Vegan and Vibrant Episode 02: Kendall Duffie on Being Aligned with Passion & Purpos

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NOTE: As of October 2021, this podcast is no longer publishing new episodes; however, you can download mp3 files of all existing episodes at these show notes posts on the blog.

Imagine sitting at a table with a master chef, an R&B artist,  a serial entrepreneur, a certied deep-sea scuba diver, and an entertainment marketing executive. 

Pretty sweet group for conversation, right? Now, roll all of those people into one, and you have Vegan & Vibrant episode #2's podcast guest, Kendall Duffie. (Most of those things also describe his twin brother Kelvis, who was originally scheduled to be on the podcast with us— but as you can imagine, having that many irons in the fire means that sometimes plans change last-minute!)

I fell in love with Deep Sea Vegan's food  the first time I tried it a few months ago. Then, when I started to get to know the masterminds behind the operation, I was even more impressed— talk about expanding the bounds of human potential, right?! In this conversation with Kendall Duffie, you'll hear about some of the practices that help him thrive, his mission with Deep Sea Vegan, and his fascination with the vast array of edible plants that most of us have never even heard of. 

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 file HERE.

About Kendall Duffie

Kendall Duffie founded Deep Sea Vegan (based in Nashville, TN) out of his love for scuba diving and cooking. As a certified advanced deep-sea scuba diver and a vegan chef taught by his mother, Kendall has the best of both worlds in the kitchen as a culinary certified chef with southern home-taught experience to boot. Deep Sea Vegan is a black owned, family owned business. Kendall is the CEO and Head Chef, Kelvis Duffie is the managing partner and co-owner, Jarremy Gooden is operations manager, and Michelle Duffie is a partner. In addition to DSV, Kendall is half of the R&B duo Kloud 9 (with his twin Kelvis), and co-owns D3 Entertainment Group with Kelvis and their sister Michelle.

Kendall's Instagram links:
@deepseavegan / @kloud9 / @d3egroup

Additional Resources + Mentioned on This Episode:

Vegan and Vibrant Episode 01: Maddie Krasno on the Psychological Impact of Animal Research

NOTE: As of October 2021, this podcast is no longer publishing new episodes; however, you can download mp3 files of all existing episodes at these show notes posts on the blog.

Y'ALL.

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I am not new to the podcast game, having hosted 2 others shows in the past couple of years— but Vegan and Vibrant is the most aligned with my mission, values, and dharma, so suffice to say I am REALLY FREAKING EXCITED to start and share it with you.

And I couldn't have asked for a better guest to kick it off— the formidable, spunky, genuine, and smart-as-hell Maddie Krasno.

In classic millennial fashion, Maddie and I met on Instagram, and I was immediately blown away and inspired by her deep commitment to animal activism and her clarity in communicating about veganism from a perspective of intersectional liberation.

Maddie has an important story to tell about her journey from working in a primate lab (which led to PTSD she is still working through) to working in different facets of animal protection for the past 7 years. I know you're going to LOVE this episode.

To listen to this episode, download the mp3 file HERE.

About Madeline (Maddie) Krasno

Maddie has been in the field of animal protection for seven years, having worked for numerous animal sanctuaries and a wildlife rehabilitation center in positions of animal care, outreach, and education. Maddie holds a master’s degree in humane education through the Institute for Humane Education and bachelor’s degrees in Zoology and Child Development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Follow Maddie on Instagram @madeline_krasno


Additional Resources + Mentioned on This Episode:

Coping as a Vegan Empath / HSP (Highly Sensitive Person)

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Though certainly not every vegan identifies as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), the overlap between the two is significant. HSP is a personality trait first coined by psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron in the early 1990’s, which she describes as “not a new discovery,” but a concept that has long been misunderstood. (The term “empath” has come to be used fairly interchangeably with HSP, and some people prefer one term over the other.) 

Dr. Aron’s research has indicated that about 15-20% of the population meet criteria for the HSP trait, which entails high sensory processing sensitivity (essentially higher sensitivity to external stimuli), greater depth of cognitive processing, and high empathy and emotional responsiveness. She and others have written many books on a variety of topics related to HSP, and her website (www.hsperson.com) is an excellent hub to find these books and other HSP resources, including a brief self-assessment test. 

