I stopped eating animals in February 2004, about 6 years ago. At first it started out as a health experiment to see how much better I could physically feel. Years later, I got deeper into seeing how animals suffered needlessly to satisfy man’s appetite for meat. But for the past year, something different began to take shape within my spirit. I can now see and feel that not eating meat is purely a spiritual matter for me. More than the physical and mental benefits, as well as even the fact that I don’t support the killing of animals, not eating meat is something that my Nature is telling ME not to do. It’s so hard to put the reason in words, but it’s just a feeling within me. My spirit THRIVES without eating meat and it will continue to do so.

please don't eat lobsters

Other studies have suggested that crabs, lobsters, and prawns (which are similar to shrimp) can feel pain, yet as researcher Bob Elwood points out, the millions of crustaceans used by the fishing and food industries each day have little to no legal protection. Professor Ellwood feels that a potentially very large problem is being ignored, and although he doesn’t come right out and say that people shouldn’t eat crabs, lobsters, or prawns, one can infer that from his comments. “With vertebrates we are asked to err on the side of caution,” he says, “and I believe this is the approach to take with these crustaceans.”

Crustaceans Deserve Compassion

Now there’s a novel idea, one that relatively few people embrace. Even some “vegetarians,” or pesco-vegetarians, eat fish and other sea animals, presumably believing that these beings are somehow less capable of suffering than cows, pigs, chickens, or turkeys. Sea animals (mainly shrimp and scallops) were the last animals I gave up when I went vegetarian too—a simple lack of thought on my part.

It shouldn’t really take a study to make people realize that crabs, prawns, lobsters, and other sea animals feel pain when they’re boiled, steamed, or killed in other cruel ways. Even people who aren’t entirely convinced should err on the side of compassion, as Prof. Ellwood suggests.

I think if people knew more about crustaceans, they’d understand why we shouldn’t eat them. Not only do these animals feel pain like people do, they’re similar to us in other significant ways as well. Lobsters carry their young for nine months and can live to be more than 100 years old. They use complex signals to establish social, lasting relationships. They take long seasonal journeys each year, often traveling for hundreds of miles. Crabs are capable of learning from their mistakes and retaining information so that they don’t make the same mistake again in the future. They learn to avoid foods that make them ill and they adapt to changing cues in their environment.

Hmmm. Actually, I can’t say all of these things for some people—it seems crustaceans may be more evolved than humans in many respects!

“I’ll Have A Plate Full of Bodies, Please”

What’s really unsettling—and infuriating—is that when people eat a crab, lobster, or shrimp, they’re devouring an entire body. I mean, they can form cow or pig flesh into a patty and call it a “hamburger” or “sausage,” and it distances them from what they’re eating, but when they eat a crab, lobster, or shrimp, they are biting into an entire being. Yikes!

How is it that people can obliviously pound on a corpse with a mallet, rip off animals’ legs, and suck the flesh from his or her skeleton? It’s gruesome, really. With shrimp or prawns, people often eat dozens of whole bodies in one sitting. I guess I never thought about it when I ate shrimp either, but it’s really quite disturbing, and it shows how disconnected many people are from their “food.”

Faux “Seafood”

If you like the taste of seafood, but don’t want to eat sea life, try the seafood alternatives available from vegieworld.com (I’ve only tried a few of the products and some of them are better than others, so please let me know if you have any recommendations!).

For those of you who like to cook, Nancy Berkoff’s cookbook Vegan Seafood: Beyond the Fish Shtick for Vegetarians includes recipes for “Fish” Tacos, “Crab” Enchiladas, and much more. If you were (or are) a scallop fan, try Worthington’s Vegetable Skallops, which are sold in many grocery stores or by Pangea, the vegan superstore.

If you have other recommendations, please share them. Now repeat after me: “fish, and crustaceans, are friends, not food!”

Happy National Soy Foods Month everyone!! Have you begun celebrating yet? Okay, yeah, I’m not surprised. Few people even know that April is soy foods month, much less “celebrate” it, but since soy is such a big part of many vegans’ diets, I think it’s worth a shout out. Soy is cholesterol-free and low in saturated fat. Studies show that women who eat soy have a lower risk of breast cancer, and that soy may also help prevent prostate and colon cancers. Research also suggests that soy can help your heart, protect against osteoporosis, and even benefit asthma sufferers.

There are lots of other healthy reasons to eat soy, too. But I enjoy soy simply because it’s animal-friendly, super-delicious, and ultra-versatile. It can be used in everything from veggie burgers to soy milks to cheesecakes. A block of tofu may not be too appetizing on its own, but since it acts as a sponge and absorbs the flavors of anything it’s prepared with, you can use it to make Kung Pau tofu, chocolate pudding pie, eggless egg salad, and much more.

