Meet Jane Velez-Mitchell

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jane Velez-Mitchell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jane below.

Jane, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I found my purpose because, honestly, how can I go out into the world and just enjoy myself when there is so much suffering that needs to be alleviated. Animals are suffering, people are suffering, the planet is suffering. So, as long as I do substantial work every day with the goal of reducing that suffering, then I give myself permission to do something fun. I cannot focus solely on having fun while others are in anguish. However, I realize that I also have to enjoy my life, otherwise I will get burned out and be of no use to anyone. So, it’s about work/life balance. It’s also about finding your bliss. I am so happy when I walk my two dogs in the morning down to the water’s edge and see the wildlife and the ocean and the sky. That renews me. By the time I return home after my 3 mile morning walk, I’m ready to jump in the shower, do my prayerful meditation and get to work on my nonprofit, which we have branded as UnchainedTV, the world’s only free, plant-based, streaming television network. Every day, there are glitches and fires to put out. Sometimes it feels overwhelming. But, I just try to do the next indicated thing and stay out of the results! When I get positive feedback, it totally fuels me. A woman told me the other day that she watched a few of our videos and decided, on the spot, to give up all animal products and go vegan. That made my day. The truth is, from our perspective, we have a solution to most of the world’s most pressing problems including, climate change, habitat destruction, wildlife extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, human world hunger, often preventable lifestyle diseases like heart disease, cancer and obesity, zoonotic illnesses and pandemics and, let’s not forget, animal suffering. While we are killing more than 80 billion land animals every year in order to eat them, it’s killing us with the aforementioned problems. The answer is: stop eating them, reforest the land used to graze them (and to grow crops to feed all those animals), end world hunger, reduce lifestyle diseases, let animals life in peace. With this solution at our fingertips, how could we not share it? As Greta Thunberg, who is vegan, says: “Our house is on fire.” We must get people to listen and adapt. The story of civilization is the story of continuous adaptation. We no longer ride horses to work. Animal agriculture, as it stands now, is a horribly outdated system. I am motivated by the crucial need to get this story out to the world if only in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. An Oxford University study, recently reported in the New York Times, but not picked up by any other mainstream media, concluded that heavy meat-eaters (most Americans) can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions footprint by 75% by switching to a plant-based diet. That’s the solution staring us in the face.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a longtime TV journalist, New York Times best-selling author and the founder/president of UnchainedTV, a social media and streaming TV network whose mission it is to tell people around the world the truth about the horrific problems created by industrialized animal agriculture and to offer viewers delicious alternatives that are better for people, the environment and the animals. ONLINE PORTAL TO UNCHAINEDTV: https://watch.unchainedtv.com/browse

Our California-based, 501c3 non-profit runs UnchainedTV, a global streaming TV network where hundreds of videos are available to watch for FREE, all with underlying themes of compassion, health and sustainability for animals, people and the planet. UnchainedTV is available to watch online, via UnchainedTV.com. You can also download UnchainedTV via the APP store on your phone. You can also watch UnchainedTV on your television via Amazon Fire Stick, the Apple TV device and the Roku device. UnchainedTV is also available for download on all Samsung TVs through its Smart Hub.

A TV journalist, New York Times best-selling author and the producer of award-winning documentaries and TV series, I spent three decades in mainstream media, most recently with a nightly show on CNN Headline News/HLN, I was frustrated to see that a solution to the climate crisis and numerous other problems is being largely ignored by advertiser-based news media, even as the problems worsen. For example, we cannot solve the climate crisis without also addressing the destructive role of animal agriculture via methane gas emissions and through the clearing of carbon-absorbing forests and wetlands in order to create cattle grazing land and to grow crops to feed 80-billion land animals slaughtered yearly. It’s now a race against time. And, the missing piece of the puzzle is being ignored… at our own peril.

I started the non-profit network with a single Go Pro camera, videotaping the stories I felt needed to be on network television, but weren’t. It quickly evolved into a global social media network with dozens of citizen journalists going LIVE on Facebook and Instagram around the world, garnering millions of views. UnchainedTV volunteers go live at protests, Veg Fests, conferences, vegan cooking demos, plant-based restaurants, etc.

UnchainedTV has also produced award-winning documentaries, like Countdown to Year Zero, and vegan cooking shows like New Day New Chef, winner of two Taste Awards, considered the Oscars of food. Both of those efforts have garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Amazon Prime, where they still stream. However, Amazon Prime now charges to view this content.

I want people to have access to this crucial information for free. That’s why we decided to launch our own free, non-profit, streaming TV network. UnchainedTV has already surpassed the 1 million view mark. But, we’re just getting started.

UnchainedTV seeks to become the sustainable CNN/Netflix. To that end, UnchainedTV LIVE-STREAMS programming, interviewing experts in the fields of health, conservation, food technology and animal rescue, going live at conferences, hearings, festivals, protests, etc. For 5 years, we did a daily vegan cooking show on Facebook, called LunchbreakLIVE, which garnered millions of views and showcased more than a thousand vegan chefs from around the world. Many of those cooking segments are now streaming on UnchainedTV.

While mainstream networks are spending billions of dollars launching their streaming platforms, we’ve done our for tens of thousands of dollars. We are on a completely remote-work system, have very little overhead and rely mostly on volunteers who contribute their video content, including documentaries, cooking segments, interviews, conferences and even music videos. We work fast because we know… time is running out.

There is one underlying false assumption that is responsible for many, if not most, societal ills. It is that we must kill to survive. In fact, we must stop killing in order to survive. At UnchainedTV we say, life is not a zero sum game. For us to live, nobody needs to die. For us to win, nobody needs to lose. We could live in a world of natural abundance, where there are no starving children and no suffering animals, where the world is not buffeted by ever worsening storms, fires, drought and heat. This world is within our grasp. But, it’s not going to happen unless we make it happen. UnchainedTV’s mission is to wake up the world… before it’s too late.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back, when something went wrong, I was always told by my parents to basically get back up, dust myself off and try again. There was no encouragement of self-pity or victimhood. I have grown to really appreciate that. That also made me very resilient and determined because, no matter what, I know I have to move forward and keep trying.

Also, nobody’s perfect. I had to look at myself in the mirror and face my problems. Alcohol was the big one. I am now happy to say that, one day at a time, I am 28 years sober. After getting sober, I also came out as gay, which was another big step towards getting comfortable in my own skin. So, self-honesty. It didn’t come easy but I’m glad I got it.

Also, my mother gave me a great sense of life as a surreal joke whose punchline is only revealed after we die. She experienced a lot of good times and a lot of hardship yet always maintained a great sense of humor. I try to be like her but sometimes I do lose it and blow my stack. Then, I have to apologize.

For advice, I would tell people, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” Also, be honest with yourself about your problems, like an addiction, and deal with it. There’s help out there if you only look. Google whatever it is and there’s a group for it. Finally, and I can’t always say that I do this … but I try …. treat everyone the same. It’s hard but celebrities, plumbers, the guy living out of his car, nobody really counts more than anyone else. And, that’s includes other beings… cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, lambs, goats, horses….. those beings also deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and kindness.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
Yes, definitely, I am looking to collaborate with everyone. People ask me, what’s your target audience. I say… people who eat food. Everybody has a role to play in saving this planet. We are headed towards a climate apocalypse. There are 9 boundaries that, once crossed, cannot be reversed. We’re already blowing through six of them. The good news is that a global transition to a plant-based lifestyle can reverse all 6 of those very wobbly planetary boundaries. There is something we can all do three times a day to reverse climate change… and create a more peaceful world. Peace begins on your plate.

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