In the mainstream of both Western and Eastern patriarchal cultures (as opposed to, for example, matriarchal tribal groups), the idea of being “sensitive” has typically carried a negative connotation. People who are called sensitive are often encouraged to be less so — to develop “thicker skin” so they do not feel or need to process things as deeply. In recent years, this norm has come increasingly into question as we’ve collectively developed greater recognition about both the negative impact of emotional suppression and the positive impact of deep empathy. 

Most ethical vegans — people who live a vegan lifestyle for ethical reasons such as animal rights and environmental concerns, rather than purely individualistic health reasons — feel a high degree of empathy for animals, which is often what led them to choose this lifestyle.

Though not all vegans share the other traits of HSP, it’s very likely that the vegan population has a higher percentage of HSPs than the general population (I was unable to find any research to date that explores these statistics and correlations). Speaking for myself and many of the vegans I know, what ultimately led me to step out of my denial and dissociation of eating and wearing animals was a viscerally painful empathic experience with animals I’d see in my life and in documentaries that detail the reality of animal treatment for human uses. 

Even aside from veganism, HSPs in general have to be more mindful than non-HSPs of their emotional wellbeing, details of their living and working environments, and interpersonal issues — because, essentially, they sense and feel everything more deeply. Couple that with the existing difficulties of being vegan in a non-vegan world, and you have a recipe for a distressed HSP vegan who needs a lot of resources and support to feel stable and to thrive. 

Though an entire book could be written to support this specific population, for this post I will focus on sharing three coping strategies for vegan HSPs/empaths. (And until that book is written, a close match would be fellow Exploring Veganism blogger April Lang’s book Animal Persuasion: A guide for ethical vegans and animal advocates in managing life’s emotional challenges.) I hope these tips will prove helpful for you or someone you love.

  1. Find, create, and nurture truly safe spaces to express grief and frustration.
    Most vegans know how crucial it is to make other vegan friends who “get” their choice, especially if their existing friends or family do not. Thus, there are probably hundreds or thousands of vegan groups on Facebook alone, in addition to Meetup groups and other in-person gatherings for vegans to meet and support one another. Nonetheless, ten different vegans will have ten different personalities, and not all of them will be equally as supportive of an HSP’s needs.

    HSP vegans have to especially mindful that they don’t stay in emotionally unsafe spaces just because they’re full of other vegans. For example, I know that my local vegan Facebook group is fairly well-moderated, but even so, it can be a challenging space when someone just needs to express their pain, and the response they get is not one of validation and support, but perhaps taking a more rational/logical approach and trying to “fix” the person’s feelings or tell them how they should have behaved differently in the first place to try to avoid the feelings.

    I am cultivating my private community, Vegan & Vibrant, to be a safe and nourishing place for all vegans (and folks working toward veganism) to connect with other who "get it." I'd love if you would join us!

  2. Learn more about the specifics of navigating life well as an HSP — and adjust your context accordingly.
    The answer to living more peacefully as an HSP isn’t to change yourself, but rather, to understand how to “cope ahead” for situations you know are likely to be challenging, and whenever possible, to choose activities and environments that feel supportive rather than ones are not at all well-suited for your personality. For example, I rarely go to events downtown that I know will be crowded and overstimulating. If the pros outweigh the cons and decide to go, I plan ahead, knowing that the environment will be challenging. Dr. Aron’s original book, The Highly Sensitive Person, is full of strategies and ideas for how to cope with situations that can be especially challenging for HSPs. If you’re not quite ready to bite off a whole book on the topic, HSP mentor Elena Herdieckerhoff’s TedX Talk is a great place to start.

  3. Get professional support if the feelings are obsessive or too overwhelming.
    As fellow blogger Shiri Raz wrote in her recent post on the vegans’ trauma, the experience of being an ethical vegan is, for many, one of chronic exposure to traumatic material. While self-care, self-help, and social support can go a long way, sometimes bringing a professional on board who understands the complexities of vegan living — especially as an HSP — can be hugely beneficial. The stress of being an HSP vegan can not only result in PTSD-like symptoms, but also increased anxiety, depression, and at times, obsessive compulsive traits. Trying to navigate these issues without a trained professional can be extremely difficult, and if you find yourself in an especially dark place, please consider finding a vegan mental health professional. You can reach out to me to see if I have availability, or check out this awesome list my friend Kat put together.

Above all, remember that your highly sensitive nature is a gift — and as any gift, cultivating greater awareness and intention will support you in using it most skillfully and living with it most peacefully.

This post was originally published at PsychCentral's Exploring Veganism blog. 

