THE VEGETARIAN BLOG

October and November are important months for the vegan community as this is when we celebrate and promote veganism. This week specifically is WORLD GO VEGAN WEEK (25-31 October, thanks to an initiative by San Francisco-based advocacy group In Defence of Animals) and it’s meant to send out a message to people urging them, well, to go vegan.A famous supporter is actor Woody Harrelson, who’s been a vegan for many, many years. Said Harrelson: “I chose to be vegan initially as an energetic pursuit, as meat and dairy slowed me down, but have since become convinced that it is not only the most healthy way to live, but also the most compassionate and ecologically responsible way.”Another famous supporter of veganism is comedienne and TV hostess Ellen DeGeneres who invited her personal chef to cook a vegan meal on air. So in case you missed this segment, I’ve added it below. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate WORLD GO VEGAN WEEK than actually cooking a vegan meal.Veganism is an ethical choice meant to mitigate the suffering we cause to animals. So-called ‘food animals’ account for 98% of all animal suffering. The world kills upwards of 50 billion animals every year (not to mention water animals), who live in appaling conditions before being sent to slaughter. Veganism is also recognized as greener than a meat-based diet and it helps prevent certain diseases such as diabetes and some types of cancer.ENJOY THE RECIPE AND GO VEGAN!

Since 2006 we have been aware that livestock’s greenhouse emissions account for 18% of the total that goes into the atmosphere and causes global warming. Contrast that with transport’s share at 13% and you get an idea of how environmentally unsound animal agriculture and its products and byproducts are. Did I mention the unspeakable suffering inflicted on animals by this horrible industry? (more…)

Time magazine, surely not a vegetarian-style magazine, has included abstinence from meat as one of the ways it suggests to help curb global warming. It uses the famous UN report on the impact that livestock has on the environment as the basis of its report. And it is correct except that it gives the impression that only cattle is the problem, leaving readers room to assume that pigs, chickens, fish and every other animal are okay to consume. It’s not, neither from an environmental point of view, nor from the ethical stand point, which is what veganism is about.

Avoiding meat is not merely an environmental action; it is something that stems from our hearts because we all know, or at least intuitively feel, that there’s something awfully wrong with breeding animals into this world to exterminate them after a life of suffering. At this point, I’ll pass the word to Dave Warwak, a teacher who was fired for teaching his students about the way animals are killed and generally treated.

The Associated Press has a story about BBC reporter Justin Rowlatt , nicknamed Ethical Man, who spent six weeks traveling 6,500 miles across the United States for stories on climate change. The reports are airing on BBC America’s “BBC World News America” (7 o’clock weeknights) as well as in England.What intrigued me about the article is that it mentions the reports derived from a previous BBC series that Rowlatt made three years ago when he, his wife and their children spent a year trying to reduce their carbon footprint. The family got rid of their car, altered their heating system and briefly went vegan (my italics). The article mentions the family has stuck to some of the things they did then but doesn´t mention which ones.

Now, we all know that what we do individually will never meet the challenges posed by climate change – corporations can make a much bigger impact than we do. But that doesn´t mean we shouldn´t try. If Rowlatt was really serious about his and his family’s contribution to fighting climate change, veganism is the single most import step he could take in that direction, more relevant than giving up on a car. From a practical point of view, it’s also the easiest: it’s fairly easy to change your diet compared to not being able to go from A to B.

Once again we see an environmentalist project dodging the V word, or at least not emphasizing it enough, as if it is some kind of sacrilege going vegan. Do these people fear appearing too radical? It baffles me really, because if you’re really serious about the environment, it’s an official fact that a vegan diet is much gentler on the planet. Not to mention the animals, the number one reason to go vegan. There’s nothing ‘difficult’ about being a vegan - difficulty is merely an excuse to carry on supporting the animal exploitation industries.

Today is Earth Day and all over the world people are pay homage to this fantastic vessel we live on and how a vegan diet can mitigate our impact on this planet. One of the events that called my attention was an initiative by Takoma Park City Council where Mayor Bruce Williams signed a Proclamation officially declaring April 24 through April 30, 2009 as Takoma Park Veg Week.

