THE VEGETARIAN BLOG

Last Saturday, the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) marched down the streets of London to protest against one of the most morally repugnant trades in the world. Don’t get me wrong: any form of animal exploitation, be it for food, drugs, ‘entertainment’ or anything else that humanity’s wicked imagination can think up, is repulsive. However, there is an element of extra sadism in the fur trade, considering that it exists solely to satisfy cruel vanity. When you remember that 10 million animals languish in traps every year set up by hunters coming after a wounded, desperate animal’s fur, you really can’t help feeling very, very angry. Take a look at CAFT’s website and do what you can to help stop this evil trade. You can start by boycotting companies that use it in their products and, let’s face it, it’s one of the easiest things you can do for animals. Best of all, go vegan and you’ll be taken the most signicant step towards eliminating animal cruelty from your life.

I was relieved earlier this week when I received an email from United Poultry Concerns saying that “after a year of pleading to the Canandaigua Academy City School District to eliminate a chicken slaughter classroom activity conducted at Canandaigua Academy high school in upstate New York, the State Education Department has informed the school district that the project requires a waiver under New York State Education Law Section 809(5) - Humane Treatment of Live Vertebrate Animals Law.” Which means that for the time being, the school cannot proceed with this absurd project until it gets special permission to do so, which is unlikely to happen.

The whole business was being carried out in the name of “education”. Really? As UPC’s president Karen Davis said, if you want to teach kids about where their food comes from, one of the arguments used in defense of the project, take them to a slaughterhouse. Now, that would be very educational - perhaps the school administrators were afraid the kids would turn vegan when they saw what happens in those places.

I hope this episode has come to a definitive end. If not, be sure UPC will continue speak up for the innocent victims of this macabre ‘educational’ project.

The Healthy and Green Living section of the fabulous Care2 website has compiled a list of foods that help in the prevention of cancer, one of the biggest disease killers in the world. And guess what? There’s only plants in the list. From broccoli to beans, there is a huge variety of vegetables and greens that can give your system extra ammunition. The full article is here and in my view offers yet another confirmation that a balanced vegetarian diet is one great way to achieve optimal health. It’s no panacea, as there are other factors that impact on our health, such as genetics and fitness, but it surely helps avoiding the flesh of animals.

The International Herald Tribune has an article that confirms a long-held suspicion of mine, that the so-called Mediterranean diet is not easily found in the countries where it originated. To put it shortly, fast food has arrived and with it, copious amounts of animal flesh and sugar, which in turn leads to obesity. I can’t speak for all the countries in that region of the world, but I certainly remember being disappointed with food in Spain, a country I lived in for two years. Spain is fine for food if you cook at home, but not so accomodating when you go out for a meal. There’s just too much pork and dairy in every dish and vegetarians are rarely  remembered in menus. It is a shame since great food is available, but culturally the concept of vegetarianism is still alien in  Spain. And yes, there are lots of overweight people there. My suggestion to all Mediterranean people is that they start spending more time in the vegetables section of their supermarkets and food stores, and adopt a new kind of Mediterranean diet, one without animal products. I’m sure that a vegetarian diet could help revert the obesity trend that is a starting to alarm officials - and instead of watching bull fights, Spaniards would do better by taking long walks to better appreciate their gorgeous country.

She’s probably one of the most persecuted celebrities in the world, especially by the blood-thirsty English tabloids. But Heather Mills, the former wife of Paul McCartney and global-trotting vegan activist, does more for the world than all those tabloids put together. Her latest good deed was to distribute vegan food to members of the Hunts Point community in New York’s Bronx, a low-income where childhood obesity and asthma are the highest in America. Ms. Mills hosted a vegan barbecue that included plenty of soy-based cruelty-free options and plans to donate three years’ worth of flesh-free food tofamilies in the area.

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I have written before about the myths related to the so-called ‘humane meat’ label, a cunning marketing device to give consumers a moral anesthetic to continue exploiting animals. The free-range egg industry employs a similar strategy to deceive customers into believing the lives of free-range birds are ‘better’. Fool yourself not.

According to Peaceful Prairie, an animal sanctuary in Colorado, ‘free-range’ hens are also debeaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic; they are force molted, that is, intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle. The hens are violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace). All of their brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs. Can you call this humane? I don’t think so. See the video the Prairie made and you’ll see what free-range hens really look like. It’s a wake-up call to veganism.

The only way to spare the lives of our battery and ‘free-range’ hen friends is to avoid eggs altogether. The Vegan Society has a great page on egg substitutes , including some vegan-licious recipes.

I recently decided to visit the blog Suicide Food , and I wished I had done it before. The blog is a a humorous (dark humor, I mean) semiotic deconstruction of animal food advertising using ‘happy animals’ willingly given themselves over to be killed. Or, as the blog explains, Suicide Food is about “any depiction of animals that act as though they wish to be consumed.” It is a very original way of showing the insidious ways in which speciesism is inculcated in our minds - and specially children’s minds - with deceptive innocence. You’ll never look at those pictures of ‘happy’ animals stamped on the packaging that contains their very remains or excrements in the same way again.

Here’s an ongoing poll about animal experiments in the schools. Please say no to this atrocity.

As vegetarians/vegans, we don’t only want to see the end of animal exploitation by the food industry, but also in science laboratories/classrooms and so-called ‘entertainment’. Hollywood actress Anjelica Jouston recently hosted PeTA’s latest video against the use of primates in film. If you thought that the fate of child-stars was grim, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Elsewhere, In Defense of Animals is carrying out a campaign to help three abused elephants currently on tour in America with a cruel circus. “Tina, Jewel and Queenie have spent their summer being trucked around the country with Circus Vazquez. Day after day, town after town, the lives of these elephants are the same - crammed into the back of a trailer, confined to a tiny pen where they sway neurotically - all for five minutes of performance doing demeaning tricks for dwindling circus crowds”, says the organization.

You can help by writing to the authorities who should be doing their job to protect these animals and instead choose to ignore their plight. Or you can help Ida with their leafletting activities. The day is coming when no one will be interested in these cruel spectacles. But until that day arrives, we must ensure those animals are not forgotten about.

So the big presidential elections topic today is Obama’s ‘lipstick on a pig’ remark, which the Republicans say was directed at Sarah ‘Wolf Killer’ Palin. Well, if it really was, Palin should be flattered, not offended, as pigs are lovely animals, full of grace and joy. Besides, they look after their babies really well. When they are not trapped in factory farms and unable to do so, that is. So show your love to real pigs and stop eating them. Go vegan!