Adulting - #19 Fast Fashion, Veganism & Sustainable Living with Venetia Falconer

Episode Date: November 11, 2018

In this weeks episode I speak to presenter, producer and podcaster @venetiafalconer about sustainability and conscious living. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/talking-tastebuds/id1287395967?mt=2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hi guys and welcome to Adulting. This is a podcast where I try to figure out what it means to be a grown-up and on today's episode I have Venetia Falconer. I've just been practicing saying her surname for so long. Hello, hello. So Venetia and I are popping on here to talk about something which I think is slowly and slowly coming more into the public consciousness, which is how to live a more sustainable, environment friendly, animal friendly, world friendly life. I feel like this is putting a lot of pressure on this chat and I've already kicked the mic once.

That's fine. But yes, I'd love to talk about this. Let's chat. Let's do it. Okay. So I think the first, the initial thing that I wanted to yes I'd love to talk about this let's let's chat let's do it okay so I think the first the initial thing that I wanted to talk to Venetia about was sustainable fashion because that's something that you do very well and you talk about every single day in your stories

you show your outfit of the day and where it's from and how long you've had it etc which is amazing really refreshing and actually really unique especially in the world of Instagram where all of us are trying not to outfit repeat as hard as we can and I think that it's slowly and slowly we're getting it more especially after Stacey Dooley's documentary which I think hit home for a lot of people but when did you first start to think actually what I'm wearing is a massive issue issue yeah let me give you some background so I was presenting a daily live show on tv um I did this on full music channel four's music channel for a year and a half and I my background was in tv I was a producer before this at mtv and the presenters at mtv would always have a fresh look every single day so when I started

presenting at full music I was like right new outfit every single day it's got to be done so I started reaching out to as many clothing prs as I possibly could I started buying more fast fashion myself just to make sure that I was never going to repeat an outfit I just thought I couldn't call myself a tv presenter if I was wearing the same outfit twice so I accumulated a lot of clothes in that time and I had absolutely no connection to who was making these clothes and where they were coming from all I cared about was how I looked on tv and how people perceived me uh superficially and I launched a youtube channel uh to kind of document uh my lifestyle and how I ate as a vegan and how I lived as a vegan and one of my subscribers left a comment saying it's really great that you're sharing uh you know how you eat as a vegan but

you're you're wearing fast fashion um you're not putting any thought into your clothing and that was kind of towards the end of last year so over Christmas last year I was newly single I had a lot of time on my hands and I decided to put all of my energy into researching fashion and fast fashion and what that entailed and what that meant and my new year's resolution for 2018 was that I wasn't going to buy any new clothing I was going to celebrate what I already owned and buy secondhand vintage or thrifted um and it's been such a rewarding experience and it was around this time as well I started researching um kind of more minimalist living and kind of just having less um and that's kind of my background into sustainable fashion so my whole ethos is first and foremost celebrate what you already have on

your wardrobe we all have a lot of clothes most of us do if we're fortunate enough to be able to live in the western world chances are we have a lot of clothes and whether these are high street or not it's important that we celebrate them and we're living in a time where you know reality stars and vloggers and bloggers are promoting constant newness this is perpetuated by the high street and marketeers and we're taught that we need a new outfit every single day and once we've worn it on the ground we can't wear it again that's what i want to say was really interesting so you're saying it's when you're a presenter and people are watching you but the problem is everyone feels like they're being watched all the time because everyone is a

presenter in their own right on their instagram page and you don't have to have a hundred thousand followers you can have a hundred and you still are very aware that oh god i've taken a picture of that outfit sometimes i won't even put a good outfit on if I don't think I'm going to take a photo that day and then I've stopped doing that because I'm trying to enjoy because I used to love clothes for like presenting who I am and what mood I was in and what I was going to do that day and for some reason it literally just became about the photo to the point where I would literally like save clothes for the gram for the gram which is so weird because it shouldn't be clothes shouldn't be clothes shouldn't be

that I think they're a really amazing way of expressing yourself and like dressing how you feel in that mood so it goes both ways it was like I would literally go out in trackies or I'd have a full outfit on that was like brand new I remember I was the same actually it would be kind of like trackies on or I'd get home from presenting the show and I'd be straight in my pajamas or my trackies um it was just totally for that kind of two-hour chunk um and yeah you're so right they should be kind of a representation of how you're feeling that day or they should kind of bring you joy whether you're online or not it's also funny because I remember when I was younger I was talking to someone about this the other day but my mum me and my sisters used to have that at school

we used to have like black tie events and we'd have like our friends always seemed to have black tie god I sound awful don't I but we'd always have like party events so my mum would like buy us a dress and it would go into this wardrobe full of like nice posh dresses and me and my sisters would all just go and pick one that we'd got like Emily might have got it ten years ago and I'd then wear it

to my ball which was like ten years later or Tiffany got it and there was like seven or eight dresses in there that were like really nice dresses that we'd save up and get for a birthday or christmas and that wardrobe is still there and we up until about three years ago if there was an event i'd go and pick something up and we'd all wear them and there was no shame in that i've worn some of the just like five times to really big events and i don't think and i don't know when that got lost right we would all buy like nice pieces like save up and want one thing and it wasn't until I

was at uni one of my best girlfriends I love poppy every day would have asos deliveries and push and I used to be fascinated I was like well I don't know what she's doing all this stuff because in my head my mum used to instill the idea of getting no point getting 10 things you wear them out by one nice thing and then but then I learned the advantage of oh my god but you can get 10 things for the price of that one nice thing and at uni that's you're going out all the time like you need more clothes and it was quite I actually didn't start off thinking this way my approach to fashion was a lot more sustainable when I was younger and it's definitely changed with the rise of social media definitely I think a lot of us you know did grow up on hand-me-downs I'm the youngest of three girls I never had anything

new I just wore my sister's old clothes and my mum's relationship with fashion is absolutely amazing she rarely buys anything new she wears the same thing every single year she really looks after her stuff it's always perfectly washed perfectly hung up it's dry cleaned if it needs to be it's if it breaks it's fixed she will sew it back together we've completely lost touch with this and that's partly because our clothing is so cheap you know if we buy a top for three pounds if it breaks whatever we throw it in the bin but i used to throw away clothes and just think they magically disappeared and decomposed with magical fashion fairies even my dad said something to me was it

about darning or something is there a word for when you put patches on the elbows of a jumper i think there might be like a specific word i just called them patches I don't know and he said it to us and we were like what and he was like well it's when your jumper gets holes and you put and even our parents were brought up so much more sustainably because you had things that were like rationed but even now my mum will always do that she's always sewing things doing clothes up and she does she keeps everything perfectly and I actually have a throwaway attitude to my belongings she always used to say that to me and I think but it doesn't matter because it's cheap I can get another one but actually that mentality isn't only bad because of the impact that you're throwing

stuff away but it's really careless and like it's not a very nice way to be about things I think it's true of everything now I think everything's become so throwaway. You know, our parents grew up, they had handkerchiefs. They had proper linen napkins. So true. Now we have tissues and we have, you know, serviettes. And they just get thrown in the bin. And paper towels when we wash our hands in, you know, public restaurants and cafes. And everything is so throwaway.

Relationships are really throwaway now. You know, dating throwaway relationships are really throwaway now yeah you know dating apps have made relationships really throwaway and it's definitely the case for fashion um and it's it's it's kind of terrifying it's got it's i think it's kind of a terrifying time i think we're waking up to a lot of stuff we're waking up to the fact we're waking up to plastic straws and reusable coffee cups and water bottles. But there's still so far to go. I think a lot of positive change is happening. It's happening quite late, I guess.

