What a Sanctuary Really Means for Animals and for Humans with Miyoko Schinner

Welcome to Essential Ingredients, I'm your host, Justine. Today with me is Miyoko, and we are here to talk about the Mindful Eating Film Festival and Rancho Compasion and Miyoko. Welcome, Miyoko.

Thank you Justine. Thanks for having me. You said my name three times in a sentence, so that's great. Thank you

See, there we go. And now, everybody will remember who we're talking about, and what we're talking about.

Absolutely.

So I'm so pleased to have you here. And for those that are not familiar with Miyoko's Creamery and Rancho Compasion, and the Mindful Eating Film Festival, we have a lot to cover. I'd love for you to maybe just start with Rancho Compasion because I think that is one of the things that we're here to talk about. It's coming up, and it's important, and I'd love for you to just share a little bit about it.

Sure. Thank you so much. Rancho Compasion is a farmed animal sanctuary located in West Marin in the little town of Nicasio. And when we talk about sanctuaries where we save animals, one of the things we talk about is really, what is the meaning of a sanctuary? Obviously, you're rescuing animals that would have been slaughtered, or they're being exploited or abandoned, and you're giving them a forever home, taking care of them. Not just with food and medicine, but with lots and lots of love. But also, one of the things that's most important to remember is that it's a sanctuary for us, for we, humans. Because when we become introduced and we come in contact with these gorgeous creatures, and learn about their individual natures, and their personalities, and the lives that they are living, and the personalities they express, we find peace within ourselves because this is the beginning of a compassionate food system, compassionate lifestyle where we can enjoy great foods without causing harm to animals. And this is really the meaning of sanctuary. It's not just about rescuing animals, these poor animals. But when I started the sanctuary six years ago, I realized that I had rescued myself.

Wow. So that's amazing, an amazing message. And I think it talks to the root of so many of the things that you're working on. So I'm curious, what inspired you to start Rancho Compasion?

I'm a longtime vegan. I've been vegan since the 1980's, and I've been on my own food journey trying to figure out how to use the culinary arts to show people that they can eat this wonderful food, have an elevated lifestyle and not cause harm. And I've always used the culinary arts to do that. But a few years ago, we moved out to the country. I had a barn and someone called me up and said that these two goats, these baby goats need rescuing, and you have a barn and you just take care of them. I fell in love with them. They follow me around. They were like dogs with horns. We went on hikes with the dogs and the goats, and oh, my God. And then these three little pigs arrived. And then it was another goat and a sheep. And then it was a cow. And it just sort of snowballed. And finally, we were like, okay, we just need to make this official. Create a 501C3 nonprofit. And during this whole process of doing so, what I already said is that I realized that this was a place of peace. I found that getting up early in the morning to go down and feed the animals and shovel manure was not something that I detested. It sounded like a lot of work, but it was something that brought me so much peace and joy. And you could see the appreciation in the animals as you cared for them. It changed my life, and it changed the lives of so many volunteers and visitors that we have every single day.

Wow. So I'm curious, because that is so far removed from anything I've experienced. I mean, as a volunteer, maybe once in a while, I might experience something like that as a one off thing, but I can't imagine myself in that environment. I love the message, and I love what you're doing, and I'd love to participate and be involved. So I'm wondering, what in your experience in the last years brought you to be in that environment? Does that make sense?

Not sure. But okay, Justine, you have a dog, I saw your cute little dog moments before the podcast started. It's obvious you love your dog, and it's really just a continuum of that. We can have these interspecies relationships, but most human beings don't have an opportunity to come into contact with species other than domestic dogs or cats. And so we don't imagine that they are just as capable of love and have connection as our dogs and cats are. And that's a remarkable thing. And so when we kind of break free from the ideas that we have that livestock or these animals that are in some field over there, they're herd animals and they don't want to have anything to do with you, just like, I don't know. Did you remember 50 years ago that we used to put dogs in the backyard ia a dog house or tie them up on a chain and we thought that was normal 50, 60 years ago?

I've heard of this.

I mean, I'm actually old enough to have seen it. And today, that would be unimaginable today.

Awful. That would be awful. Animal protection.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And when you come into contact with a goose that loves you and wants to jump into your arms at any time,follow you around, or a goat that would put his head in your lap when you sit down, when you caress the belly of a pig that flops over. As soon as you start touching, they flop over and they want you to rub their belly. Then all of a sudden, you realize that they are no different. Animals react to humans the way they're treated. So if you show them love, they return love to you. It's just like dogs and cats.