In addition to recognizing the many benefits of a plant-based diet, the Takoma Park Veg Week Proclamation encourages “residents to participate by choosing vegetarian foods as a way to help protect the planet, their health, and animals and to explore the wide variety of vegetarian cuisine offered” in the city.

Compassion Over Killing, a Takoma Park-based animal advocacy charity, applauded the Mayor for issuing this Proclamation, which expresses the compassionate and environmental sentiments shared by many community residents and businesses. Several local restaurants are participating in Veg Week by offering extended vegetarian menus or discounts on meatless options.

The week-long celebration will start on April 24, and includes a Veg Week Kick-Off Party with special guest Senator Jamie Raskin (D-20) who will share his plans to go vegetarian for the week: “As a lifelong carnivore, I will be kicking off a week of ‘experimental vegetarianism’ to see if I have what it takes to live on a nonviolent diet like the most ethically evolved people in the community.”

Every year in the U.S., more than 10 billion birds, pigs, and cattle are killed for food. Most of these animals are raised on massive, mechanized factory farms that are responsible for causing a tremendous amount of animal suffering as well as severe environmental degradation.

Choosing plant-based foods not only helps protect animals and the planet, but it’s also been shown to help protect our health. As stated in the Takoma Park Veg Week Proclamation, “the American Dietetic Association recognizes that a vegetarian diet decreases our risk of various ailments, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and various cancers.”

“As a growing number of people are choosing to leave animals off their plates,” says Compassion Over Killing Executive Director Erica Meier, “restaurants and grocery stores are responding by stocking up on more vegetarian items, making it easier than ever to find delicious meat-free fare in Takoma Park, and all around the D.C.-area.”

For more information about the benefits of vegetarian eating and to learn more about Veg Week, visit www.TakomaVegWeek.com

Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, is coordinating a series of nationwide events for Earth Day (April 22) that will encourage people to “eat green” by reducing or eliminating their consumption of meat and other animal products. The group will be involved in nearly two dozen outreach and education events from coast to coast raising awareness about factory farming’s negative impact on the environment, and that choosing a plant-based vegan diet is the most ecologically sustainable way for people to eat. As it’s been widely reported, the animal exploitation industry is cruel to animals and very harsh on the environment.

* Resource Depletion: Raising billions of animals for meat wastes massive amounts of resources because feeding plants to animals raised for food is many times less efficient than feeding plants directly to people. Overall, the animal agriculture industry consumes more than half the water and over one-third of the petroleum used in the United States. In addition, two-thirds of the planet’s land surface is used by the agriculture industry to house, graze and grow grain for farm animals, driving the extinction of endangered species.

* Climate Change: A 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report indicated that about 18 percent of total greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere are produced by animal agriculture — more than all the cars, trucks, trains, planes, boats, and other forms of motorized transportation combined. Livestock also generate large amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, and methane is 23 times more potent than CO2, while nitrous oxide is nearly 300 times as potent as CO2.

* Pollution: Every year, farm animals excrete half a billion tons of manure, which is three times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population. This waste is typically stored in gigantic lagoons that leach toxic substances (such as nitrogen, phosphorous and heavy metals) into ground and surface water. According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, farm animal excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.

According to Farm Sanctuary President and Co-Founder Gene Baur, there is an unmistakable connection between factory farms’ exploitation of the environment and abuse of animals. “The system of industrialized animal agriculture is based on maximizing short term profits,” said Baur, “and producers that raise and process animals in the cheapest, fastest way make the most money, while animals and the environment pay the price. People need to know how their food choices impact the planet, so during Earth Day, Farm Sanctuary will be getting the word out, and promoting vegan lifestyles as a key part of the solution to our environmental crisis.”

Farm Sanctuary is coordinating volunteers around the country to leaflet and table at Earth Day festivals and celebrations, where they will speak with people about meat’s devastating impact on the environment and hand out literature promoting a healthy, sustainable vegan diet. Attendees will also get a taste of vegan fare, as volunteers distribute coupons for Tofurky products from Turtle Island Foods, and soy jerky donated by Vegan Dream. Other events include lectures and workshops presented by Farm Sanctuary staff members. Details about these events can be found at www.farmsanctuary.org/get_involved/actionalerts.html.