It's happening late. And I spend a lot of time on social media. And I watch a lot of YouTubers who are still doing these huge fashion hauls. And I, yeah, it's just not sitting well with me anymore. It's funny for me as well, because I was saying to Vinita that I get sent PR packages of clothes. And now that is so, and I'm not being funny, it's really hard to say, like, sometimes I don't even, first of all, don't even know they're coming. And then when it arrives, you've got this package of clothes. And in my head, that's just me getting things that I don't even first of all don't even know they're coming and then when it arrives you've got this package of clothes and in my head that's just me getting things that I haven't ordered and I don't tend I've never really I think I've done like one haul before

um but it was actually funny enough when I did that haul it was almost the day after that I started to read stuff about something about fast fashion so I vowed to myself that I'd never on purpose try and buy clothes I wasn't going to wear so if I'm wearing something I will link it or I will post it but I won't buy clothes purely for the purpose of showing them if that makes sense I get you but the industry I'm in god it's so hard to watch it because like our job is basically like marketing stuff um and a lot of it is clothes and a lot of people in the industry a lot of their livelihood comes from that but obviously that huge influence to want to buy stuff it has a huge capital gain for a lot of influencers but a massive a massive problem in the environment so I can see how this

is going to be I don't know how it's going to I mean it could almost change quite easily because influencers do have such a big influence if they were all like actually you know what we're not going to do this anymore we're not going to buy fast fashion this is this is why i myself including that i'm definitely guilty of it but this is why i'm so delighted that you've invited me on your podcast to talk about this because it's people like you who have uh you know you have huge influence um who are gonna impact this positive change um okay so a few things firstly it does sound really like woe is me, you know, the fact that we are fortunate enough to get free stuff.

Yeah. And from an, you know, when you see people doing clothing hauls on Instagram or on YouTube, it does look so glam and it looks so exciting to be sent all this free stuff. It's, I have to say, it's never, that process never filled me

with delight and joy. No. I always found it quite stressful but we are taught that we cannot say no to free stuff you know you're given a free magazine you take it you're given a goodie bag you take that goodie bag yeah it's about changing your mind frame and honestly the less i have the happier i am i i do agree with being sent things now i actually don't want it because it ends up as clutter that i don't want but a lot of people as well with work like so the other thing with not actually

i'm never normally this side i never really defend all these things but some people don't get paid like you might think a lot of influencers live a really glamorous life because it looks like they do but some of those things they're getting for free is the form of payment for all those hours of work they've done so sometimes i think people have a misconception that influencers have loads of money they don't they have lots of stuff yes and they don't actually maybe earn that much money so they might have a really expensive handbag loads of money. They don't. They have lots of stuff. Yes. And they don't actually maybe earn that much money. So they might have a really expensive handbag that they wouldn't be able to afford to go on a holiday. So there's a weird dichotomy there.

Yes. And that's also maybe something we need to change in the industry of industries thinking that they can just kind of throw free stuff and expect work. So there's loads of different. I've started talking to PRs about this quite openly. And I've started kind of sending breakup emails as well just saying like i'm really sorry i'm trying to be more zero waste at the moment and i please can you inform me of what you're sending me before you send it because chances are that i'm not gonna have the time to trial it or i'm it's just it i'm i just can't put it to use because

some things they send you and i get bags and bags of stuff to family and friends but i'm like but i don't even think they necessarily want half the stuff smart water tried to send me water bottles and a water and i replied no they said do you want to try a new water or something it was smart water and i was like is it in plastic water bottles no one replied to me and this woman goes oh my god can you deal with this email obviously it didn't mean to send it back to me because they obviously didn't know what to say obviously it's a water bottle so i was just interested to see whether they were it was like a new concept they were sending it in yeah paper i don't know because i was just like come on guys it's 2018 i was like surely no one's gonna send out water

because you feel that that immense pressure when you are on social media you do really feel that everyone is so progressive because there is such a huge judgment on you all the time and and it's quite a forward-thinking industry in a lot of ways that you assume that the rest of the world is with you on that kind of thing yeah like i'm shocked when i see some of the i can't even when my mum's giving me a plastic water bottle i shit myself that someone's gonna see me with it and like hide it yeah i'm like someone will see me i totally hear you and dm me i totally hear you on that and i'm i know it's something that kind of keeps me up at night um you know because once you kind of set yourself up as someone who's kind of

thinking more consciously uh like it's a bastion of consciousness it's so you it's impossible for anyone to be perfect in that respect um i guess you just got to do the best you can but yeah i know what you mean all of the kind of like anxiety that comes around all of that stuff is a bit mind-blowing um i and also like in terms of what you're saying about uh you know how to make money and how kind of affiliate links are part of people's revenue streams in an ideal world I would just be sitting here telling people to only buy second-hand clothing and vintage clothing I understand though that that takes I'm in a position where because of what I do for work I have the time to

be able to trawl through charity shops and vintage stores a lot of people don't have that time and when you want that you know hit of dopamine when you want to buy something new it's much easier just to walk into zara and also now i am starting to work with sustainable brands who i really want to support because they're paying their way their their workers fairly and they're not contributing to kind of toxic um dyes that run into our rivers and streams via the the fabrics that they're using but i'm still by supporting those brands and promoting those brands i'm still telling people to buy you know i'm still like encouraging consumerism um because ultimately i need to make money uh So it's kind of never ending.

This is the kind of weird bit where I'm at because also I definitely don't want it to sound like I'm going, oh my God, poor influencers. I'm just saying that I can completely, I am in that industry and I do understand when there's this idea that like everything you do when you're on this platform is watched and everyone is judging you.

But like Grace, my friend, put up a really good interesting thing on the Instagram story the other day. Everyone says to her a lot about fast fashion because she's vegan. And she was like, the thing is, you guys hold me to such a high esteem because I'm an individual online. But where do you work? Do you work for a company that you could work for at Unilever? Or you could work for someone that puts people in positions that are very compromising?

Like everyone who's in their job, especially if you're in a massive corporation, there's undoubtedly parts of your industry that are very bad for the environment very bad for human rights or something um so i think there's a there's there's an uneven pressure put onto people in the public eye but maybe that's a good reason because you do have this influence but the other thing is i agree that i've been starting to shop in charity shops with you and reweld in fact these dungarees i actually got in a vintage shop when i was at uni i wanted to ask you about today's oh oh oh td can you run me through it um this is a gap t-shirt that i think was my dad's and my sister's boyfriend's not sure i literally specifically put this outfit on for

you i love it and these dungarees i got at uni um they had a massive jumbo so it was by weight you would just buy it but i didn't realize how much clothes weighed so i had this massive sack and put it down it's like 50p and i got it wrong I thought it was like a penny per kilo it's like a penny per pound or something whatever so only got a massive shirt and massive dungarees they're really cool and we used to love also vintage shopping when I'm not vintage shopping charity shop shopping when I was at school we were really into it like loved it and then at some point in my life I started to find that a bit like not cool I um I was interviewing a about a year ago I interviewed a really great uh fashion blogger um for a high street brand that I was working for at the time and uh all of her kind of fans were in the audience it was a kind of Q&A and her fans all

had a few of them had the same style as her, but they were all, they were doing all of their shopping, you know, from charity shops. And I remember one girl was like, my whole outfit cost me £1.50. And I was like, but you look sick. And there is so, I think when someone pulls an outfit together that doesn't, didn't cost them much,

where they had to trawl through a shop, I think that's so cool. Yeah, I agree. And it, you know, you look different to how everyone else looks didn't cost them much where they had to trawl through a shop I think that's so cool yeah I agree and it you know you look different to how everyone else looks and you don't that the the process of honestly the thought of when I walk into a high street store now it literally makes me feel a bit like overwhelmed and nervous and the music the you walk in suddenly the floors get really slippy the music's really loud uh everything's kind of like especially i'd say it's not to like shame zara but to shame

