Aaron Prasad is leaving himself 'Hungry on Purpose' for the month of October in hopes of inspiring change. We caught up with him for an interview at The Pea Pod in Port Elgin October 9.
Hub Staff
In what he is intentionally calling a circus stunt, proponent Aaron Prasad is leaving himself 'Hungry on Purpose' for the month of October to highlight the plight of animals and what he sees as a disconnect from our innate humanity, compassion and empathy.
In a series of events that began in 2016 and catalyzed in August and September of this year, Prasad decided a hunger strike was a peaceful and productive way to express the anger and frustration he felt.
"I don't know if what I'm doing is going to enact change, I don't know if what I'm doing is going to have an impact on productivity in the world or anything like that, all I know is it's an expression of my anger and frustration, in a peaceful, and hopefully a productive and impactful way," said Prasad when we met with him on a Saugeen Shores visit October 9.
Following the devastating loss of his 3 1/2 year old dog Gambit to cancer in 2016, Prasad found himself rescuing two young piglets from the side of the road in two separate incidents this past summer.
It is suspected that the piglets either escaped from a transport truck or from a nearby farm.
The first one happened on August 28 when Prasad was on his way to lunch with a member of a youth saxophone ensemble for which he volunteers. "I was going to take him out for lunch and on my way there I saw this little piglet teetering around, wobbling side to side on the side of the road," said Prasad who said he pulled over to investigate.
"It was so depleted that it didn't put up any fight," said Prasad who then called Jennifer Nephew, owner of Carroll's Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in Hanover, who picked up the piglet. "Later on or I guess the next morning the pig didn't make it, it was too depleted," recalled Prasad.
After a tearful day and a session on his heavy bag as a means to process his anger, Prasad declared that he was going on a hunger strike. "That was as much thought as I had put into the thing," he said.
Prasad reactivated some social media channels in preparation for his upcoming hunger strike, he had been "off the grid" for a few years, then in early September received a text from Nephew that another piglet had been spotted nearby.
This piglet was much more feisty, recalled Prasad, who headed out to the approximate coordinates on Highway 9 near his hometown of Kincardine around 9pm with a head lamp and a dollar store leash to cover the two kilometre distance, "gridding off my walk and making the most ridiculous pig sounds I had ever heard anybody make," he said.
At around 10pm, with his head lamp starting to fade, "all of a sudden from behind me I hear a little rustling and a little oink and I turned around and here's this little piglet just brazenly wandering over to me." Prasad recalled the piglet "put up a heck of a fight" but he got the piglet into his car and drove her to Carroll's in Hanover.
"The next morning she was thriving, eating food, doing great things, she's grown almost double in size already," said Prasad October 9. He named the piglet Rogue. "She was saved," he said.
In addition to relief at the state of the second piglet, Prasad was again angered by the situation. "It just bothers me that these animals have to be in this position in the first place," said Prasad. "Just getting clued into the fact that this is not a one off incident, over the last two months I heard of at least half a dozen instances where animals, and specifically piglets, were found on the side of the road," he said.
Pigs are highly intelligent creatures and are routinely slaughtered at just 6 months into their 12 to 15 year life span.
Prasad continued, adding that the anger he felt coursed into the idea that individuals are prompting this need. "I was let down by humanity and I believe that that's the issue is that we're not really tapped into our humanity. If we knew the repercussions of what we were doing we probably wouldn't be doing it as often or at all," he said.
"If you spend time with a goat one day, you're probably not going to eat goat curry that night," he added.
Prasad has been on a journey of self exploration for several years, with much of his focus being on health, exercise and nutrition; and six or seven years ago began to explore a plant based lifestyle.
While Prasad acknowledges that he is not a nutritionist, he has discovered through his own research and experience that much of his eating had been emotionally driven and has come to the realization that "we don't need calories, we need elements of nutrition."
Prasad used the analogy of an ocean and the various tributaries that go into feeding it. The more whole the food we put into our system, the less energy is required to process the "garbage and hard to process acidifying things" and the less goes into "breaking up inflammation," leaving us with more health and vitality and a greater ability to thrive.
The Dieticians of Canada, the British Dietetic Association and the American Dietetic Association all state that a well planned vegan diet is healthy for all stages of life and has health benefits including lower rates of heart disease, lower rates of high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.
"The body, much like a waste removal system, if it doesn't have waste to remove, it can dedicate its resources elsewhere," said Prasad, who added he also wants to bust the protein myth and says that protein is not a sufficient term to describe meat and other animal products. "A more apt description would be a combination of cholesterol, saturated fat, amino acids, zero fibre, zero carbohydrates, and producing an acidic based substance that needs my body to work overtime to efficiently absorb it."
For the month of October, Prasad is ingesting water and an electrolyte supplement, is exercising daily and is cataloguing his gains and experience through regular video updates he's uploading to his 'Hungry on Purpose' Facebook page.
Prasad hopes that sharing his knowledge and his anecdotal experience will help people to become more intentional in their day to day choices. "If me voicing my concerns, emotions, experiments... leads to a decision making tree that is different on the 31st of October than it was on the 1st, then I believe the campaign to be a success," he said.
"I know it won't be habit for a while but I want people to realize that there is an activation inside of them that will prompt more conscious and productive decision making and therefore lead to a more healthy, whole, and fulfilled daily life," said Prasad.
While Prasad believes a byproduct of that will inevitably be no longer consuming animal products, he said "the mission is not to help people become vegan, the mission is to share myself in a way that helps them think differently and make different choices."
"I want people to recognize the default operating system inside of us which is that of peacefulness, sharing, compassion, and empathy," said Prasad. "I believe that's our default operating system," he said.
"As much as I would love the world to be vegan, I would more prefer the world be human," he said, adding, "My brand isn't 'go vegan,' my brand is 'opt into your humanity.'"
Prasad also wants people to understand that he isn't against animal farmers and said that they are just filling a demand; that as consumers begin to demand different foods, the farmers will inevitably shift to fill that need. "They will find other ways to serve the demand," Prasad said, adding that if people don't activate this change quickly, the planet won't be around much longer.
Lastly, "and almost as importantly," continued Prasad, is that he would like to help Carroll's Animal Sanctuary and Rescue recover some of the costs involved in rescuing and caring for the piglets.
"They're not publicly funded, they're volunteer funded through private donations," said Prasad, adding that his goal is to raise $3,000 for the sanctuary over the course of the month.
Prasad would like anyone wishing to donate to Carroll's do so directly with the sanctuary and quote the hashtag #HungryOnPurpose. Donations are accepted through a Donate page at carrollsasar.com.
In an October 15 update with Saugeen Shores Hub, sanctuary owner Jennifer Nephew said that Rogue is doing amazingly well. "She loves to be outside rooting in the grass. She is healthy and happy now that she is here with us," said Nephew.
Many of the animals at the sanctuary, including Rogue, love to eat pumpkins and Carroll's will be available from November 1 to 5 to accept Halloween pumpkin drop offs, added Nephew. Anyone wishing to make arrangements can email jennifer@carrollsasr.com.
For more on the environmental and health impacts of animal foods and the benefits of plants based eating, visit gamechangersmovie.com/benefits.
The Hungry On Purpose proponent is cataloguing his experience in regular video updates on his Facebook page, Hungry on Purpose.
Before our chat October 9, we joined Prasad for a walk around Port Elgin.
Rogue is alive and doing well at Carroll's Animal Sanctuary and Rescue. Prasad hopes his campaign will Carroll's recover some costs associated with the rescued piglets by visiting their Donate page at carrollsasr.com.
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