Everyday Vegans

Philip Wollen

Philip Wollen is someone very special. He is a big man with a big heart and most importantly he’s BIG on vision. Phil is a philanthropist, OAM, Queens Birthday Honours 2005, Australian of the Year Victoria 2007 and Founder of The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (WCKT) www.kindnesstrust.com.

Philip Wollen is someone very special. He is a big man with a big heart and most importantly he's BIG on vision. Phil is a philanthropist, OAM, Queens Birthday Honours 2005, Australian of the Year Victoria 2007 and Founder of The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (WCKT) www.kindnesstrust.com.

Phil and his partner Trix work tirelessly to help those in need and sponsor over 200 non profit organizations around the world. When Phil founded the WCKT he stated it had five fingers, namely, “Children, Animals, the Ill, the Environment and Aspiring Youth”.

This passion, alongside WCKT’s first core belief: “Act. Don’t react. See a need, fix it first. Worry about the details later. If you wait until you are asked you have just missed a golden opportunity. They are fleeting and rare.” sums up Phil as a man of action who has all bases covered!

Be sure to watch Phil’s phenomenal speech at the 2012 debate: ‘Animals Should Be Off The Menu‘.

What made you become vegan and when?

Phil: I was the merchant banker whose favourite meal was fillet mignon and lobster. Over ten years ago I was mandated to act for a large corporate client and visited one of their main subsidiaries. It turned out to be a slaughterhouse. And I had never seen a slaughterhouse before. My blood ran cold. This didn’t just turn me into a vegetarian. It turned me into a genuinely compassionate human being. Anybody who eats the murdered carcass of an innocent animal cannot claim to be compassionate – not with a straight face anyway.

The slaughterhouse turned my life around. I ultimately became vegan when I saw what happens to millions of chickens – their beaks burned off, millions of tiny male chicks being hurled to their death into grinders, premature calves being deliberately induced and being killed by crushing to death. It is a crime of unimaginable proportions. It is so tiresome to still hear the hideous lies and self delusion from those who profit from this ghastly trade.

I am a vegan because I love life in all its forms. The life of a human necrovore is not a life. It is a life sentence. Short, nasty, and brutish.

What’s your favourite meal?

Phil: Trix is the best vegan cook in Australia – so anything she cooks is a banquet!

What do you cook the best, do you have a favourite recipe you’d like to share?

Phil: Mexican Beans I do quite well, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

  • 1 can of 4 Bean Mix (rinse well)
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 1/2 yellow capsicum
  • 1/2 red capsicum
  • 1 onion, roughly cut
  • 1 Tbsp of good quality mild curry powder
  • 1 dessert spoon soynaise (vegan mayonnaise)
  • cooked rice for two people

Instructions

  1. Put a dash of oil in the pan, add onion celery and capsicum.
  2. Stir fry a few minutes (don’t let the veggies get too soft or soggy).
  3. Slide veggies to the side of the pan and add curry powder.
  4. Fry the curry powder for 30 seconds.
  5. Add the beans and cooked rice – continue to stir fry. Add Soynaise and stir fry some more until all ingredients are well mixed.

This is delicious hot or cold or as a side salad or in a wrap. It lasts about 3-4 days in the fridge.

Are many of your family and friends vegans?

Phil: Yes my closest family are all vegan and 90% of my friends are vegan or vegetarian.

What makes you happy?

Phil: Using the word ahimsa in a speech or saying the ‘V’ word without getting a blank stare. When someone actually “gets it” is a great feeling. And best of all is unexpectedly finding time to spend with Trix and not having the phone or email to interrupt.

What do you do to relax and unwind?

Phil: Meditation, music, and reading.

How do you keep fit?

Phil: Golf; long walks with our four rescued dogs; Pilates, and the physical work of running Kindness House www.kindnesstrust.com/KindnessHouse.html

Do you have a favourite movie/book/blog that inspired you that you’d like to share

Phil: The simplest book of all – by John Waddell But You Kill Ants; Gary Francione’s Rain Without Thunder; The Abolitionist website www.abolitionistapproach.com ; Singer’s A Companion of Ethics and I recommend the films: Earthlings, Peaceable Kingdom and A Delicate Balance.