it's so frantic and you know that if you don't pick up that top right away it's going to sold out and they're not going to help you with finding others any other sizes it's frantic and it's stressful they do it on purpose they do it on purpose of course they do it on purpose um and you know if you go at the wrong times charity shops can be kind of stressful and often you're not going to find anything but when you do they are sometimes quite smelly you're right but when you find that gold oh i found so much amazing stuff recently i got like a brand new cos skirt in trade they have quite a few trades around they do have trade is great and there are quite a few around london um what was i gonna say

oh i've literally the cos skirt oh no that's what i was going to say really funnily so i every so often do the classic wardrobe clear out thing which i used to and my mum loves it because if you go into hdm and give a bag of clothes get a five pound off voucher it's my mum's favorite thing to do she delegates all into a plastic bag hands them in goes to different hdm around the place got all these discount things she's never going to spend that much money that she's going to use all of them but she feels very good about it so they i think they donate the clothes yes recycle them and then you get five pounds off yeah but there's always the same clothes left over my wardrobe every year every year it's the same items that i've like loved and either

they're a few of them as are but normally they're slightly more expensive things really and i always i always get some dates down to that same skeleton and all the shits that I bought usually from like they said pretty little thing boohoo cheap ones I'm so over them the materials snagged and there's a few things like I'll have like uniclo-pillow necks that I've never thrown away and actually badly fur coats that like my dad's mum's that I still wear I, I'm vegan and I'd be a bad vegan to sit here and say, you know, and promote fur. However, a vintage fur coat is, you know, it's vintage. It's going to last a long time. Faux fur apparently takes 5,000 years to decompose.

Yeah, and also the only other thing is wearing fur encourages people to buy faux fur but wearing faux fur encourages people to buy faux fur and fur interesting that you think that do you think that yeah interesting what do you think i because i've spoken to vegans about this um i i don't know to be honest i think you've it's it's really hard i'm because i'm coming at it from a vegan perspective whereas you're just coming at it from like a kind of very neutral perspective i think we can't escape wanting to look nice yeah and you know because of furs has fur has looked amazing since the kind of beginning of time um personally now i just wouldn't buy it vintage or faux um and i i actually when i went vegan i gave away all of my vintage fur i had a lot of it i loved it i gave it all away because it just didn't i always

do you know what's funny i always used to have vintage fur i used to buy vintage fur but then again also when you buy vintage you don't actually know if it's vintage realistically oh you can smell oh yeah but sometimes they have it on vintage markets and i don't you don't know but i always loved fat and now it was about last year it was the first time i put my fur coat on and i felt guilty and i felt really bad and it's funny because i was the girl who had so much fat i still do i mean it's all at home but there's one that I wear all the time. People always ask me about this one. And I just can't.

I just don't say. Because it just stresses me out that it's fur. You really feel it now, don't you? But I didn't before. I never gave a shit. I honestly, genuinely couldn't have given a crap. Couldn't have given two shits. Babe, that was me.

That was absolutely me. I had more fur than like anyone else I knew. And new fur. I bought new fur as well. Yeah, I had key rings and stuff that were fur I remember those guys but what I find really stressful or weird is that you get to start you say you start feeling the guilt which is what happens oh my god did you just fart oh my god I love that oh don't cut that out oh my god I love that yay that was a really cute fart as well oh my god anyway so you got the girl and then you fart

that was so cute it was like yeah it's gonna make a really good point i forgot what it was no so you start feeling guilty you start feeling this pressure but and this is awful but it's honestly how the brain works i'm like okay but no one else seems to care and this is exactly what happens with veganism so they're like but me not eating a steak won't make any difference you know when people are like cutting down is like the best thing to do I've done it with meat consumption I probably only have like one meal a day now that isn't completely vegan there could be a week I'm gonna eat meat there could be a whole two weeks when I don't ever have anything animal product based but the words are but with clothes it's

doing the same thing so I'm starting to feel this little bit of guilt. It's getting there. But I'm like, but everyone else just doesn't care. The industries are so big. These fast fashion chains are so massive. And I'm really cowardly sitting there being like, can someone else do it for us? Can someone else denounce it? You know?

I know that's really bad. No, I totally hear you. And I have that grapple all of the time. I just think, why am I even bothering? But living like this, living more consciously and making more conscious decisions, and I have that grapple all of the time I just think why am I even bothering but living like this, living more consciously and making more conscious decisions literally gets me up in the morning

it gives you a purpose and you know I don't have a huge following but like it motivates me I actually do really completely get that water bottles is my worst thing I used to not drink tap water, I'm so bougie I used to not drink tap water and only wear fur coats i wouldn't wear faux that's no joke i used to say no to faux genuinely out loud used to say that as a thing babe i feel like

we weren't dissimilar genuinely bad and my mum would buy me from costco like 24 big evian bottles like two liters i had to have my two and then i'd throw it at one use because i thought if you refilled it i'd get estrogen in my body i don't know anyway so now i have my tea and then I'd throw it at one use because I thought if you refilled it I'd get oestrogen in my body. I don't know. Anyway, so now I have my giant big refill. I've seen it. Love it.

And then I have my coffee cup. It's almost as big as you. It's literally the same size as me. It's amazing. And I love that. It gives me such joy and I feel so good about it. And those small changes

don't take much. But it's really funny. My mum will try to have my bottle of water and I'm literally like, no! Like you adjust so quickly it's not that hard but it feels really hard when you imagine like in my head I'm like

I've got to give up everything yeah that I own no but it's just about making little changes over time absolutely for sure um yeah plastic bags are like kind of it's like almost being caught doing like drugs now oh my god yeah I will carry balance stuff home the whole way back. Yeah. Just drop shit. I'm like, fuck it. Who cares? Actually, one thing I really want to talk about because it's making me annoyed.

Yes. Every day, all I want, all I want from life is a pink lady apple. I just want it on my break from after clients. Okay. You cannot buy one. You can only buy four in a plastic packet. Okay. Sainsbury's, Tesco's and all the shops.

There's not one place you can buy a single pink lady apple. Okay. Why? They have their own skin babe listen you're preaching to the converted i totally get it i feel the same about bananas cucumbers this is new though they didn't used to do this you used to apples were always free apples were always loose and now they've wrapped them up well this is what now i would i would take a little picture of that apple and i would post it to twitter and say at sainsbury's or at tesco or at whoever you are, sort out your shit. But also just for the sake of like, who needs four apples in one go? I think an apple isn't something you store in the house.