My apologies for not posting for a few days but moving home and blogging don’t seem to go together. Today I came across a very insightful article about veganism by Angel Flinn that covers the triple benefits of a vegan diet: animal rights, health and the environment.

From world hunger to climate change, species extinction to escalating violence, the catastrophic problems we face are clear indicators that we are in need of transformation on a radical scale. Gone are the days when we could procrastinate about necessary changes or take baby steps toward sustainability in the hope that enough small actions would collectively add up to create meaningful impact. Drastic, sweeping changes are needed, and this fundamental shift in society’s values must begin with each one of us.

For the full article, click here.

Over here, you can get read one vegan’s account of her lifestyle/ethical choice. “Vegetarians, and especially vegans, sometimes marvel at the lengths people will go in order to protect their ‘right’ to consume animals. While methane capturing technology may prove useful in some instances, livestock methane can practically be eliminated with a simple paradigm shift – to a plant based diet.”

Earthfirst is one of the few green websites I know that tends to take a more clear-cut approach to the thorny, almost taboo issue of environmentalism and meat-eating. For some reason, many greens avoid the issue altogether, which is strange considering the well-know impact that animal farming has on the planet, being responsible for more greenhouse emissions than transportation. But back to Earthfirst, the website published earlier this week an article analysing whether being a meat-eating environmentalist is a contradiction in terms and it pretty much said, yes, it is, so kudos to Earthfirst for that.

Eating meat isn’t inherently un-green or unnatural. Yes, humans have been eating meat for centuries, yadda yadda yadda. But it’s been a long time since we raised and slaughtered our own food animals on our own land, which had a far smaller carbon footprint. People in industrialized countries (especially the U.S.) eat way more meat than they used to, as well. Demand is growing, so the number of factory farms is growing, too. Does mean that free-range, grass-fed, organic meat is necessarily the answer to all of these pressing problems? Not exactly. Part of the problem with ‘free-range’ meat is that these animals require even more land than conventionally raised livestock.

Whichever way you choose to look at animal farming, there are problems - and we haven’t yet mentioned the ethical problems of confining, inflicting pain, transporting and killing the animals that will end up on the table for the pleasure of a person who gives no thought to the process behind a piece of flesh. So, no, an environmentally-aware person cannot eat meat unless they choose to ignore the big problem that meat as well as eggs and dairy represent. Those who wish to be green at the table should go vegan.

A cattle rancher in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, owes a fine of US$19 million dollars. Rosana Sorge Xavier has illegally deforested an area of 9.4 thousand hectares of forest to clear land for cattle. Meat eaters, beware. Anyone who buys animal flesh is supporting this type of criminal activity that is literally eating away the world’s lung. Now, how someone can get away with such an enormous amount of deforestation is another story entirely. You can’t do that overnight while everyone else sleeps, which reinforces the fact that we have to take the problem in our own hands, as governments do nothing, and that is going vegan. If there’s no demand, criminals like Ms. Xavier will stop doing what she does. The Brazilian environmental agency, Ibama, is owed a total of US$940m in fines, most of which by farmers.

A couple of articles today seem to indicate that local governments are starting to take in the message that meat is environmental murder. I’d rather see them discouraging people to eat dairy and egg products as well, but this is a start.
The Sydney Morning Herald from Australia reports that “the Public Health Association of Australia wants the Federal Government to help overhaul the nation’s attitude to food, saying its appetite for sweet drinks, highly processed foods and red meat is not only unhealthy but unsustainable. ‘It is imperative that human health is placed within the context of the health of the planet,” says the association’s report A Future For Food, out today. “Every stage of the food chain needs to be considered when assessing the environmental impact of our food choices’.” The article indicates Australians have listened to the UN message that livestock is a major cause of greenhouse emissions. Australia is predicted to be one of the most affected countries by global warming due to its dry weather and desert-like weather in many regions.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati administration is also planning to convince its constituents to give up the meat, or at least cut down on it, also as part of a carbon-cutting drive. The problem with this approach is that it takes for granted that people are worried about the environment, which I’m not sure they are, at least not the mall-going crowd that tends to consume junk food as well. Still, recommending a greener diet doesn’t hurt and some people may respond to it, perhaps not the ones who left comments on the article, who are unbelievably cynical.