Do you have a favourite restaurant?

Phil: Yes right down the street from Kindness House – The Vegie Bar www.vegiebar.com.au located at 380 Brunswick St Fitzroy VIC 3065.

What’s been the best part of being a vegan?

Phil: Being able to look in the mirror without feeling profoundly ashamed.

Have you found any difficulties being vegan?

Phil: Being vegan is the easiest thing in the world! I think you asked precisely the wrong question. You should have asked “have you found any difficulties being a necrovore?”. And then I could have written several books on this particular subject without pausing for breath. I would find being a necrovore utterly impossible!!

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Phil: We now know beyond any shadow of doubt that the livestock industry releases more greenhouse gases than cars, trains, buses, ships, planes all put together – by a country mile.

We now know that meat and milk are four letter words for good reason. They kill. These noxious products are grossly inefficient sources of food for a hungry planet. They are profligate wasters of precious drinking water. They are indescribably cruel. And they are horrendous polluters of our rivers and oceans.

Clearly, it is no longer (just) an animal rights issue. It is a social justice issue. Make no mistake about it. Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear stained face of a hungry child.

Unfortunately, flaccid governments are influenced by lobbyists who don’t care if our planet ends up in a ditch, as long as they get to drive. So we continue this ludicrous charade of governments pretending to be concerned about jobs – and caving in to the industry with subsidies for low paid jobs for unskilled work. So much for being the clever country.

But the writing is on the wall. Intelligent people are fast learning that this planet is being trashed by an industry that is well past its use by date. The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones. The meat industry will end because we run out of excuses.

Click to read 9 comments

Comments

  • Barbara Gladwell
    4 May 2018

    How VERY fortunate we are to have this amazing man on this planet of ours at this time.
    Does it not behove any thinking man or woman to follow his example….NOW ?

  • Nirmalkumar Nikam
    6 September 2018

    Great influence… Decided to be vegan from today… Watched your speech…Thank you for changing my life…?

  • Catherine Wienburg
    5 November 2018

    Thank you Thank you for being you and helping to change this world. Gandhi said, “a lamb has as much right to life as a man” Just seeing animals being transported to slaughter houses should be enough to put everyone off eating meat. Even that last ride is so cruel, squashed together with with hardly room to breath.They remind me of Jews being transported to concentration camps.

  • Bonnie
    26 December 2018

    I found this post just so I could thank Mr. Wollen it was 3 months ago I watched his speech and 2 and a half months ago I turned veggitarian. The two weeks before I chose to no longer eat meat his words were played over and over in my head until I could no longer put another life to my lips. I am ashamed of all of the animals that have lost there lives just so I, one person could eat. When this planet provides more than enough without any life to be taken. I have seen my dark ways and probably never would of if it want for this man. You may think your fight is a slow one Mr. Wollen but because of you I no longer eat meat and never will.
    Thank you for saving lives of our cattle and our people don’t give up on your mission we are all with you and more will follow.
    Bonnie Crawford Scottish highlands

  • Goutham jain
    21 May 2021

    Thank you for your wonderful thought
    Live and let live

  • Thang Tran
    7 November 2021

    I have been a vegetarian for more than 15 years but it is my first time to learn about Mr Phillip Wollen and his speech to take animals off the menu. Thank you so much, we need to make the world aware of the cruelty associated with meat consumption. Actually, at the heart of it, all wars originate from the killings at the slaughterhouses. Believe it or not.

  • Caroline Burton
    7 November 2021

    We love you Phil and hope you will return to NZ when we finally open up our borders again.

  • Mahesh Mukhi
    25 November 2021

    You rock Phil. A voice for the innocent animals!

  • VeganEasy
    23 May 2023

    Have you seen how animals are killed in slaughterhouses? Watch this https://www.alv.org.au/pig-truth/watch-pig-truth/ and https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch
    Cruelty and violence are ingrained in these industries. It’s time for humanity to evolve and be vegan.

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