It's just something you buy en route, isn't it? You know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this excess plastic is totally unnecessary. And I hear you loud and clear. I think, I do think we're going to start to notice major change in changing supermarkets they're all really focused on it and uh like single-use

plastics have been banned in the EU didn't that happen this week like there is change definitely happening um I think you know wherever possible it's just really important to start going back to the roots of things if this is something that you're passionate about um I don't really go to i kind of stopped going to supermarkets over the past couple of months i just go to farmers markets now i'm really lucky i live i live near um food stalls and i have a great farmer's market near me on weekends and i'm a i'm originally from the countryside but i obviously now dwell in the city and going to farmers markets and vegetable stores is my way to kind of reconnect back to the earth to touch the fruit and vegetables to buy seasonally to buy locally that's the kind of food that makes

me feel really good that's the kind of food that gives me loads of energy yeah and obviously it comes with no packaging i did in brixton i because when i moved there my boyfriend and i were talking about how great it was that we didn't have anything happen where everyone's just white and the same and then we're like oh fuck we're a bit of gentrifying brixton so i was like i'll try and shop in the market when i can because at least that's adding value back to the place yes that we're co-opting yes absolutely but i don't live in brixton now so i don't do that but there'll be there'll be places yeah i need to go to markets i do but that is a really interesting i do think that's i think what it is it seems so alien because going back to the nap the hanky thing it's really funny because we that was like a progressive society thing everyone's like hygiene it's like

all of those choices we made weren't made from a place of like not that we made them at all generation before us but it was all about like human progression and we were so clever and look at what we've done but actually we fucked it all over so I think for us it's basically just a massive case of unlearning but we're unlearning so many things I think my fight at the middle the thing that I really give so much time to is feminism and I know that it's intrinsically linked to the environment and veganism I know there's massive ties there but I find that sometimes you only have so much energy of course and I get really overwhelmed then when I think about like all the places I'm slacking in terms of um sustainability or or any of the other bits and

it's really funny because it's just I think I think we when it's what you're saying when when someone says like I do something so I'm vegan whatever suddenly everyone expects you to be vegan feminist um don't wear any makeup only do xyz whatever but that's not the point I think what we all start to do need to start doing is like okay you see a top and pretty little thing just don't buy it or like just don't order a steak once and if we all did that that would be the big impact I think you only see the people who are doing everything and everyone gets so overwhelmed that it's just like fuck I'll do it tomorrow absolutely I think it's about making these little changes and that can be something as simple as starting with a reusable coffee cup.

And then it can be or it can be something like, you know, I'm only going to go and have a massive binge on ASOS and do a huge haul, you know, once a month as opposed to once a week. I think it's it's it's all everyone's on a journey. Everyone's got things that they're working on. I still have so much to do and so much I want to make changes with. Um, I am really new to this. I, as I said,

this has only been this year for me. Um, like, yeah, I've been vegan for a couple of years, but all of the sustainability stuff is only this year. We haven't even finished the year yet. Can we talk about,

cause that's what I want to get onto, cause I think it's a really interesting angle and about we've meant to touch on it before but consumerism yes in all senses yes talk me through what your thoughts and feelings so why so there's obviously always we live in a capitalist society you literally can't escape it unless you physically emancipate yourself completely from you'd have to go live on an island we're always all of us profit this is the problem everyone's job is it doesn't matter what industry you're in you profit off capitalism and you can't avoid it so i think that's why we all struggle with it because it's always a hypocrisy that's right there yeah um so i think when we try

to vilify it or when we're like consumerism capitalism is bad it's very hard to be like to say that and then operate in this world because it's just a constant contradiction definitely um but i think it's all just about it's just about really thinking consciously about every single decision you make. And I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm never going to buy anything new again. I buy new stuff all of the time. I generally spend money every single day, but I just try and make those decisions conscious ones. If there is a beauty brand that is local and british um you know made in the uk i'll try and support those brands i just it's just about these little changes and and supporting

local businesses where you can and kind of going back to how previous generations lived i do genuinely think as well when you are conscious about stuff when you're more mindful life is lighter i found it i find it with food because i was someone who always used to binge eat and that is literally just mindless it's stuffing yourself to avoid thoughts and feelings yeah and when you consciously eat and i mean really boringly don't speak to anyone don't look at anything just eat your food it's very entertaining even though it seems like the most boring thing in the world because we're so obsessed with screens and noise and surroundings and that you actually don't ever really have a moment in life and i i would say start with food because that's the one bit i have actually got my i'm quite good at doing so i will literally eat my plate no matter what's on it and

i think about it i taste the flavors it even makes you taste more like your senses can't do everything at once and i think when you do that that does really like send to you and you're like it's like when your room's mess and you feel stressed my room's quite often a mess I'm a very messy person but I do tidy it but like that it's just a very weird thing and I think what we do is we spend so long like trying to consume stuff I'm actually writing a blog about this but like we get so obsessed with all the things that we have we don't spend any time thinking about what we actually are but this is about celebrating again what you own when we finish this podcast i'm gonna i'll show you briefly my drawers yes and my wardrobe because i just spent

a sunday the other day organizing my clothing and it gave me so much joy i can imagine that was fun it was and i'm and i i'm annoying but i'm a little bit older than you and i it i've i've been on a real journey with this stuff and i used to my space used to always be very, very messy. And I used to, you know, be buying things left, right and center. But I've learned over the past couple of years how much joy the little things in life give me. So I make sure that when I wake up in the morning, I think about what I'm grateful for, what I'm excited for. I will have lots of hot water. I will meditate every single day, 20 minutes in the morning without fail.

That is like a non-negotiable thing for me. And then I'll get on with the rest of my day. But it's about really valuing these little, little things in life, which if you commit to, they will eventually bring you joy. And another thing I'm really, really passionate about, and I really try to stick to, is I will not turn on my phone. It will never be in my bedroom. It's always in the kitchen or in the living room. And I will not turn it on until after I've done my meditation hopefully even after

some movement maybe a walk or a run or a yoga class or something and then the evening again it will not go but go to bed with me um because god that makes me miserable and it's the same you know we're consuming so much from our screens um we consume so much social media we don't need to be taking all of this information in all of the time it's not good for our brains and even you know the same way we binge a show on netflix i only last night finished killing eve which has taken me so long and someone messaged me being like i can't believe you're either you're so slow you're only on the last episode now and i'm like yeah because i've taken my time with this because i don't get any enjoyment from and like i i mean i don't think I ever got enjoyment from it but that thing of

binging a show when you watch six episodes in one you feel drained yeah and I think the thing with social media is it's it's massively coming in now but I completely agree it's one of the first things I actually say to my personal training clients they'll be like I sleep really badly and then I go to bed at 10 and I wake up at 7 and I'm like what are you doing when you're in bed staring at my phone for two hours so you actually only have like three hours sleep and it is I do I am really bad though I will my instant thing I want to do because it's my alarm I need to find alarm clock I want to just go and get on my phone but where I've moved to there's a gym just downstairs so I literally roll out of bed before my eyes are even awake I just go

to the gym and it's the best and i do my workout and i feel unbelievable obviously it's not for everyone but i love exercising so it makes me feel fab and i love that before my brain's even awake the first thing i'm doing is just moving my body and it's so amazing and i can't explain to you the change in how i feel like the positivity it's unbelievable i bet and i do i do just try it's funny because also try not to go on social media and you might find it hard and then when you stop going on it, because also try not to go on social media and you might find it hard. And then when you stop going on it, you don't even want to go on it. It's a really weird thing.

It's like the more you go on it, the more you need it. I found myself unlocking my phone and I don't even know why I'm unlocking it. I've just unlocked it. And it's just physical reflexes now. We're so accustomed to doing it. And I do wonder though, what is this desire to consume? Why do we want to fill our time with social media i find it i really want to know the why because i feel like that's why how we could cajole it to

be something different it's how it's all programmed it's it's all of those you know how satisfying does it look when there's that ring around someone's instagram story you know you just want to click on it it's just how it's programmed yeah um and i it's unfortunately i don't think we're gonna be able to escape that stuff because the people making making these programs are cleverer uh and more technology technologically advanced than we are um so i think it's just about really creating creating boundaries i think the interesting thing with with fashion and social media as well is that another blog i'm just paraphrasing my blogs that i haven't posted because i'm scared of posting them but um it's that instagram initially when it was created

was or instagram twitter everything was amazing because what it did was it gave like general people insight into other people's lives and it was a really fascinating almost like anthropological new world there was a new age of stuff and somewhere along the line we were it became monetized so brands were working with people and that was amazing as well because it was like your girl next door or someone who would never have the opportunity of working like say it was always makeup brands i used to see initially and you've like wow this girl from like luton's working with your makeup instead of kate moss that's amazing and that was the pull that was the draw it was the real people in the real industry but if you

look at instagram now it's like editorial shoots, like people's Instagram pages, like the glossy magazines that we got bored of. And I think the problem is... FanDuel Casino Daily Jackpots. Guaranteed to hit by 11pm with your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do.