Setting Boundaries vs. Making Demands as a Vegan

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Recently when I arrived at a women’s meetup, the conversation at the time was dominated by the topics of hunting and fishing. I stood around quietly sipping my sparkling water, occasionally pacing out of the room, thinking that surely the topic would soon steer in another direction. 

I only knew the host of the gathering, and I could tell from the discussion that openly expressing my aversion to these topics would not lead anywhere productive— and more likely, would just make for an awkward evening.

After close to a half-hour of this, I reached my limit and decided to go sit in my car to figure out what I was going to do. Should I pull the host aside or send a text that I was uncomfortable? Should I just drive home? A few minutes later, I did decide to text the host and told her the truth: that the topics were not comfortable for me to be around, and that I would sit in my car until the group was done with them. She quickly responded apologetically and said they had moved on. I went back inside, compartmentalized¹ the stories I’d heard, and went on to have an enjoyable evening.

Reflecting back now on this minor incident, I feel good about how I handled it— though there certainly would have been other appropriate responses, too. For instance, it would have been completely acceptable for me to say, “Hey, I know most of y’all don’t know me, but I have a weird request — could we change the subject? What about the last movie you saw and loved?”

I view the concept of setting a boundary as essentially making a request, because the other party is under no obligation to follow it, and you’re not in control of them. This doesn’t mean, however, that you just have to deal with whatever they do if they don’t like your boundary.

The second necessary component of boundary-setting is determining (and often communicating) what your follow-through will be if the boundary is not respected. In this example, if the conversation had gone back to hunting and fishing after I had set the boundary with the host, I would not have felt bad about leaving early. If I had requested to the group to change the topic and they did not, I would have simply left.

This means that willingness to follow-through is critical for successful boundary-setting. If people hear us set boundaries but we never follow through with them, we’re essentially teaching them that we don’t actually value our boundaries… so why should they?

Sometimes in an attempt to set boundaries, it is possible to veer into the territory of making demands or ultimatums. The key distinction with making a demand is that we are expecting the other party to change — and often using power, control, and manipulation to achieve this — rather than recognizing that we have a choice in the situation. For instance, I could have blown up in judgment to these women, saying “I’m really offended that y’all are talking about hunting. Killing animals is wrong and I need you to stop talking about it because I can’t be around it.” Notice that keyword “need”; I don’t “need” them to do anything, because I have control over myself and can remove myself from the situation if they do not want to honor a reasonable request.

Another clue that someone is making a demand rather than setting a boundary is manipulative language, such as “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have a turkey at Thanksgiving because you know how much it upsets me. If you have a turkey, my Thanksgiving will be ruined.” Setting an appropriate boundary, on the other hand, might sound like this: “I request that we not have a turkey at Thanksgiving; I don’t think I can come if a turkey is there. I understand you’re hosting so it’s your decision, but if you decide to bring a turkey I will make other plans for myself. I am also happy to host an event that won’t include animal foods.” 

This can certainly get complicated, because every vegan has a different tolerance for being around animal products or discussions about animals used for human purposes— and even the same person may have a different tolerance level depending on the day and the context. Some vegans decide to not be around anyone who is consuming meat, while others may decide to tolerate people eating meat around them as long as they don’t get into lengthy discussions about how “delicious” it is.

It’s important not to judge someone for where they set their boundary — with veganism, or frankly, with anything. We usually don’t have all the information or variables, and some folks need to honor their sensitivity rather than force themselves to stay in a situation that doesn’t feel okay just because it’s the socially acceptable thing to do. 

Setting boundaries in any area of life can be one of the most challenging tasks in maintaining healthy relationships. For vegans setting boundaries with non-vegans, the challenge is amplified by having to communicate across values that may not be shared. However nuanced a particular situation may be, a good north star question to come back to is this: “How might I express what I want/need to with kindness and compassion?”

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¹ Compartmentalizing is often discussed as a maladaptive defense mechanism, but it is, in fact, very useful in certain contexts. If I view eating animals as something that is completely against my values system, but some of the most important people in my life (friends, family members) continue to eat meat — and I still love and respect them in many other ways — I have to decide to compartmentalize the fact that they eat meat.

In this way, I still see them as loving, compassionate people… who I believe are often just doing their own type of compartmentalizing by eating animals they claim to love when they seem them on a screen. I can have compassion for that, because I used to compartmentalize in the same way, too.

