and also just for being here in solidarity for the vegan movement.

It's so important that we stick together,

that we help each other, so that we can better help the animals.

And today that's I wanna talk about, I wanna talk about how to help animals.

Through my own experience I have learned a few things in interacting with people,

in spreading this vegan message in ways that we can best convey what is happening

and how people can take action.

Before I get into that,

I'd like to just tell you a little bit about my background

and how I became to be a passionate vegan animal rights activist.

So for me, it all started about ten years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer.

They gave me about six weeks to live if I didn't start treatment straight away.

And this was the first time that I've ever experienced what it was like to suffer.

I've never known suffering before, I was living the cushy life,

just like most of us do,

always enough food in our stomach, always a nice place to sleep,

always shelter, always water, cushy.

And it was this experience of suffering and not only that,

but coming out of my suffering, that started inspiring me to help others.

I put on 25 kilos while I had cancer and got all kinds of different sicknesses and that during that,

so I was very blessed when a man, who's a personal trainer,

helped me lose that 25 kilos and help me get my health back.

He helped me out of my suffering.

This is one of the greatest gift we can give someone and this is what he'd done for me.

I was so inspired by this that I wanted to help others as well,

so I became a personal trainer too – very passionate about helping others out of their suffering,

very passionate about helping people achieve more energy,

better health and all the things that come with it.

And I was on this journey eight years as a personal trainer,

that I started working on a cruise ship

and I met a man who was very wise, a very wise Indian fella, old man.

Basically he told me that eating animals is bad karma.

And that's the first time I ever cared about it,

when it was about me. I thought:

“What? This could be bad for me? Yeah, I know it's bad for animals,

but this could be bad for me? Ah, OK, I'm gonna start thinking about this".

I always believed there was no such thing as a healthy vegetarian.

One of my personal training mentors told me that, he says:

"No such thing as a healthy vegetarian", I said:

“Good, I don't want to be one, I don't want to have to look into it, fantastic”.

When this man told me that eating animals is bad karma, I said:

“Yeah, there's no such thing as a healthy vegetarian, though”

and he said: “Well, I've been vegetarian for twenty years”

and I said: “Shit. Alright, well in that case, um, maybe it is possible,

maybe you're a freak, but I'll look into it, I'll look into, I'll see what it's about”.

I looked into it and I started learning,

how much healthier it is to cut animal products from your diet, reducing the chances of heart disease,

cancers, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes... so many diseases.

We have right now an epidemic of illness and disease.

We could have an epidemic of wellness and health. So much potential here.

And I decided: “OK, I'm gonna try this for a week,

I'll go vegetarian for one week, purely a selfish experiment to see how I feel,

to see how much better I'm gonna feel".

Three days in,

instead of feeling like I couldn't get out of bed in the morning, because I hadn't had any protein,

I felt the opposite.

I felt so much energy, I felt so strong, I felt like I needed to sleep less,

I felt happier, I felt good! Three days in.

Before that, I was one of the biggest meat-eaters you know.

I even ate steak for breakfast.

I was working on a cruise ship, it's buffets.

I was taking advantage of that, I was piling my plate up with flesh of dead animals.

And no wonder I felt better after three days!

But it was a shock at the time, because I never believed you could be healthy.

So feeling good inspired me to look into it more -

what's this, why do I feel so great, there must be something to this.

I looked into it. I learned the health benefits,

but I also see that so many people have another reason for becoming vegetarian.

And that reason is: “because I don't want to contribute to harm to animals”.

Obviously, as we know in the vegan crowd, that that's not quite the answer,

but a lot of people don't understand that yet.

They think vegetarian is the good answer here, that's what we do,

that's how we live in alignment and we stop hurting animals.

I've never cared about animals before, I really didn't.

I feel bad saying that now, but the reason why,

and I realize now, is because I never understood who they were.

I didn't understand that they were capable of caring about their own life.

I didn't think they could, so I thought: “Why would I care about their life,

if they can't even care about their own life". It made no sense.

I've seen footage of animals being slaughtered

and my reaction was: “I'm not going to feel guilty about that,

that's what we need to do to be healthy”.

Seeing everyone else's reasons for being vegetarian,

I thought: "OK, I'm gonna check this out again, what's happening in the slaughterhouse,

what's happening before these animals become this neatly wrapped

package on the supermarket shelf, what happens.

I see it again for the second time.

This time I had a new perspective,

because I knew now that we can live and thrive without consuming animal products.

So seeing this torture, this mutilation, this murder of these innocent beings,

it led me to the question...

If we aren't eating animals for health - we don't need to kill and eat them to survive and be healthy -

What are we doing this to them for?

And I assumed there'd be a great answer,

I thought there must be a good answer, because everyone hates animal cruelty,

everyone loves animals, so surely there's a fantastic answer why we do this.

And I looked and I looked and I looked and I learned the best answers we've got,

the best justifications we've got, are taste, habit, tradition and convenience.

None of these reasons are good enough justification to cause this unnecessary harm to animals.