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But the more I look at it, the more I'm like, this is just another magazine. It has become so, even without realising, every single post is selling you something, most posts are selling you something. Most things that you follow. So I do think that we need to stop consuming social media as we used to. I think some people do still share their lives. There's loads of people that I follow that do.

But I would say that a lot of it is based around buying stuff. So you need to read it like you would have read a magazine. Do you remember when you used to just go past the ads? Yeah. I know it's bad because if I do an ad, I'd want you to enjoy it and I want you to look at it but by the same token you didn't you took it at face value you looked at that magazine and you knew certain bits you wanted to read you bought that magazine to read that one particular sex column that you loved or

whatever and you need to look at your Instagram feed like that and consume it in a way that is slightly more savvy yeah and not let yourself become drawn into something which when you look up is completely irrelevant the world i literally said this is so stupid i was sitting at a traffic light earlier and a load of pigeons just got up and flew together and it made me want to cry because it was so pretty like they all just i just was like why do we not look at birds flying well i genuinely was just like everyone's just sticking their phone the whole time and it's really sad. And pigeons aren't even that nice of a bird.

No, they're not. But it's remarkable that you had that experience. I know. There's so much to touch on there. I mean, I always think it's still a brilliant place. You get to choose who you follow. And, you know, there's a mute button. If there's a relative that you don't like. dad i have muted yeah you can just you've done you muted your dad i love that you can mute people and that's a really effective tool um generally

i try to i i try and kind of get in and get out i often get lost in the instagram vortex who doesn't but i i really kind of engage with people who bring me a lot of joy um and like, I try and make sure that the majority of people who appear first on my algorithm are giving me something more than just what they're selling. Like, for example, like, I really love your lengthy captions. And I gain loads from them. And I think, you know, we can still choose who we follow. And, you know, sometimes paid partnerships are really, really wonderful. Yeah. I find this so hard to talk about because I always feel like i'm going to slip up and bite the hand that feeds me which

is especially the other day but they are amazing and i do think that but it's so it's like paid collaborations are amazing when you're looking at them in the bigger picture so if you love that instagram and you love their following and you love what they do and you love what they work that that advertisement for you will be a really great thing to look at right but i think it's when we follow loads of people that we think are really beautiful or aspirational and really attractive and we follow loads and loads of these things which are perhaps outside of the scope,

which is what I used to do. Like, unbelievably incredible women who always looked dripping in things that I could never afford or going to places I could never afford. And I was following them and not realising how much that was affecting my psyche. Yes. But it's not their fault. it's not that individual's fault it was my fault for collating

all of that information and putting it through my mind so it's all relative to what you're looking at it really depends on the situation so I think a paid partnership has a massive credence and I'm really proud of people when they work with a brand that you know they love I think it's amazing but I think the problem is when you're following so many people if you're following too many people then obviously and you only see that day they've all done an ad your whole feed is just yeah that makes sense it's really hard to explain because obviously i do ads so it's not it's not detrimental i don't know if i have anything to add to that but uh it makes a lot of sense um what about veganism how did you become vegan um i became vegan because it just kept cropping up it was about three years ago and lots of kind of new

vegan eateries were popping up and i was kind of i went to a chicken farm where there weren't any chickens but i was talking to the farmer. And at the same time, I watched the Blackfish documentary. And I just kind of, I was doing lots of yoga at the time. And one particular yoga studio I went to talk about kind of all beings being equal at the end of every class in kind of a meditation. And I just kind of started putting two and two together. And I started kind of started putting two and two together. And I started kind of experimenting. So I was an eggs for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and a fish for dinner kind of gal.

I had animal protein with every single meal. And I started just by switching to one vegan meal a day. I started having oats for breakfast. And then one day a week, and then weekdays and then weekends and I just felt really really fantastic and I can't describe the lightness that I felt and I've heard a lot of vegans say this it's more than it's not this isn't about weight this is not saying that I'd lost weight so I was feeling lighter that's not what I mean it it's not this isn't about weight this is not saying that i'd lost weight so i was feeling lighter that's not what i mean it it's almost just like something lifted and i think it was guilt i think i'd been i look at this quite spiritual spiritually i'm an annoying spiritual quite

okay thank you um but yeah i do look at it quite spiritually and i think i you know when you i don't want to get too preachy i don't want to be that person but i think when you need to stop framing it as preachy because I think when you talk about something you're passionate about you should be allowed to do it and it's only when it's feminism or veganism that it's preachy oh if someone's talking about football you're not like stop preaching about how much you love football they're just talking about something they love and enjoy oh I love that and like politics you're not like stop preaching about loving the Labour Party you're just like oh that's what you support oh thank you I think we need to let everyone have their own support for whatever thing they do thank you that's so lovely I'm going to take that forward good do I just felt I think when I personally feel that when you eat

something from an animal you're taking part of that animal on and you're taking that energy on and I think I'd been doing that obviously for the majority of my life and then I stopped eating animals and I stopped eating animal products and this lightness lifted it's like this guilt lifted from me and I remember really really specifically I was walking down the road um and I just felt lighter it was just like this light was kind of this feeling of lightness and also like more of a light internally was kind of shining out of me and I just felt really really brilliant and it gave me it it gave it gives it gave me a sense of control in terms of because I remember when I was going vegan people are like

well yeah but what about when you like go around to friends houses for dinner parties and like what what would you do then and but it gave me a sense of kind of autonomy and and it made me feel like oh no I can really make my own decisions in life that's really really cool so I felt amazing I love that it kind of opened my eyes in that respect but it it was veganism was my gateway drug into everything it was my gateway drug into meditation mindfulness conscious consumption fast fashion sustainable fashion it was the kind of entry point into that even feminism actually politics it's funny because feminism will be my entry into veganism if i get there yeah i just came in it from a different side feminism was my entry to politics and yeah so that is and i think the other thing is when i'm not very spiritual

and i don't that's i haven't got there yet because when i did my retreat and there was a the yoga teacher there ashley i don't know if she's one of your friends as well she was like oh my god you're gonna be spiritual and i felt because her yoga class i've never done yoga like how she did it was unbelievable and i did feel like i could be but i'm not and i used to be very cynical and i know that cynical people will listen to you probably and be like not i don't know how many people cynical and might be like that's so stupid obviously not taking the guilt of the animal but what I think people don't understand it's not always that literal like if you genuinely think about it and you start to believe that animals have a consciousness and that it's wrong you literally will feel lighter because you will

take it I think sometimes people lose get lost in the mechanisms of what people say and assume that you literally mean it is literal to you but do you know what I'm trying to say I think that we've got people are too quick to jump on what you're saying about how you feel rather than actually questioning it's like a defense mechanism it's like saying I just I just feel the argument anti-vegan is I'm not vegan purely because I'm being lazy basically and because I haven't found a way to adapt my whole life to it I haven't found the it hasn't come to the point where i'm like right this is the issue that i'm going to deal with but i'm getting there slowly but it's not because i think of any of the things that i view as excuses basically i think that everyone's making an excuse like i'm

making an excuse with fast fashion and i think we need to be instead of pretending that we don't know exist it's the same with racism i'd rather everyone be like actually i am complicit in something in a structure that profits off of other people to make my life better because then that's better than everyone faking it because that's when it's dangerous when everyone pretends they don't know and just hopes it's going to go away which is what we've done for years with so many different issues in the world i actually think it's better just like fuck it actually i profit in a world that puts other people in a worse place than me and i will deal with it but obviously everyone has a different level of privilege and the more privileged you are the more you're able to be sustainable vegan feminist and I honestly I