Busting Myths About Veganism: Part One

(NOTE: I originally wrote this post for Psych Central’s Exploring Veganism blog.)

As a vegan, you get pretty accustomed to being the butt of jokes.

Some are just plain offensive, like t-shirts boasting, “PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals”… because mocking compassion is apparently humorous? Others are often rooted in stereotypes about vegans. Like all stereotypes, they are, at best, gross over-generalizations— and at worst, harmful myths.

Before going vegan two and a half years ago, I will admit that I believed most of the stereotypes I heard about vegans. But once I fully educated myself and became part of the community, I cringed at how erroneous my assumptions were. Hence, the truths shared in this post are ones that I wish my past self would been exposed to and recognized sooner. Since I can only cover a few in a single post, I’ll follow up with a “part two” in a couple of weeks, exploring some additional myths.

Myth #1: Vegans get no enjoyment from food, and mostly subsist on tofu and kale.

Don’t get me wrong — I love a good tofu stir-fry. Though finding good variety was more challenging 10 or 20 years ago, vegans have long-since had access to a broad array of foods that go well beyond the stereotypical assumptions about what we eat. For instance, did you know that Oreos, french fries, many items at Taco Bell, a lot of movie theater popcorn (including the “butter”), and most Clif Bars are all “accidentally vegan”? We are incredibly fortunate to be living during an unprecedented expansion of creative and delicious foods that are intentionally crafted without animal products.

When I made the decision to go vegan for ethical reasons, I knew I could do it because it wasn’t a question of whether I’d have to “give up” many of my favorite foods like queso, pizza, tacos, and ice cream. Instead, it became a mission to find the best animal-free versions of these foods. From a psychological perspective, it is absolutely healthy to enjoy and derive pleasure from food, as long as it’s not consistently your primary or only source of pleasure; and vegans have access to lots of pleasurable foods.

Myth #2: Being vegan is basically an eating disorder.

As a person who’s been in recovery from an eating disorder (ED) for over a decade and has specialized in working with ED clients, I understand why this myth exists. People who eliminate groups of food from their diets don’t always have healthy motivations for doing so. And despite its lack of formal inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (also known as the DSM-V), orthorexia(extreme and rigid focus on “healthy” eating) is very real and becoming increasingly prevalent.

However, as an ethical vegan, I also find it incredibly frustrating that veganism is often just assumed to be disordered, even if there are no other indicators that a person has an unhealthy relationship with food.

At a networking dinner during my first year as a vegan, I nervously disclosed my recent change to an ED dietitian sitting next to me. The restaurant had been graciously accommodating and prepared special options for me as an alternative to their signature seafood. The dietitian said to me, “I wouldn’t tell people that if I were you.” I’ll never forget that moment, and while I know that her feelings are not representative of the entire field, it’s not the only time I’ve heard comments like this.

I am determined to raise awareness within the field, and encourage clinicians to carefully explore this with each individual in order to distinguish between disordered behaviors and choices made for ethical reasons, and direct treatment accordingly. Look out for a longer post fully dedicated to this topic soon — but I couldn’t resist also including it here, as it’s an especially egregious myth.

Myth #3: All vegans are thin.

Some aspects of being immersed in the ED field have been wonderful, such as becoming an advocate of the Health at Every Size (HAES) movement. HAES teaches us that you can’t assess someone’s quality of health or quality of life based on their size or weight. Many would take it a step further to say that “being healthy” is not a rent that must be paid in order to be a worthy and lovable person.

Some of my vegan friends in larger bodies have a desire to lose weight, and others are unapologetic and proud of their bodies, self-identifying as “fat vegans”— reclaiming “fat” as the neutral, descriptive term it is, rather than the derogatory connotation that our fat-phobic culture has assigned it.

Because of myths #1 and #2, people are often surprised when they learn that someone in a larger body is vegan. It’s important to keep in mind the many factors we can’t know just by looking at someone: are they content with their body? Might they live a full and active life, with no more health complications than the average thin person? Do they have health conditions affecting weight that might be invisible, such as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)? Just like someone’s size doesn’t tell you whether or not they have an eating disorder, it doesn’t tell you whether or not someone is vegan, or whether that choice is or is not “healthy” for them.

I hope this first batch of mythbusters has been helpful and informative. If there are particular stereotypes or myths that you’d like me to speak to in part two, please leave a comment here or send me an email at howdy@valthevegantherapist.com!