And I didn't care about animals, but I know injustice when I see it.

I know unnecessary violence when I see it. I know oppression when I see it.

And they are not the types of qualities I want to be.

They are not the type of things living in alignment with the kind, peaceful,

respectful person that I strive to be and I always have.

And I learned that.

And I became a vegetarian for a whole new reason,

it was for animals.

Soon later, I learned it's not just about flesh,

it's about all the ways animals are being used in our society.

All use is exploitation, all exploitation is a form of abuse

and all abuse is immoral.

I learned it's about dairy,

products containing animal products, products that have been tested on animals,

places that exploit animals for entertainment and for testing.

It's about all the ways we use animals.

This is when I learned about veganism. I heard a little bit about it before, my friend had gone vegan,

who I didn't know very well, and someone came up to me one day and said:

“Grant has gone vegan” and I was like: “what the hell is that?”

and he said: “I don't really know, but he doesn't sit on leather couches”.

I was like: “What? That is weird man, he used to be normal in high school”.

Vegan - always thought it was this extreme thing, unnecessary,

why do we have to be vegan, why?

Because all the ways we use animals causes them harm.

Because no living being deserves to be the slave or the property of someone else.

I got to a point where that was the only thing that made sense.

Since when was it extreme to not want to harm animals, when did that become extreme?

What's extreme is saying we love animals and we're against animal cruelty,

while we pay people to mutilate and torture and slaughter animals

for foods and products we don't need, that's extreme.

I decided to take a 365 day vow of silence for animals.

I thought it'd be a great way to raise awareness for them,

because you don't need to care about animals to

be intrigued by some crazy Aussie guy not talking for an entire year and traveling around the country.

I thought that will be intriguing to a wide range of people,

this could be a good campaign to raise awareness for them.

I had the idea after hours and hours of meditation and that was kind of the problem,

because after that many hours of meditation, all ideas seem awesome.

I'm like: “vow of silence for a year, that's a good one!”.

I would never have thought of doing that and following through with it unless I came from that place.

So that was my goal, that's what I did last year,

I travelled around the country to raise awareness for animals and promote peace over violence.

To promote the abolition of animal exploitation. Because nothing less, I believe,

is good enough, we need to abolish this, this needs to end for them, completely.

I don't want to talk too much about that journey today, because probably half

the people here have already heard me talk about it and this is a vegan crowd.

I'm assuming most people here are vegan. If not - cool!

But you probably are.

So what I want to talk to you about today is how do we help animals.

Now first and foremost, for anyone here who isn't vegan,

and I know there are some people here who aren't vegan, because I spoke to you today -

everyone else just leave the room, all the vegans get out, I'm focusing.

For those people who aren't vegan,

the first thing I just want to talk about, is to single you all out.

No, just to tell you why veganism is important.

Veganism is important because of our core values,

because of them also, but let's just talk about us for a second.

We have core values already of veganism before we were vegan.

Almost everyone here was not born vegan,

almost everyone here believed at one point that veganism was extreme

and that they would never become a vegan.

Veganism is what is already in our heart.

If you agree that causing unnecessary harm to animals is wrong, then by that belief,

by your own belief, you are obligated to become vegan.

Because anything less than being vegan

is going in conflict with your core values of nonviolence to animals.

Anything less.

Veganism is the first thing we should do to help animals.

But it's not necessarily helping animals.

Veganism stops hurting animals, it stops our contribution,

we become vegan and we stop paying people to mutilate and kill animals for us.

Obviously that's so important, that is step one,

that is perhaps the most important step, perhaps equally important as step two.

Step one, if you care about animals, you stop hurting them.

You don't buy free-range, you don't go vegetarian,

you don't buy humanely slaughtered animals.

Step one, if you don't want to hurt animals, is become vegan.

I'm not expecting you to do it overnight, you might - and a lot of people do -

you might feel like you can't,

I understand where you're coming from there, but that is your goal

and don't stop anywhere on that path of you getting there until you're there.

It's incredibly easy, it's incredibly healthy. We are all, most people here are vegan,

we're just normal people, we're not highly intellectual, necessarily, when...

- who, someone laughing? “I am highly intellectual, thank you very much”.

We are not necessarily particular religion,

we are not necessarily tofu lovers, although I do love tofu now, before I hated it,

but it's actually quite good if you haven't tried it.

We are not necessarily caring about our health or the environment,

we don't even necessarily have to love animals -

I didn't.

All you have to agree with is that it is wrong to cause unnecessary harm to animals.

And if you agree with that, you believe in veganism.

That's it.

That's step one my friends, become vegan.

Step 2: Because it does not end there,

it's not just about “ Cool I'm vegan now, let's go have some launch,

there's this new vegan place opened up”.

I mean yeah, that's great, support the vegan businesses and everything,

but there's more to this.

We need to become active, we need to take action

and we need to help these animals in need, because what is happening to them...

I want to remind you what is happening to them.

They're getting their beaks cut off,

so they don't peck each other to death in their confined crowded prisons.