really really understand that and I will always kind of whenever I talk about veganism if I ever talk about veganism publicly I will always use that as my kind of prerequisite I always say like listen I know I'm coming at this from a privileged point of view I have the money and the education to be able to spend on food and I know how to cook and that's you know coming at this from a privileged position and I totally understand that um but it's been set having said all that it's been the best decision I've ever made yeah and it's interesting hearing you talk about it because when we met and you were asking questions about it um like there are certain people who ask about veganism with me or all meditation or anything and I just think you you

you're asking but you don't really want to know and as soon as you started asking questions I was like yeah she wants to know and she's like on this she's on this journey you can just tell but like we're all on this journey and we're all gonna come to these things at different times and like i was i thought i thought when delicious yellow first appeared i was like what what's vegan like how is she alive how is she making this work how sorry no do you know what i think the worst thing is and i genuinely think this is a thing every single guy a lot of the guys that i know it toxic masculinity is my feminism so fucking tied into everything but toxic masculinity generally stops men from being vegan

because i genuinely have guy friends who won't be vegan because they like don't know that they're saying it but subconsciously in their head they're like i need meat you don't need me you're not gonna die you're not gonna become really like really not muscly and i honestly think that has a massive impact because a lot of the time men have the power hierarchy of women and dictate what women are eating i know that might you're like no and only that doesn't happen but fundamentally men have the power structure also another really interesting thing is i when i was single i would always be like people like oh would you only date a vegan i'd be like no like i just want to date someone who's kind of like open minded to it. And like, that's all I care about.

Vegan men that I know are like, absolutely, I would only date a vegan woman. They're like non-negotiable about it. And this is so true about like the vegan scene in general. For like men are like, the vegan men, they're at the top of their game. They run the scene and they would only date vegans. Vegan women are like oh yeah like you know just want to date someone who's kind of open-minded to it and i don't know and like i've been at vegan events before and like the kind of big vegan men male names of the scene have walked into the room

and the whole room will feel quiet do you think that the vegan scene is more feminine because i i don't want to think of veganism i only my female friends are vegan yeah it's predominantly female yeah but you're saying that the men who do do it oh amazing they're killing the game like the happy pair the happy pair oh i don't maybe i shouldn't name names oh yeah maybe not well i don't know yeah like it it it's a predominantly female scene but some of the biggest voices are generally white males which is really interesting to me and they just have well i suppose if it's coming from a place of privilege they are the most privileged the easiest access to it very true very true that maybe as well maybe that is why um i don't know i just yeah maybe it all links back to that but

the other thing that I find really interesting coming onto consumerism and stuff is, oh, I feel this is quite hard to talk about because it's like, actually you talked about this with Shona, but I don't know how long ago this came out. Kind of briefly, you were talking about like- On my podcast.

Yeah. It's basically like, I never want to advocate for clean eating. And I never want to, I just think that's bullshit. I think you should eat whatever you want. But I also do think that it's very weird that we can't be like there's a definite benefit to eating food that's like I don't say natural because obviously everything people are going to come at me but like I think with you can't say anything now you can't

I literally can't you can't say anything that's another that is a problem it's a problem as well I'll tell you in terms of like the consumption and straws and stuff and interesting things so i i was out with my mum for an apple or spritz i've you know those girls that used to buy straws and have them at home to like drink coffee through i was never that but i never even liked straws i actually used to take them out so i this straw comes anyway that was just a preface because like i've never been a straw person but i'm with my mum having an apple spritz anything of it and we boomerang it takes about half an hour because my mum never gets it right anyway finally put it up this girl goes can't believe you've got a straw and I was like oh babe I'm out with my mum just having an apple spritz she was like but you've got a straw in it I was like but I don't

own the restaurant she's like you should assume before you order a drink and I had had then in the interim she'd already messaged me so I'd already replied to her so it'd come through but in the interim I checked my like unread ones and there was loads of people going over the straw and I'd already had a long day and I was like look babe I don't know the rest I'm so sorry I didn't really think about it and I never use a straw ever it's just one time just with my mum it's just a boomerang I was like I'll delete it because I was like I'm bothered she replied like okay um no we were no worries then thanks man it's just me and all my friends blah blah whatever and then the next day she's like you're so rude, I can't believe you didn't reply to my comment about the straw, I was just trying to help you

all this stuff, blah blah blah and then I was thinking about it and I was like oh my god so now the thing is, I do this with food I eat meat every day probably but not lots of it but I'll have eggs or I'll have something but I just won't post it now because I'm like I can't be bothered

I put a picture with chicken on it and everyone went mad because they assume I'm vegan there's the assumption if you're a fitness influencer that you're vegan like they've somehow become synonymous don't know why they just assume that you're vegan right um and I I even turned down a job the other day with fast yogurt which probably would have been like a really good job I do eat it sometimes but I can't be bothered because I normally post out pro and I was like someone's gonna probably call me out can't be asked not worth it um out pro and I was like, someone's going to probably call me out. Can't be asked. Not worth it. But I've realised that's so misleading. Because it looks like no one's eating meat.

And they are. So it's all just a lie. But this is why it's really scary to cancel people for stuff that we've only just learnt about. And I do it sometimes with feminism, especially with my mum by accident. But we're coming really quickly into it. Stuff's changing very quickly I would think like our um attitude towards veganism even in the last five years I think has come leaps and bounds five years ago I think actually genuinely most people wouldn't really know what a vegan was not really yeah I agree so I think we need to stop being so quick to judge and quick to kind of like because you don't you can't like cancel people for something that you've only just learned about and i think that's becoming really problematic because what it's stopping

people doing it's stopping us want to talk about things i get scared to post stuff on social media because i'm like is it really worth it do i really want to say that i was freaking out about some coconut yogurt on my porridge this morning because it came out of a because it came out of a tub like it's it's there's different levels of all of this stuff and then I was like but then I was like if I take put the coconut yogurt on afterwards I know this is such a ridiculous issue but then I was like if I put the coconut yogurt on afterwards it's being dishonest because I had coconut yogurt on my porridge but I was I'm thinking I'm freaking out thinking who's going to dm me about the coconut yogurt being in a plastic tub there's the other thing of like I don't want to be that person that's like

oh my god I can't believe I know that I see you were saying you do this but like tagging them being like can't believe yourself because I'm like I can't be arsed because also someone will basically you're damned for doing a damage a day I turned down half the jobs I got offered and then I work with a charity and someone messages me like a good deed shared isn't a good deed or something I was like I'm

literally working with a charity to boost their profile that is what I'm doing this I'm working the charity like no matter what you do we're in this world this age of commentary yeah and it's really weird and i think that we need to like focus on our on ourselves and i think the commentary it goes both sides so we're so worried about what people think of us that we want new clothes and want new stuff and we want to be whatever but then we're also so worried about being the best version of ourselves that we get people could criticize each other and i think what is this showing it's showing that we're way too obsessed with worrying about what other people are doing rather than being focusing on

like who we are as a person i think we're really losing sight of like our human humanity like humanness yeah i love that yeah i think i love that i think you're so right and i think that kind of just ties into having less and yeah consuming less and and and spending more time having real experiences with real people in real life yeah and not feeling the need to buy constantly uh just kind of getting back to a more simple state of being i agree here's some minefield out there babe it's minefield i honestly my brain every day it's because everything i love can i just say i love your brain you're so intelligent and it's wonderful listening to you oh my god think you're really hard on yourself

maybe you're very over analytical and you're really hard on yourself but i think that comes with your territory because i think it's taught because you're such a thinker you're you're constantly expecting people to come up you know people come up against you and i think well do you know it's funny because i actually love it on social media i wouldn't be the woman that i am today if it wasn't for people teaching me it was if it wasn't people going you can't say this and you can't say i like that i think it's really useful i'd rather know sustainable fashion exactly yeah yeah yeah because i hate it it's like whenever i put up a video i did one yesterday and i was like shoni you will tell me because she just likes stuff sometimes i'm like have you actually

watched it did i do that right can you tell me. Because she just likes stuff sometimes. And I'm like, have you actually watched it? Did I do that right? Can you tell me? Or when you put up your workout video. Yeah, because I'd hate it. Because I see sometimes people like tagging other PTs that I don't know, just random ones. And I'm like, oh my God, are they saying that my form's wrong? And I literally get so scared. I'd rather someone messaged me and be like, that actually isn't right.

