The Cast

“I don’t want to be an invisible vegan.”

“In theory, you can eat better, eat cleaner, feel stronger, while your body is taking the nutrients from the food and healing itself or you can just go ahead and eat poorly, finish with diabetes and then you've got to deal with that 'til your foot gets cut off and I ain't with that possibility.”

“When the baby is born, no one even thinks about giving the baby a piece of chicken. They're mashing up pumpkins squash and peas and yams. As soon as the baby gets two front teeth, they think it's a savage and they destroy the thought process of feeding your child vegetables.”

“Health is about access, it's about economics, it’s about psychology, it’s about the organization of your community to provide certain things. It's about everything.”

“If you want to see the face of addiction, forget about the coke addict or the heroine addict. Try taking a piece of fried chicken from someone. Then you will see what addiction consists of.”

“When and where I entered veganism was through black folks, through the black community. This is something that is definitely a key part of who we are and needs to continue to grow for us.”

“This is why I say people think food is just food. No, it's filled with so many layers of expectation, of anticipation, of you should, you shouldn't. It is a heavy material object that carries so much power, personal power, group power and has the ability to join as much as it has the ability to divide.”

“Why is it that dairy alternatives are not as available to us in our communities when we can’t even digest it to begin with? That is indicative of an even larger problem. The food that is actually available to us is making us sick.”

“When we consume the bodies of dead animals, we're consuming violence, we're consuming the product of violence. We have commodified someone else's body the same way we have been commodified. It's a system of violence.”

“The entire medical complex ranging from the insurance companies, the hospitals, have an entrenched interest in the population as a whole continuing on a nutricidal pattern of food consumption. That's why becoming a vegan is a revolutionary act. You are fundamentally threatening the economic basis of society.”

“Somebody, somewhere that I've talked to will be like ‘I remember him. I remember the black dude with the beard. He was over there growing vegetables and that's how I learned.’``

“African Americans are emotionally connected to food because it's about community and family.”

“This is first the I have more curves and that was very foreign to me, even as a woman of color, because I grew up so small and working in the industry. I am just starting to walk into who I really am and this has been a vital part of that so I am really grateful.”

“We are animals and they're animals, so we should treat them like friends because it wouldn't be fair if somebody just killed all your family.”

“That's why people are not out to try this lifestyle. You're telling your grandmother or your great grandmother, ‘the way you're cooking is not suitable and it may not be the best for my health.’ And people don't like that.”

“It is popular in the mainstream vegan movement to actually promote veganism as a cure all. It’s making people feel as if it’s the individual’s responsibility to take control of their health and it ignores a lot of the systemic factors that actually make it difficult for a lot of people to come to health or the harmony they need.”

“It is popular in the mainstream vegan movement to actually promote veganism as a cure all. It’s making people feel as if it’s the individual’s responsibility to take control of their health and it ignores a lot of the systemic factors that actually make it difficult for a lot of people to come to health or the harmony they need.”