are purported to emit one hundred and fifty billion gallons of methane per day. And that’s according to a source called Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. So, you know, it’s it’s it’s just crazy.

 

You know, my friend Connie Spence, you know, you know, with Agriculture Fairness Alliance, the former organization that actually shut down because we just kept running into brick walls left and right. You know, she told me that methane digesters have been causing fire since 2011, I believe. And she informed me that all these new renewable energy companies are selling contracts for exclusive energy use to transportation companies like city buses, delivery vehicles, transit stations, whatever.

 

And then on the other side, they’re going around the United States to find these big dairy farms, and they’re selling them on the idea that they can all make a lot of money by simply collecting the manure in placing these one million dollar digesters right next to these cows. Well, it’s it’s that’s a horror. And the other thing is the dead cows that are being discovered by Dr. Crystal Heath, the veterinary and leader of our honor on the side of the road in California, not getting much mainstream media coverage. And the some of the veterinary groups came after her for putting this out there. But there you go. Cows are dying of bird flu in California.

 

These are side of the road. And of course, any any bird or dog that goes and nibbles off that, then they get it, too, likely. So we’re in a crisis.

 

And what’s it going to take? What’s it? There’s a look at the discharge from that animal’s nose.

 

What is it going to take for people to wake up? That’s what I’d like to know. We at Unchained TV work 24 hours, literally 10 hours a day, seven days a week, at least sometimes it’s 14 hours trying to get this information out there to people.

 

But, you know, as Ethan Brown mentioned, the fraternities of the indifferent that just don’t care until their house burns down from climate change, until their house goes off a cliff because of the rising seas as a result of climate change. And we know that a plant based diet can reduce. An individual’s greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent.

 

So what that means is if everybody went plant based collectively, we would all reduce our greenhouse gas emissions footprint by 75 percent. You will not see this in mainstream media. Aside from the New York Times that put it out, nobody picked it up.

 

They’re more interested in doing what I call catastrophe porn day and night. Oh, the fires. Of course, I have compassion for people who lost their homes.

 

I know people who some of my friends lost their homes. But they don’t talk about solutions because why? Look at the advertisers on mainstream media, fast food and pharmaceuticals for the most part.

 

They’re intertwined. People wouldn’t need all those drugs if people were eating healthy fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains. We’ve created a horrible health crisis.

 

We’ve created a horrible environmental crisis. We’ve created a horrible species extinction crisis. We’ve created world hunger because we’re feeding most of the food that we’re growing to 80 plus billion land animals that we’re raising for food, as opposed to just redirecting food directly to humans that are hungry.

 

It’s all madness. It’s subsidized by the United States government, which is actually accelerating the climate crisis with its subsidies to to animal agriculture. That’s why when they say, oh, they’re cutting all the environmental programs.

 

Well, those environmental programs do not address animal agriculture until you address the role of animal agriculture in climate change. You’re not going to solve the problem. What I say, it’s like putting the getaway driver on trial while the main killer is sitting there in the gallery of the courtroom laughing and nobody’s paying attention to that.

 

So this is what we do at Unchained TV, and that’s why we’re collaborating with Renee King Sonnen. So final thoughts, Renee, this has been an invigorating conversation. What’s your last thought on this issue?

 

Well, you know, I’m reminded, as always, you know, in the Bible where in Genesis where, you know, it says, and God bless them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply. And replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the foul of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And then God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth and every tree to which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you.

 

It shall be for meat and to every beast of the earth and to every foul of the air and to everything that creepeth upon the earth. Where in there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And that is supposed to be our meat.

 

And then he said, and it was so. So my final thoughts here is, you know, you may not read the Bible and you may not believe the Bible. But one thing I know is when I go into the garden.

 

I feel the dirt. I know that food grows from the dirt. Animals that you are eating do not grow from the dirt.

 

They have to be horribly bred, slaughtered and killed and packaged. My final thoughts are we have to create a new system. I am in alliance with Dr. Silas Rao on this. The system we have has got tentacles so deep. I do not, you know, aside from seeing the whole system burn to the ground, I do not see how it’s going to happen unless all of us out there, everyone that cares, finds it within themselves to create the voice. You can’t be mute.

 

You’ve got to you’ve got to have a voice. You’ve got to have a way to get out there, to get out. That’s what I love about the Ava Summit.

 

The Ava Summit is all over the world right now. You know, they are they are taking this message. They are organizing us.

 

We need to be organized and we’ve got to create a way so that animal liberation is comparable to human liberation. It goes side by side. When we save these animals from slaughter, we save ourselves from death because the animals that we are eating are killing us.

 

It’s a fact. And so we I know I sound very passionate about this. It’s because I don’t see a way short of blowing up our government.

 

I don’t say that. Let’s not let’s not get carried away, Renee. Like not in today’s world.

 

What I’m saying is there there’s no way to change. I don’t think what we’ve got, we have to create something new. Well, we will rise from the ashes and bring compassion to all.

 

I want to say thank you so much, Renee. You are an inspiration. I know everybody will be getting on board, donating to Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, becoming a member for just eight dollars a month.

 

You’re going to visit also the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary channel on Unshamed TV and enjoy so many of the just incredible videos we have there, like one of the videos where she had to move her entire sanctuary because there was a storm. And there’s there’s several documentaries now about Rowdy Girl Sanctuary, and that’s one of them. It’s a lot of fun.

 

So thank you. I love you, Renee. Make sure to download Unshamed TV, the world’s only vegan streaming television network, and it is available on any phone.

 

Just go to your app store online at Unshamed TV dot com and on your TV So it’s a vegan Netflix. OK, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I love Unshamed TV.

 

Unshamed. Unshamed TV. Your life will change.

 

It’s just that easy. Unshamed TV has all sorts of content for everybody. Unshamed TV changed my life.

 

Unshamed TV is crushing it. I love Unshamed TV. Unshamed TV is my go to.

 

Unshamed TV. Who knew?

 

[Speaker 2]

Unshamed, baby. Yes!

 

[Speaker 1]

This episode was brought to you by Unshamed TV. Unshamed TV is a nonprofit organization producing plant based content filled with tips and tricks to spice up those healthy veggies, grains and legumes. For more information on Unshamed TV productions, just visit Unshamed TV dot com.

 

That’s Unshamed TV.