And then I could correct it. Because I think there's nothing worse than not being told. I'd rather someone actually, quite frankly, criticise me than not tell me and me walk around like a dick. That's a very basic idea of it. But that's what happened with social media, and it was great. Up until the point where, because I then became so open about taking criticism, I would share it on my story.

I'd be like, someone's just DM'd me this. If I wasn't sure, I'd be like, do you guys think this is right? Like someone was wearing hoops as cultural appropriation. And I was like, oh my god, no, don't take my hoops away. was like oh my god no don't take my hoops away i could take anything but don't take my hoops i've always worn them we had a massive discussion loads of people and then in the end we thought it wasn't that was great but what this has led to i think is this understanding of like people are malleable to the point where you can literally kind of beat them down and you forget that you have got their opinions aren't always wrong you can disagree but there's no you don't

have to there isn't always a right or wrong and i think we're in a very right wrong era and you think everything is so right because of the echo chamber and algorithms that make you think but there are people out there that voted brexit and there are people that voted for trump i don't see those people but they exist so we can't be so absolute we have to be slightly less binary in our understanding of things and i think it's funny because we're being less binary with gender and sexuality and all those things but then it comes to other issues and we're very harsh on where we think the boundaries are for what's okay and what's not okay so I was talking to this girl Florence is amazing I was telling you she's 19 but she comes because she had to know a new hold she was she had to announce it yesterday on

Instagram because she was like I'm fed up of people being really annoyed at me for getting things wrong for not knowing everything and what we're doing is we're silencing people to the point where we won't be able to learn because the only way you learn is when people happily let you make mistakes or they happily go oh this is this but when they start to be really harsh on you and go you can't say this you're doing that wrong you shouldn't do that it just stops people from learning because you can't move forwards you can't say anything and you can't say this you're doing that wrong you shouldn't do that it just stops people from learning because you can't move forwards you can't say anything and you can't make mistakes and if we aren't allowing people to try things out and test things we're really going to stop progress and I think that's that's this really scary thing about being I think it's fab to have

an opinion I think it's amazing it gives you a purpose to have a viewpoint on something but we've got to stop holding people to such esteem as if they're not fallible we're all really young on social media I know that you're like saying you're older but we're still like social media is so young everyone mostly is under 50 50 is still really young but under 50 is like fundamentally a young group of people do you know what i mean yeah who there are people in their 70s who are only just discovering things and there's this idea that we should all be woke know everything be sustained and at such a young age we were talking about it earlier like everyone seems to have bought a house and i think there's this immense pressure to have it all figured out no wonder we're trying to buy

everything to fill the void of feeling just inadequate so i think we need to take it back to the root and like look and just do a bit of introspection and find what makes you tick and it probably won't be clicking online yeah and you're right and just being a bit of introspection and find what makes you tick and it probably won't be clicking online yeah and you're right and just being a bit kinder with our opinions and and how where we how we criticize people and how we criticize ourselves just being a bit kinder yeah to ourselves and to each other i think you're absolutely right it's funny because i hear myself doing that with i like see myself doing that with people i kind of like if they do something if they're doing some really great stuff but they're not like 100 amazing in every respect well they're not this so we all do it i think the more the more you are

the more people want from you so the more feminist i got the more i had to be a feminist like that's what i got so stressed for a while i was like maybe i can't wear makeup and what it was it was dictating not everything you have to do has to be like let's use feminism for example because i tell myself this all the time but not everything you do has to be a feminist act not every decision you make has to be a sustainable act i think we've got to the point where it's social media but everything we put people into niches but oh she's the fitness girl she's the sustainable girl she's the vegan girl and when someone deviates everyone's like whoa what are you doing because we've got so used to needing to take in information so vapid like so quickly that we can't possibly

get our heads around the idea that people are so multifaceted and have so many layers because we want to watch five minute videos and we want to look at something and know exactly what we're looking at within seconds i don't like taking information in like that i like reading the book i've just like about to finish it's the most detailed thing you've ever read and i'm i even then i don't feel like i've had enough information i like a lot of information and i'm someone who's i do a different like my brain i'm not a one track person no one is but for some reason to help us get through our day because we are connected to millions of people online we have to be able to put them in a box and be like i follow you for this or you are this

person and when someone deviates from that it for some reason you feel a bit like betrayed because you're like no that's not what you're doing and we need to stop functioning because i think we function even offline as if we're online I think I'm really at an odds with social I'm in a weird funk with social media at the minute I really don't know what I think about it I'm getting that from you yeah and I totally hear that and I think it's because you know you're trying to build a business and you want to be successful and you think and the people who are really successful online generally do put themselves in a box um you know when accounts do one thing like symmetry breakfast what an amazing account because it does one thing and it does it super well and it does it every day and you follow it

for that reason and i think that is kind of social media you know if you do too much people won't get you so much yeah and i remember i've been to so many meetings especially when i was doing more tv stuff but what do you what are you what are your real specific interests you know what's your one thing that's the thing that was like oh you do fitness and I'm on a bit of everything oh so your lifestyle it's like well no I'm just I'm just me yeah it's really funny there is yeah and like mrs hinch have you seen her you would love this and my mum rung me and told me about her about three months ago and she had like 70 000 followers now she's got a million and all she does is clean a house every day right and she's

a lovely woman but she just cleans she's quite funny she's very it's all on her stories but my mum rung me and went i've just realized she's got this she had 750 000 at the time she's got 750 000 followers everyone is buying all the things she's got imagine how many chemicals that is how much plastic that is and this is my mum who's like 60 and really isn't, wasn't into it. And suddenly she's got really engaged. Wow. Really interested. She's interested in feminism.

She's interested in like plastic. She's like, and that's quite unusual. I feel like for someone of her generation, they generally aren't that involved. And it was making me laugh so much because she, but she thought that every time, she basically thought that if you put something up, all of your followers bought so she's like 750 000 people just thought i'm like no it doesn't work quite like she's like but they've sold out all over the uk and i'm like no but not every time she puts it up not ever because you haven't bought it have you she's like no okay but she was so stressed about the plastic and i was like that's amazing that she's worrying about that but it

shows how much of a divergence and like disparity there is between chains of thought there'll be millions of people out there who'll be so excited for the new pretty little thing launch and the millions of people out there who are going fuck we need to stop buying fashion and i think that's where it's really difficult because there is with everything there's there seems to be two camps i think the world is really massively splitting off hugely and and as much as there are and i'm talking about this. Hugely. And as much as there are, and I'm talking about this a lot at the moment, as much as there are amazing things happening in the sustainable fashion world,

this is, there is still the Love Island, pretty little thing side, which seems to be getting faster and quicker and more prolific. I think that's what's confusing me though, because I think I follow both sides and I love the people behind things. And I'm like, how are people people I suppose it's a bit like religions when you're like how do two disparate people believe so desperately and definitely in two opposing

things you know it's quite hard to get your head around and I literally see that on social media I'll follow someone like you and it makes complete sense but then I'll see that someone else in another industry is doing something which is the opposite of that and it's so successful and I'm like are are both sides being hired equally and are maybe most people don't fall into both camps it's really weird that's what I think I find really troublesome but really confusing and I think it must be confusing for everyone but how are those industries not responding I mean I know I've watched the Stacey Dooley thing but but... They are starting to respond because they're under pressure to respond.

