Jasmin Singer is an American animal rights activist, writer, speaker and actress. She is the co-founder of the non-profit organization Our Hen House and has been the senior editor of VegNews since 2016. She also supports LGBTQ+ and overlapping social justice issues. Singer has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Vegucated, The Ghosts in Our Machine, HuffPost Live, and Unchained with Jane Velez-Mitchell. On May 20, 2017, she gave the TED talk "Compassion Unlocks Identity" in Asbury Park, New Jersey. In 2014, Singer was named one of the "40 People Under 40 to Teach Us About Each Other" by the magazine The Advocate.
Biography
Jasmin Singer was born on October 30, 1979. She grew up in Edison, New Jersey. From childhood to adulthood, Singer struggled with weight problems. She studied at Pace University in New York, where she earned an acting degree. At age nineteen, she became vegetarian. After graduating, Singer toured with the AIDS-awareness theater company NItestar as an educator. Later, she obtained a master's degree in experiential health and healing from The Graduate Institute and a holistic health certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. At twenty-four years old, Singer turned to veganism after watching a film about factory farming. Learning about dairy and egg production led her to incorporate animal rights into her LGBTQ+ and feminist activism. Immediately after going vegan, Singer volunteered at PETA's headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia for a week, and began steering her career toward animal rights activism. Shortly afterward, she started writing articles on the subject and became the campaign manager for Farm Sanctuary. Singer was a freelance writer for VegNews magazine for ten years and since 2016, she has been its senior editor.
Writing
Singer has written for VegNews, Huffington Post and mindbodygreen. She has proposed the use of personal narrative to affect social change, believing that the "animal rights movement has barely even begun to scratch that surface", unlike other social justice movements. Her articles on VegNews have focused on "fierce women".
''Always Too Much and Never Enough''
On February 2, 2016, Jasmin Singer released her memoir Always Too Much and Never Enough through Penguin Random House. It tells her struggles with disordered eating, society's mistreatment of overweight people and how she lost almost 100 pounds after starting to look after herself. It also touches on her experiences of having a difficult childhood, being bullied while growing up, animal rights and her sexuality. The book was conceived after she was approached by publishers following an article she wrote for MindBodyGreen which reached over 100,000 shares in a day. Amy Wilson, reviewing for Everyday eBook, described Always Too Much and Never Enough as a "finely constructed book" and a "fresh and breezy take on memoir", which "manages the delicate feat of sharing her personal journey with an activist's verve that never tips over into the preachy." Merryn Johns at Curve called it "an honest, beautifully written account of her journey". Nathan Runkle opined that "Her witty, yet deeply insightful and educated commentary is not only refreshing, but also provocative." In May 2019, Always Too Much and Never Enough was included among "The 7 Most Inspiring Books About Weight Loss" by Everyday Health.
Our Hen House
In January 2010, Singer and Mariann Sullivan, an animal law professor at Columbia Law School, co-founded the non-profit organization Our Hen House, which produces multimedia content aimed at helping people to create change for animals. The Our Hen House website includes interviews, podcasts, reviews, food advice and networking tips, which are divided into categories such as law, academia and arts. Its best known medium is the Our Hen House podcast, co-hosted by Singer and Sullivan, with prominent guests such as Ethan Brown, Carol J. Adams and Damien Mander. The organization relies on grants, donations and consultant fees from clients, including the Mayor's Alliance for New York City's Animals and the Eastern Shore Sanctuary in Vermont. Our Hen House also provides the Animal Law podcast, hosted by Mariann Sullivan. The Our Hen House podcast has been recognized as a Webby Awards' official honoree in 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2015, GO magazine chose Our Hen House as one of the most important ecopreneurships of the year. In July 2017, the cosmetics company Lush granted $16,000 to the organization for its work against animal cruelty.
