Rachel Brathen (aka yoga_girl on Instagram) spent an hour on her podcast making false claims and excuses in an unnecessary attempt to justify her decision to start eating animals.

The podcast was full of misinformation, making it difficult to even know where to start.

Luckily, James Aspey was there with the assist.

He plays Rachel’s whole podcast, start to finish, pausing to respond and break it all down.

If you haven’t listened to Rachel’s podcast yet, or even if you have, I highly recommend watching James’ video response.

Here are my five main takeaways:

1. Vegans aren’t vegan because of ego or because meat tastes yucky. They are vegan because we, as a society, have evolved beyond needing to torture/murder/exploit animals to survive.

2. Protein is protein. There is no difference between protein derived from torturing and killing animals versus protein that comes from plants. It’s about being educated and getting the right combination of amino acids.

3. No medical condition is known to absolutely prevent ones ability to be vegan. Again, it’s about getting educated and figuring out what our own unique body needs.

4. A plant-based diet is better for the planet compared to an animal-based one. Googling, “Which diet is best for the environment” will result in a crapload of credible sources (with actual data) that debunk Rachel’s wild claims that a vegan and/or plant-based diet is worse for the environment compared to an animal-based one. But, to make things easy, here’s a link to the UN’s article on food as it relates to the climate.

5. Instead of making up excuses for not being vegan, Rachel—and others who chose to unnecessarily torture and murder animals for nourishment over eating plants—should just call it what it is: laziness and lack of caring.

We have the freedom to make our own decisions when it comes to diet and lifestyle but let’s not confuse that with not needing to take accountability for our choices. (Especially when the unnecessary torture and murder of living, feeling, loving beings are involved.)

Here’s the link to James Aspey’s video response to Yoga Girl’s podcast: