If you were attending a Vegetarian Festival..........

[robert]

First off I admit I can't stand several of the people on your list. I'm just being honest. I think the couple who directed Peaceable Kingdom are awesome. They say great stuff and there film is awesome. I would bring them and Laurie Bauston of Animal Acres.

 

Robert I love you dude. But some of these choices just seem crazy to me.

I'm not trying to be mean or nitpicky I just find some of these choices to be bad. It would be nice to break the mold and see different speakers..

 

 

 

• Marion Nestle (What to Eat)

 

Don't know her.

 

• Peter Singer (The Way We Eat; Why Our Food Choices Matter)

 

He ate meat for the research of this book and said some questionable things. Overall he has been a poor spokesman for the movement of late.

 

 

• Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma)

 

Robert you can't be serious???? That book has been like excuse machine for meat eaters. Seriously No way! He is the worst idea ever.

 

• Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation)

Is he even veg?

 

• Paul Shapiro (HSUS Factory Farming Campaign).

I love Paul as a friend, but I don't like alot of his welfarist ideas. He has given advice to the meat industry on panels at conferences on how to market "happy" meat.

 

• Chef Tanya of Native Foods Tanya did a cooking demo at the Vegan Bis fair we organized and she was great.

 

Dr. Michael Greger - Here is a man I can get behind. Yes I love him. He is a fantastic speaker.

 

Howard Lyman - I will see howard anytime i can, however he speaks all the time at these deals and correct me if I'm wrong he was just here last year.

 

Dr. John McDougal - He is a big draw/

 

 

Dr. Neal Barnard (MD) - always pretty good.

 

Ingrid Newkirk from PETA (She is a big draw - but PETA is pissing people off expect controversy.)

 

Julia Butterfly Hill - Is she even veg?

 

Lorri Bauston - I think teamed with the peaceable kingdom peeps she would be great.

 

Gene Baur - Gene was always super nice to me when i was at the farm back in the day. he is positive speaker. I don't always agree with his tactics but he is a change from the Lyman/robbins same people every time.

 

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I actually got this list by visiting VegFest websites from events all over the country and took the names of speakers they had featured. So all of these people were at one event or another that was veg related.

 

You're right, not all are vegan or vegetarian. It was just a big list I put together after visiting a bunch of websites to drum up ideas.

 

Thanks again for the input. Good to see it.

[xdarthveganx]

I agree with David on these. Especially as far as welfarist's are concerned. I think they hurt us in the long run honestly.

[Guest]

That sounds great but you also have to worry about speakers who draw people in but undermine your message. I remember one AR conference back when clueless was big hit movie. They gave some dumb award to Alicia Silverstone. She got up before the crowd and said alot of bad things about activists.

it was sad. lame.

 

I understand and that makes a ton of sense but some people we like make us look stupid too. Lots of people in the medical field think PCRM and especially Dr. Neal Barnard are crazy and only have an agenda to keep animals from being tested on. And in some cases I agree which I don't mind at all but I think at certain times they need to hide that so the rest of the medical field sees PCRM as being legitimate but they don't. This is why you rarely see a medical study cross referance a PCRM study. They think Dr. Neal Barnard is a quack...hence I'd love to go out and eat with him but I would rather have someone else speak.

[CountAgranoff]

That sounds great but you also have to worry about speakers who draw people in but undermine your message. I remember one AR conference back when clueless was big hit movie. They gave some dumb award to Alicia Silverstone. She got up before the crowd and said alot of bad things about activists.

it was sad. lame.

 

I understand and that makes a ton of sense but some people we like make us look stupid too. Lots of people in the medical field think PCRM and especially Dr. Neal Barnard are crazy and only have an agenda to keep animals from being tested on. And in some cases I agree which I don't mind at all but I think at certain times they need to hide that so the rest of the medical field sees PCRM as being legitimate but they don't. This is why you rarely see a medical study cross referance a PCRM study. They think Dr. Neal Barnard is a quack...hence I'd love to go out and eat with him but I would rather have someone else speak.

 

Dr. Neal can defend himself and most people in the medical field that hate him are the ones making money on animal testing. The kinda controversy

he will cause is good for the fest. The kind Ingrid Newkirk who is behind all of PETA's sexist tactics (which can't be defended) is not good. Just my opinion.

[beforewisdom]

I've read a few of Dr. Barnard's popular books and had similar doubts as other people about the information.

 

Someone on a mailing list I am said he read the abstracts for the studies Dr. Barnard & The PCRM published in medical journals. He claimed that the studies were well designed and that the information in the journals ( and PCRM publications meant for medical professionals ) was of much better quality than the information in Dr. Barnard's books.

[Guest]

He can't defend everything. Especially not that stupid negative calorie thing he supports. Supposedly if you eat foods so high in fiber relative to calories you will lose weight just digesting the food...and the more you eat the more you lose. This is plain moronic and I can't really trust someone that says this. I went on a grapefruit diet for over a week just to see how I felt(this was before I even found out about his BS). I probably ate about 20 each day and only drank water other than that. I also rode my bike 50+miles each day. Guess what...I lost about 1lb. When really I should have lost more weight eating those stupid grapefruits(his number one food on the list for negative calories) than not eating anything at all. I'm sorry but he'd just an idiot in this sense.

[Tasha]

He can't defend everything. Especially not that stupid negative calorie thing he supports. Supposedly if you eat foods so high in fiber relative to calories you will lose weight just digesting the food...and the more you eat the more you lose. This is plain moronic and I can't really trust someone that says this. I went on a grapefruit diet for over a week just to see how I felt(this was before I even found out about his BS). I probably ate about 20 each day and only drank water other than that. I also rode my bike 50+miles each day. Guess what...I lost about 1lb. When really I should have lost more weight eating those stupid grapefruits(his number one food on the list for negative calories) than not eating anything at all. I'm sorry but he'd just an idiot in this sense.

[robert]

I heard that we are moving forward with Ed Begley Jr. I'm not sure who else we're looking at. I missed the last meeting.

 

Just an update.

 

I'll continue to try to suggest names based on recommendations.

 

Thanks.