We think of them as our children, our family. The same thing. And without that experience though, and I love hearing it from you, I can now imagine myself there having that experience. I want to come and experience it.

Yes. We'll love to have you. You're just down the street, you should come.

So tell me, you started this six years ago, I think you said. I'm curious, this is part of what you're talking about now with the Mindful Eating Film Festival. Can you tell me how this all connects and what you've created here?

Absolutely. Absolutely. My life's purpose is to help people make a connection between what they put on their plates and the impact it has on other living beings, the ecosystem, planet and ultimately themselves. Most nonprofits, we have all kinds of fundraisers. We've had hold downs and festivals at the Rancho Compasion. We thought a few years ago, there's a lot of movies that are coming out about connecting food choices with the environment, or with health, or with animals, and films are a very, very effective way to communicate that. I mean, there's so many people that have seen the movie Game Changers on Netflix for example, or Cowspiracy. And we thought, what if we actually put together an entire day, actually two days of films, food vendors, speakers and just did it at the Marin Civic Center right here where people in Marin, Sonoma, San Francisco, we're all foodies. We're very passionate about food, and we all care about where our food comes from. I mean, there's a huge locavore movement here, or farm to table, or organic movement. I mean, this is where the organic movement started. So people are thinking about their food choices. And we thought, why don't we have an entire festival dedicated to that show? These great films have the writers and the filmmakers come and be on a panel afterwards to speak about it. Invite all kinds of vendors that are selling what we call mindful foods or foods that don't harm planet or animals. So plant based vegan, whatever you want to call it. And so we have a huge festival in the fairgrounds. We have over 30 vendors, I think it might be up to 40. We're kicking it off on Saturday night with a screening, a West Coast premiere of a movie called The Smell of Money, which is about the pork industry in North Carolina, and the impact it's having on the communities there, and the high rates of cancer predominantly in African American communities that are around these pig farms. This was produced by Kate Morrow, the actress who was actually going to be there herself. But unfortunately, she got a gig in London so she has to go there. But we have the filmmaker and the writer that will be on a panel after that. We're going to have a gala before a reception. So we've got a beautifully catered event that will be leading up to that. This is at Dominican University in San Rafael. And then all day Sunday at the Marin County fairgrounds, the Martin Civic Center. We've got a fair going on, we got a big speakers tent with all kinds of talks.We'll be showing four feature length films all with panels afterwards. We have a smaller room that will be running a loop of shorts all day long that will be free. And then we'll have vendors, or we even have dog adoption there.

Oh, that's amazing, I love that.

So it's going to be really exciting. We're just hoping that we can get people to start thinking about, okay, how can I live more, eat more consciously in a way that doesn't take into account just my own health, but the health of others, the lives of others, the ecosystem.

It's so important. I mean, I had one of the co-founder of JUST here a while ago.

Josh Tetrick or Josh Falk. There's two Josh's that I know.

There's two Josh's. It's the one that actually works for the humane society.

Josh Falk.

Josh Falk. Yeah. He was telling me about the first time that he went, he was living in Washington, DC. I don't want to get all into this whole thing, but it was about the chickens and how they live, and the lack of experience they get, and how they're treated. And that's how he got his whole story about how he got into what he does now. I don't know if you know the story, but it was so moving to me. It changed the way that I think about things, and I was so happy to amplify that message on this podcast for people to hear.

Well, thank you so much, Justine. I mean, that's such an important message to share with people. It really is.

It really was so pivotal for me, because I did not know this. And really, I'm not an expert here, but this really is a place for people to share those stories so that people can make more informed choices.

That's right.

I'm happy to be able to share your story here and how you started Rancho Compasion and this film festival. How long has it been going on now?

The film festival started in 2019, and we actually had it in Point Reyes at the Dance Palace. And it was kind of thrown together. We had like a month to put it together. We really didn't think anyone was going to come, and about 600 people came and jammed this little downtown Point Reyes and we were like blown away. Then we did it. It shifted to online, obviously, during the pandemic. And so this will be the first time since then if we're going to be in person and we're just blowing it up. And we're hoping everyone's going to come out.