You know, the fast fashion industries. And, you know, the same with the... Like, you can see what's happening in supermarkets. There's a new dairy-free yogurt popping up every single week. Yeah. And farmers are freaking out about them at the moment. Every, you know, farming conference, there's a new headline about how farmers are struggling all they're you know they're under so much pressure and i do think

the industry's changing and i definitely think you know h&m bought out a conscious collection it wasn't conscious in any way but you know that they're trying yeah um and i think a really cool denim brands like levi's and there are some amazing big brands who are making big changes um i think things are going to change because they have to because otherwise quite simply we're not going to be able to exist on this planet anymore quite quickly though interesting i was talking to someone else the other day who's a feminist but very like not really interested in um veganism or environment and she was like i care about the humans and i was like okay and she was like all of these jobs though and i was like oh this is what it's so nuanced the argument is

so confusing i think i just get too caught up in it but i was like oh yeah that is that is just she was like it was i've never had anyone say this she goes i think everyone's so focused on the environment and and it's scapegoating our human issues that we've got with war and politics and all the other shit that goes on and what happens with all these jobs and i was like do you know what the other problem is the thing that scares me the most we don't know what's true like you watch the news and you don't know that they're going on and on about fast fashion because they're trying to bomb somewhere or like do you know and i think this is what is so weird but i think having a purpose is really important but back to the point god i could literally go off and turn it for hours um what happens when all

of those big fast fashion companies i mean we can't shop at top shop obviously because of philip green we're not going there anymore yeah agreed i had my boyfriend went and i was like maybe you can't go there not anymore not allowed he's like why can't we i was like no you just can't we're boycotting it he's like oh right okay um and what happens to all those jobs what happens in those industries what does happen to the farmers because I do actually meet farmers I do feel bad because they're like do you actually think people would it's my parents have in Somerset as well so back then not everyone's drinking oat milk in Somerset like they are in London no I know I know it is that we are in a bit of a bubble here um I it's it's

easier for me because I come first and foremost my passion is with the planet and with animals yeah and it's human after yeah so maybe it's good to have a balance of people doing all the fights because I guess you couldn't fight the whole fight and think about think about how much our planet and industries have changed over the past 50 100 years jobs, jobs, industries change and things change. New jobs will be created. I suppose we're going to have people making all the robots. There's always the robots.

Exactly. I mean, AI is going to change everything. AI will change everything. And that is not a podcast I should be on. No, sorry. But I think, you know, I totally hear what you're saying. I think in terms of fashion i passionately believe that people working in the fashion industry should be paid fairly and i don't

think it's fair that the workers in bangladesh are being paid next to nothing i don't think it's fair that there are nappies on the walls because the women can't afford to get up and go to the loo they have to do it while they're working there are some there's some terrifying stuff happening and i don't think that's fair um i think these workers should be paid fairly uh in terms of farming i i would actually love to spend some time with a farmer and interview a farmer maybe for my own podcast maybe that's something i should look into doing because i totally understand they've been doing it for years and years and years but i also equally don't think that an animal should be put on this earth for

our consumption one last thing actually just before we finish because i love i love this to bring this train of thought because i think it's very important because i think one of the main arguments that everyone loves is but we've always eaten meat we've always eaten meat so obviously we're going to keep eating meat but we used to be like oh you're having a slave is okay i just think that people i'm going to ask you like your opinion on this or like if you can maybe say a bit better than me but my my train of thought is that we have such a um it is it's a point of it's a point of privilege we're're taking something away. Everyone hates it when you take something away. But we've evolved so much from what we were when we were Neanderthals or whatever.

Why do people think, I mean, you could probably explain it, but people seem to believe that you can't get everything from meat. I mean, you can't get everything from a vegan diet. But someone who's vegan said to me that the reason that you can't get everything from a vegan diet, I think the only thing is B12, isn't it? That you can't get. And the only reason you can't get everything from a vegan diet, but someone who's vegan said to me that the reason that you can't get everything from a vegan diet, I think the only thing is B12, isn't it?

That you can't get. And the only reason you can't get that is because we farmed the land so much that we can't actually process it from the plants. It has to be processed by the animal first, and that's how you get it from the animal. So what's your argument when people say to you, but we've always eaten meat,

which I think is the laziest argument ever. Yes, we've always eaten meat. We used to eat meat, but when we used to eat meat we would kill a deer for example so me and you this weekend would go out or with our family we'd kill a deer and we would make that deer last for six months and we would eat every single part of that deer we didn't we never lived in a time where we would be buying meat on a daily basis and we would only be buying chicken breasts and we'd turn our nose off at chicken livers and chicken thighs that wasn't how we used to be and when we were hunters um you know we'd make that piece of meat really really last yeah that's not the world we live in anymore um and things have changed a lot and it's so possible to thrive on a vegan diet yeah it really really is if you have

if you have the money and you have the education and you can cook a little bit and you can read a recipe book it's possible to thrive um so much has changed i don't think you can make that argument anymore and you know like i'm no scientist and i'm not really qualified in anything but i'm not going to go against what university professors are saying. And I'm not going to go against the news headlines. The reality is, is we need to massively cut back on our animal consumption for the longevity of this planet. That you just can't argue with that anymore. So I think the best takeaway for everyone would be just eat one less meal.

If everyone ate one less meal of meat or did meat free Mondays and bought one less thing, then that would do the world a good. And I think that's the message that probably needs to be driven home. Just, just think, just think a little bit more. I think, and obviously because the podcast is called adulting,

we've grown up in a world where we've seen so much. And the saddest thing, if you really think about it, and as humans, apparently it's like psychologically really difficult to imagine something further than 50 years away. We can't imagine it. But if imagine when you do have kids, if you're like our age, which most people listen to podcasts between our age, like 24, 29. The world could look a whole like off, like complete, like, like nothing if we don't stop.

And I think that's what we've got to realize that we grew up in a time where we had an abundance of everything. And yeah, we're probably paying for our parents and grandparents mistakes but i'm starting to get the realization like that autonomy feeling or that understanding that actually what i do can make a difference and that purpose that sense of purpose which i think is something we've all really lost with with the advancement of consumerism and stuff having a purpose to wake up to every day is successful the definition of success is achieving a purpose and if you give yourself a purpose your wake up to every day is successful the definition of success is achieving a purpose and if you give yourself a purpose your life will be a success and that's all you need to be happy yes i love that let it light your fire let it ignite your passion let it be your motivation

when you wake up in the morning to make those little changes let it inspire those around you let it even if it's just one person who you're kind of positively influencing or if it's every member of your family i just think use that to give you a bit of a wider purpose in your everyday life and don't think like what if it doesn't make a difference because if it doesn't make a difference well it wouldn't then fine but it might and i think that should be enough kind of thing because i think everyone's like oh it won't do anything but if it does you can stand there and be like fuck i i helped you that yes nice i love that You've been so fab. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me on. Where can we find you online? You can find me at Venetia Falconer. And I also have a podcast called Talking Taste Buds, where I talk to people about their relationship with food and well-being and everything in between. It's amazing. I would highly recommend it.

I will link you below in the comments box. Thank you so much thank you Fandu Casino Daily Jackpots guaranteed to hit by 11 p.m with your chance at the number one feeling We'll be right back. every day.