Aug 29 2008
Peta hasn’t been in the news for the right reasons recently, due to some miscalculated press stunts, but I welcome their efforts to educate the mainstream on the benefits of a vegetarian diet. The organization has made available a carbon calculator that can help measure how green a person’s diet is. Give it a go an see for yourself how a vegetarian/vegan diet is a lot greener than an omnivorous one.
Aug 28 2008
It’s a vegan success story: Vegan Lunch Box is a very popular web destination (over two and a half million visitors!) and now a best-selling book that makes veganism for kids sound and taste fun. Written by Jennifer McCann, Vegan Lunch Box comprises 130 meat-free, egg-free and dairy-free meals and snacks. All the recipes are organized into menus “to help parents pack quick, nutritious, and irresistible vegan lunches”. It also includes allergen-free indexes identifying wheat-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free recipes, and product recommendations.
Eric at An Animal Friendly Life just loved the book and wished he was a kid again. Well, we can always cater for our inner vegan child…
Aug 27 2008
Last week I wrote that veganism is growing in Canada. Now it seems Canadians have an even stronger reason to go vegan, for the sake of the animals as well as their own health. According to a report on Yahoo News , meat products from Maple Leaf Foods have been linked to a deadly bacterial outbreak that killed four people. Now, have you ever heard of killing carrots? I haven’t.
The outbreak has resulted in 21 confirmed cases of listeriosis, a kind of food poisoning that can be dangerous to the elderly, newborns, pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions. Symptoms include fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea. “Results of genetic testing from three samples of the products recalled by Maple Leaf Foods show that two tested positive for the outbreak strain of listeria,” the Public Health Agency of Canada said in a statement.
We hope that in the face of such tragedy, official health agencies will take heed and start promoting a vegetarian diet as a safer option. How many deaths does it take to convince people that eating meat, besides being unethical, can also be a health hazard?
Aug 26 2008
Mercy For Animals, a Chicago-based animals rights organization who recently made headlines with an undercover video of a California battery egg farm, has launched a two-month campaign to educate the people of Chicago about the horrors of factory farming and the ethical benefits of a vegetarian diet. Over 600 hundred Mercy For Animals pro-vegetarian ads are appearing on the Chicago Transit Authority’s bus and subway systems. The ads reveal images of abused cows, pigs and chickens confined to tiny cages on factory farms, and asks riders, ‘How much cruelty can you swallow?’.
The ads read: ‘Before being turned into burgers, hot dogs, and nuggets, farm animals suffer painful mutilations, extreme confinement, cruel handling, and violent deaths.’
According to the organization, the ads will have been viewed over 35 million times by the end of the campaign run. And it seems like the message is reaching the people on the street, as this video seems to indicate.
Please support Mercy For Animals and their educational work. You can also do so by shopping for vegetarian goods from The Vegetarian Site.
Aug 24 2008
No one better than a vegetarian athlete to dispel myths about a vegetarian diet making you weak and all that kind of nonsense. Carl Lewis is a walking, or better, running proof that a plant-based diet is the way to go! So, check out this video to hear what the Olympian champion has to say about his vegetarian diet.
For more information check out Organic Athlete.
Aug 22 2008
Aug 21 2008
This is Dylan, a calf who was rescured from a dairy farm in New York state exactly three years ago. The picture shows him at one week of age, beginning his new, happy life at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, one of the several refuges for animals rescued from the horrors of animal farming exploitation, where they are treated as mere commodities. So this August Dylan has turned three years old, which is lucky - if he had not been rescued, he most likely would have lived alone and tethered in a dark pen for up to four or five months, subsisting on an iron-defficient liquid diet and then killed for veal. I’m very happy that he’s still around, as a living proof of the beauty of compassion. Happy Birthday Dylan and thanks to Woodstock Farm Sanctuary for giving Dylan and many other animals a safe haven.
Aug 19 2008
It’s good to see the green contingent getting on the anti-factory farming act. Remember, vegetarianism IS environmentalism. As it has been widely reported by the mainstream media, the factory farming system breaks every rule of decency in the way it treats animals, pushing them beyond their physical endurance, is also very bad for the environment and human health because of all the drugs farmers pump their livestock with. The green blog Triple Pundit has an informative post on the subject, focusing on some regional legal victories that improve animal welfare in the United States.