Well, I'm very excited for you. So people watching, I mean, I love for you to just share a little bit about Miyoko's Creamery because I think that's a lot about what you do as well. I think it's important to share.

Yeah. So Miyoko's Creamery is a company I started eight years ago. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've been into food for a long time. But as they say, people say I go vegan but for the cheese, and I was one of those because cheese was my great love. It really was for most of my life until I went vegan, and then I learned to live without it for a long time. And finally, in the 2000's, I was like, I'm not getting younger and I still don't have that damn cheese platter. Where is it? So I got in the kitchen, and I had to figure out how to make cheese out of plant milk. And so what I did was I took some cheese making courses, I read books, watch videos, I started playing around with soy milk, cashew milk and almond milk and trying to figure out how can I replicate the cheese making process using that traditional artistry, but applying maybe some new techniques and using these plant milks. It culminated in a book that I wrote called Artisan Vegan Cheese which was the first book written on this subject about making cheese using natural fermentation. There's a whole bunch of books out now, but it was the first. And two years later, I started the company in Fairfax, California. I thought it was going to be a little tiny cheese shop, but it kind of blew up and we moved to Petaluma in 2017. We've been there since. We're in about 30,000 stores across Canada. I do a little bit of export. Our butter, our European style cultured vegan butter is in Costco, Japan, for example. And so it's kind of random, but they wanted it so small feat. But for me, it's not just about selling products. As I mentioned before, I consider myself an epicurean activist. This has been my life's mission to make great food that doesn't cause harm to animals or the environment. And so how can that be done? So many people are compassionate in heart. People say I love animals, but they don't understand that they're causing harm to animals in so many different ways with our current factory farms and all of this stuff. And so, if we can create a way for people to have an elevated lifestyle where they can have the dolce vita in a compassionate way, we call it the compassionate dolce vita, it's a win win for everybody, for us, for the animals, for the environment. And that's the purpose of this company. It's an activism driven company. We make great cheese and butter out of plant milks, whole foods organic. We're not GMO, we don't use a bunch of flavors, and it's just made the traditional way like cheese makers have been making cheese for centuries.

Well, that's inspiring because my mission has always been to build a business that can do good and make money. Equally important to me. And so that's really inspiring and something to drive for in my mind. So you've got the animals, the planet's health, you've got a lot going into that.

To me, the most important thing is the animals and that's how it ties into Rancho Compasion. And if people are wondering, it's ranchocompasion.org, you can go there to find out about the Mindful Eating Film Festival.

I was gonna ask you, how would people get tickets if they wanted to or find out about getting involved in Rancho Compasion?

My god. I'll repeat this a couple times. So if you want to get tickets, you can go to ranchocompasion.org or just Google Mindful Eating Film Festival. You can go to the Marin Center and get tickets for the movies.

Don't worry, we will put a link as well. For those watching, we will add all of this to our website.

How do you get involved in Rancho Compasion? We always need volunteers, and the animals need you. They love volunteers. They will come up to you if you're shoveling manure, or I don't know. Putting straw down in stalls, the goats will be right there waiting to be petted. A big 800 pound pig might come up to you and rub her snout in your legs so that you give him or her a pet. So they're so loving. They want you, we need help. We are a small staff. We're largely a volunteer run. So if you want to get involved in Rancho Compasion, you can go to our website and there's a volunteer information page there.

And the one thing we did not get as a date on this Mindful Eating Film Festival.

Oh, my gosh, it's August 6th and 7th. August 6th is at the reception at Dominican University Angelico Hall. August 7th is at the Marin County Fairgrounds in San Rafael.

Okay, wonderful. And so if anybody wants to buy milk goats cream or Miyoko's Creamery or butter, where will they find that?

So you can go to Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, Walmart, Costco, natural food stores, Mollie Stones, pretty much everywhere.

We've got it covered. Now we covered the Mindful Eating Film Festival, we covered Rancho Compasion, and we covered Miyoko's Creamery. Did I miss anything else?

I think that's it.

Okay. Well, I'm so glad that we were able to catch up just in time for us to let everybody know about the film festival coming up and get tickets and participate, and even volunteer if they should choose. And thank you again for joining us.

Thank you, Justine. I really appreciate it.

It was wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you to our guests for joining us. As always, we want to hear from you. Let us know if there's anything else we can bring to you on these podcasts. Please rate, review, and leave us a note.