The Happy Pear Twins tell Chris Evans about being 'the closest thing to Siamese twins' and returning to the CarFest stage

Virgin Radio

28 Apr 2023, 14:42

Happiest duo on the planet, Stephen and David Flynn a.k.a. The Happy Pear Twins, joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch to talk about their mission in life to get everyone to eat more veg — and the possibility of bringing Vipassana meditation to CarFest with them this year.

The Sunday Times bestselling authors and writers of six recipe books call themselves ‘ambassadors and custodians of joy, merriment and vegetables’.

The double act told Chris: “So we're identical twins and our whole mission is to get people to eat more veg. We started a vegetable shop over 20 years ago, which was all about getting people to eat more veg and it's expanded into food, products, cafes and farms — and they're all to make people eat more veg. So that's our mission, to inspire you to eat more veg and be happier.”

The infectious Irish brothers explained exactly how similar they are. David said: “We're mirror twins. I'm right handed. Steve's left handed. I'm right footed, he's left. I'm right brain, he's left. We’re the closest thing to Siamese twins.

“We were part of a twin study at University College, Dublin where they had 60 sets of identical and 60 sets of non-identical and they wanted to test nature versus nurture — and we were the most identical out of all of them."

On practising meditation since their teens and doing silent retreats which lasted over 10 days, Stephen said: “We started doing Vipassana meditation about 20 years ago. We were meditating for 12 hours a day.

They were quite intense, but you do reach these transcendental states of deep calm and peace. Obviously they're really challenging and hard, but you do reach these beautiful places that others might access via other drugs or alcohol or psychedelics or whatever, so it's a very interesting experience.”

Could it be something new to add to the already-extensive CarFest activities? "Sounds fantastic," they laughed.

The hosts of Happy Pear Podcast told Chris about their former show guest, renowned physician Zach Bush: “He’s a triple board certified doctor. He balances the right brain and the left brain between masculine and feminine.

"He is an incredible voice for nature, for waking up, for just living more fully integrated. If the aliens ever came and they were looking for a human representative, he would be one of our votes for sure.”

The Happy Pear Twins’ latest book The Veg Box is out now. They will also be appearing at CarFest, with tickets available now at carfest.org.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.