tagged w/ vegan blogs
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In the world of perpetual downloads and portable audio players we now live in, it’s always nice to carry the information you want to hear, everywhere you want to go. Midwest Vegan Radio delivers insightful and informative podcasts about the world of veganism and animal rights, with a no-holds-barred approach. The dynamic duo, Dallas Rising and Ryan Leitch, are both heavily involved in the Animal Rights Coalition. In their spare time they produce a podcast series to deliver worldwide, in the hopes of getting the word out about hot topics facing all animals and vegans today.
Vegan Mainstream: Talk a little about your backgrounds before you started Midwest Vegan Radio.
Dallas Rising: The radio thing, it’s a hobby. I am the program director for the Animal Rights Coalition [ARC]. I’ve been there for about three years. Between three and four. I ran a dog rescue for four years and I’ve been vegan since I was 15 and doing animal rights work that whole time. I’m 31, so that’s 16 years.
Ryan Leitch: I met Dallas through the ARC, volunteering with them. I have been vegan going on three years. I think we do need to be clear that Midwest Vegan Radio is not a program of the ARC, but that’s how we met. When I went vegan it seemed natural that I would volunteer with an animal rights group. I started volunteering with a different group, but they were not in line with my values, they were extremely focused on farm animal issues. The ARC is all animals. I found them and found them to be more in line with what my values were.
Co-host Ryan Leitch, courtesy Midwest Vegan Radio
VM: How did you both come to do Midwest Vegan Radio?
RL: One day I said to Dallas, “I want to do a podcast,” and she said, “Okay.”
That’s kind of it. We have a mutual friend who does a lot of short films and is into tech-y stuff like that. He does podcast producing for other people. We asked him if he wanted to help us do a podcast. Twenty-three episodes later, here we are.
VM: What kind of preparation went into it?
DR: I think when Ryan talked about doing a podcast, I thought the most fun I would have [would be] a really candid podcast. [Basically], a non-scripted, casual sort of conversation where we can really be ourselves and say what we really think and let whatever happens, happen - just be as natural as possible and therefore as relatable as possible. So, in terms of preparation, we talk about a topic we want to explore. We’ve got ideas around what we want to talk about. When we have guests and so forth, we have a general idea of where we want to go, but we try not to talk about it too much ahead of time because we want it to be as authentic as possible.
RL: We have different segments, so we do our primary topic, a product review where we review a vegan product or service, and then we do a Green Challenge, Dallas is the brains behind that, because that’s a really important piece for her. We try to tie those things together in some way. We did an episode on wellness and then we had a local company that gave us gift cards for wellness services like acupuncture and massage. Then at the end we have shout-outs from listeners. My reason for wanting to do a podcast was because when I went vegan, I didn’t know anybody that was vegan. [Vegans have] come a long way in being very mainstream. I didn’t know anything, and I actually turned to podcasts. I’d never done that before; I’d never podcasted. Serendipitously, I started searching for vegan podcasts and really found a friend in these people, like Colleen-Patrick Goudreau [The Compassionate Cook], who has really been an inspiration. You know, when you don’t have anybody and you don’t know what you’re doing, until you start meeting people and having a base of support, it was like these people were my friends. I could listen to them and feel supported and feel like I wasn’t the only one. After a couple years of being vegan I said, “I want to do this too.”
Dallas and I have very different personalities than what’s out there and available for people. We share a lot of personal details about our lives and our experiences. The feedback we get from our listeners is that [they can relate to us]. Even though it’s a hobby for us, it’s extremely rewarding to be on the other side of this a couple years later; being able to make people feel like they’re not alone, because that’s what got me through initially…When you, [Dallas], went vegan, did they even have the internet back then?
DR: They had AOL.
RL: We’re the same age, but I was not vegan when I was 15.
DR: I found another vegan on eBay once when I went to look for vegan things and was like, “Wow, there’s a vegan in Chicago somewhere! Awesome.”
But, I think the other thing is that we try to have some humor in our podcasts. We’re talking about stuff that can be really hard in a lot of ways. We try to be lighthearted. I was surprised because, when we put the podcast together we were thinking, what could be our angle or our niche? Midwest Vegan Radio, we thought we’re in the middle of cattle country and right next to Wisconsin which is the cheese state and Minnesota has the most mink farms.
RL: We’ve got puppy mills.
DL: It’s a pretty crappy place for animals in general in the Midwest, but we were really surprised when we started getting listeners in France and Germany and Portugal. There are people writing to us from these places, so we don’t really know where all we’re being listened to, but still it’s awesome. We’re glad the name doesn’t turn people off.
RL: I think initially, the concept for the show was what it’s like to be vegan in the Midwest. People might presume that it’s difficult because we have a lot of animal agriculture in the Midwest. But on the flipside, it’s really not that difficult to be vegan where we live. In Minneapolis, you can walk into just about any restaurant in town and get a vegan option. Maybe not on the menu, and not some of the chain places, but we have a lot of restaurants that are very accommodating.
Read The Rest Of The Article At: http://www.veganmainstream.com/feature-interview-midwest-vegan-radio-takes-veganism-to-the-airwavesIn the world of perpetual downloads and portable audio players we now live in,... more
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