As a vegan, that is, a vegetarian who avoids all animal foods, including egg and milk, I’d prefer animal farming to be altogether banned, since regardless of how much ‘better’ farming conditions become, all animals will face the same, brutal end at the slaughterhouse. That is also true of the more ‘quaint’-sounding ‘organic meat’. I don’t think you can put the words ‘humane’ and ‘killing’ together, as a lot of food companies do these days. Still, I welcome improvements in the way animals are raised, but only as a bridge to a future when they will no longer be bred into captivity for eventual extermination. This end goal should never be forgotten about by all those who care about animals, the environment and justice for all.
The picture shows how female hogs spend their entire lives, in a cage that is barely big enough for their abused bodies. Say not to this abomination, go vegan.
Aug 18 2008
A recent article in the Washington Post, which I found out about via the excellent An Animal Friendly Life, is a perfect example of society’s confused attitude towards animals. The article describes the unfavourable reaction prompted by the introduction of rabbit meat to the menu of a restaurant called Mio. The newspaper said that it seems that rabbit meat is “has replaced veal as the most offensive meat.”
As Gary Loewenthal, a vegan quoted in the article, says, “ethically, there is no difference between rabbits and other meats, but psychologically there is.” Rabbits are seen as pets, just like cats and dogs, therefore it is grossly insensitive on the part of any chef to kill these animals for food.
However, discussions of this nature do highlight our selective preference for animals. Of course chickens, cows, pigs, fish and the other animals that society in general accepts as food also have a desire to live and to avoid suffering, just like our bunnies do. So why not show compassion towards them as well? Gary Francione, a leading voice in the animal abolitionist movement, tackles this paradoxal moral attitude in his seminal book, Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog?, a title I strongly recommend as Francione’s writing is very accessible - he’s a distinguised lawyer and has a great command of language.
I commend all those people who stand up for bunnies but I would like them to spare thought for the other animals too. It’s a dilemma for many but it’s one that is simple to get rid of. Go vegan and you’ll no longer have to choose between a chicken or a bunny or any other animal.
Aug 17 2008
Anyone who adopts a vegetarian diet is bound to be asked this question. The doubt that many people have about the protein issue stems from a cultural exaggeration of the need for this nutrient, which also makes it seem that animal food is its best, perhaps the only, source. It ain’t so. In fact, we’re more likely to be defficient in vitamin A, C or calcium we adopt poorly designed diet, vegetarian or not.
Protein is one of the easiest nutrients to obtain from food when you eat a properly balanced diet. So let’s get a bit technical. Each gram of protein provides four calories. So, for instance, if a potato weighing 100 grams provides 75 calories and 1.8 grams of protein, it will then provide 7.2 (1.8 times four) calories in the form of protein, or 9.6% of the total calories in the form of protein.
The National Cesearch Council says that an adult male needs 2.700 calories per day, which must include 56 grams of protein. These 56 grams of protein represent 224 calories of the total daily recommended amount, or 8.3%. Women need 44 daily grams of protein, or 8.8%. It’s easy to get such amounts from vegetables. Let’s have a look at a list of vegetables and see what they contain:
Food/ calories per 100g/ % calories derived from protein
For those worried about protein, it’s good to bear in mind that too much alcohol and sugar can lead to protein insufficiency as both have too many calories but no protein. They are also poor in other nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fat and carbohydrates) so protein is not the only thing to worry about in those two cases.
The great thing is that plant-derived protein is superior to their animal equivalents. Meat is composed of protein, fat and some vitamins and minerals. It doesn’t contain carbohydrate or fiber. An exaggerated emphasis on animal protein can lead to a diet that is also too rich in fat and poor in fiber and carbohydrates. A diet too rich in protein is linked to the loss of bone mass while the excessive consumption of fat is linked to obesity and cardiovascular problems.
So there, now you can tell people where you get your proteins from and be proud of it. But please take this as reference only, not as a nutritional guideline. If in serious doubt about your nutritional needs, look for a professional.
Source of information: Guia Vegano
