THE VEGETARIAN BLOG

The Connecticut chimpanzee tragedy has attracted a great deal of media coverage and even Time Magazine published an article explaining why it happened – well, chimpanzees are not suitable for domestic living and can ‘snap’ at any time, as Travis did. It really is very strange that Travis could have been legally kept as a pet. The hope is that the high interest in the case will lead to measures banning people from keeping wild animals as pets once and for all.

But will it? I learnt that Travis’ story is not unique and his mother met the same tragic and violent end. According to a report in the New York Daily News, his “mom, Suzy, was gunned down in 2001 by a teenager after she and two other primates escaped their Missouri ranch and wreaked havoc”.

Underlying all these tragedies is the cultural assumption that we can dominate animals and do as we wish. The fact is that we can’t. Nature sets its own limits and we should not trespass them. It’s a sad, sad story, both for the woman who got mauled and for Travis who got shot down for having been raised in the wrong place.

A group of more than 100 vegetarian activists staged a protest in Belém, Brazil during the World Social Forum that was taking place in the Amazon region city last week. The group, led by Vegetarians in Action (V.E.M) from Belém, staged slaughterhouse scenes on the campus of the Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia, where the global event was being held. “We chose to protest this way because we believe another world is possible only if we change our diets. At a time like this when we discuss the future of the planet and the devastation of the Amazon, no one seems to remember that the main cause of deforestation is agribusiness” said Diogo Solano, spokesperson for the group. 70% of the deforestation in the Amazon region is put down to clearing for pasture and soya crops for animal feed.

If you are a vegan and willing to further the cause via the medium of film, you may be interested in applying for an appearance in I’m Vegan. The project consists of a series of short documentary profiles that will feature vegans from all walks of life in order to address preconceptions about vegans and veganism and hopefully turn some people away from animal exploitation. Completed profiles will be distributed for free over the web so that anyone can share the videos with family, friends, and visitors to their own sites and full-length documentary is also in the works. For further information, go here.

Via Ecorazzi : Linda and Paul McCartney’s photographer daughter, Mary, revealed to the Scottish newspaper Herald that “One of the projects that has been occupying her and her family recently has been ‘revitalising’ the Linda McCartney vegetarian food range, which was launched in 1991 … Last year, the firm Hain Celestial bought the licence to the foods and the McCartney family (who are all vegetarian) have since been working with the firm, not only with photography and packaging design, but with new lines. “We’re working with them now on coming up with ideas based on the recipes that mum had and the way she cooked. We’re very hands-on. We want to do it for her, the way she would have wanted it done.”

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?

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.

If there is anything called vegetarian pedigree, fashion designer, strict vegetarian and animal rights supporter, Stella McCartney (pictured above), would have it. Her mother, Linda , who died in 1998, took vegetarian food to supermarket shelves in England long before it became mainstream (1991) and her father is, well, Paul McCartney, the most famous vegetarian in the world. Everyone knows how strongly opposed to the use of fur in clothes Stella is - she even featured in Peta’s video on the topic .

So, it comes as shocking lack of respect that Hockley, a London fur trader, used McCartney’s lingerie without her permission (not that she would give it anyway) for an advert that appeared on British Vogue. McCartney’s underwear pieces appeared on a model sporting a mink fur coat. Disgusting, really, but then what can you expect from people who make their money out of the torture and killing of animals for the sake of vanity?

According to a report in the British tabloid Daily Mail, Stella went completely “ballistic” over the “monumental cock-up” and is threatening to sue. The trader is said to have issued a “grovelling” apology.

I say: go for it, Stella. Sue the skin off them. Besides running an amoral business, Hockley obviously doesn’t even respect other people’s ethical principles.

An article in the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly Catholic publication, says that vegetarianism is “a key ingredient in the new life of peace, compassion and nonviolence”. The article was written by John Dear S.J., author of the book A Persistent Peace.

I couldn’t agree more. How can we even begin to talk about peace if our meals are the result of a vicious cycle of genetic manipulation, confinement, often lethal transportation and brutal slaughter? We simply can’t. Besides, while people are starving in many parts of the world, food is diverted to feed an excessive population of animals, who are bred solely for the purpose of being exterminated, who are then fed to affluent, over-eating westerners. There’s no logic or justice in that.

There is compelling evidence that a balanced plant-based diet is good for the health, especially in the cases of heart diseases as well as in the prevention of obesity. And here’s the good news for men: a new research indicates that a vegan diet combined with yoga and exercise can help prevent and even reverse prostate cancer. Wrote the London Daily Telegraph:

“Researchers found that combining a diet low in fat and rich in fruit and vegetables with regular moderate exercise seems to switch on genes that fight disease, while effectively turning off others that can promote cancer.”

This is an amazing finding which gives meat-eaters good food for thought. The source of information was Dr Dean Ornish, founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In fact, the institute’s website is well worth a visit as it contains a wealth of information for those who are interested in exploring more wholesome, organic ways to achieve well-being.

One of the most glamorous and vocal vegetarian and animal rights activists in showbiz, Pamela Anderson Lee, unleashes her reality TV series Pam: Girl on the Loose on August 3 on E!. Pamela is a long-time supporter of Peta and recently auctioned off household goods from her Malibu residence to raise funds for the organization. That’s where the show kicks from and I’m sure we can expect lots of talking about her chosen cause.