My Top Ten Fave Soy-Based Foods

While a healthy vegan diet should include a variety of foods, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, it’s good to squeeze in some soy products too—and there are plenty of products to choose from. Whole soy foods like tofu, edamame (soybeans), and tempeh are generally the healthiest, but other soy foods are good options too. Here are ten of my (current) favorite soy foods:

1. Tofurky Sweet Italian Sausages: With baseball season approaching, I’m eager to eat these spicy vegan sausages while watching the Orioles play. They’re the perfect warm-weather food. They’re great grilled or fried and tucked in a bun with ketchup. The manufacturer, Turtle Island Foods, also makes tasty vegan beer brats and kielbasa, but the sweet Italian sausages are the best if you ask me.
2. Sheese Soy Cheese: I like other soy cheeses okay enough (Tofutti makes a decent vegan cream cheese and passable American soy cheese singles) but this Swedish brand is my favorite, hands down. I especially recommend the smoked cheddar style. Sheesh is a little pricey though, and not too many stores carry it yet. But thanks to Pangea, the vegan superstore, everyone can enjoy it.
3. Westsoy Chocolate Soy Shake: Mmmm. Thick and creamy. It’s like melted chocolate ice cream in a glass.
4. Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles: A great alternative to ground beef, with only 80 calories and 2.5 grams of fat per serving. It can be used in everything from tacos to chili to spaghetti sauce to shepherd’s pie. Carnivores can’t even tell the difference!
5. Silk Vanilla Soy Yogurt: It may not sound all that exciting, but if you throw in some defrosted frozen berries or other fruit, it makes a nutritious and delicious breakfast. The family-size container is more economical than single-serving soy yogurts too (less packaging too).
6. White Wave Sesame Peanut Thai-Style Baked Tofu: Toss it with some linguini, peanut butter satay, broccoli, carrots, onions, and you’ve got a simple Thai-style meal without going to a Thai restaurant.
7. Purely Decadent Turtle Trails Ice Cream: Just about every flavor of Purely Decadent or So Delicious dairy-free ice cream is, well, delicious, but I’m partial to anything with chocolate, pralines, and caramel!
8. Boca Burgers: Need I say more? Just about everybody loves these vegan veggie burgers—even meat-eaters. The chik’n patties are tasty too.
9. Gardenburger Meatless Breakfast Sausage: Another food for both vegans and meat-eaters to enjoy together. These savory soy-based sausages have only 60 calories per patty too.
10. Worthington Chic-ketts: Tastes just like chicken! You can pull apart the “log” of mock chicken and eat it straight, or use it in chicken-free salads, sandwiches, soups, and casseroles.

Hmmm, I guess I should have made it a top 100 list since I can still think of many more great soy-based foods.

Which ones are your favorites?

Last post I touched on how dairy comes from raped, abused and exploited mothers. Now image you are her newborn baby.

Milk is Murder

Having spent your entire life so far inside the warmth of your mother’s womb, the rush of her blood bringing comfort and the movement of her body rocking you to sleep, suddenly, you are thrust out into the strange, cold world. Confused, disoriented, feeling the weight of your own body after having spent your entire life thus far in a liquid suspension – you know your mother’s smell, the sound of her voice. You cry out for her, looking to be soothed by the same one who been their for you all the while.

In nature, as soon as your wet, slippery newborn body hit the ground, your mother would turn around and immediately start kissing and licking your stinky coat, an act that helps stimulate breathing and bring comfort. As you struggled to get steady on your stick-thin legs, she’d be there, her warm breathe brushing your matted coat, ready and waiting with an udder full of warm, nutrient-rich milk. Born with the natural instinct to seek your mother’s teat, the simple act soothes and reassures you: “It’s okay. Mama’s right here. I’m safe”.

This whole natural process is completely interrupted on commercial factory farms. In the Farm Sanctuary video “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”, a newborn calf, steam curling of his freshly born body, is seen being dragged through a mud and feces filled lot immediately after having passed through the birth canal. A careless farm hand drags him by a leg through the filth as his poor mother desperately runs after him, helpless, desperate.

If you are born a male, a dairy “by-product” (not genetically bred to grow grotesquely large and unable to produce milk), this is your fate. No mother to comfort you and no human around who thinks you’re more than just a veal production unit, you are thrown into a dark, wood slate crate – no bedding, no straw. A chain, just shy of a foot long, pinches your neck, securing you into this place that will be your home for the next 6 months until you are trucked off to slaughter, too weak from muscle atrophy to even walk. You are deprived of your mother’s milk and kept stationary so that your flesh stays nice and tender, just what veal connoisseurs are after. Some heartless farm hands take advantage of your desperate need to suckle what ever is put in your mouth – you know no better, you just want your mama.

Even if your tail hadn’t been hacked off for “sanitary” reasons (one less thing to get covered in your chronic, nutrient-deprived diarrhea), you’d never wag it. You have nothing that makes you even remotely happy. Six months of no sun, no grass, no breeze blowing through your fur, no mother, no love, no kisses. Six months of “why, why, why?!” You are living in a hellhole that is worse than the fate that fell upon many at Auschwitz. You are another number, another forgotten victim of our modern day holocaust.

Female calves suffer an ill existence as well. They are forced into the same slavery their mother’s suffer. Endless cycles of rape, being robbed of their child, and having their milk forcibly removed, with no compensation for their lives of servitude.

The one thing mother cows and their babies, be they boy or girl, have in common is their final fate: slaughter. Even on “organic, grass-fed” farms, cows are offered no retirement to a lush green field where they can chew cud till their last breath. No pat on the back or “atta girl”. Mother and child will all, at one point, get shoved into an over crowded cattle car and trucked off to slaughter. Having their life taken away so that a man could profit, they are forced to “sacrifice” their body – their only true belonging – so that Burger King can have a dollar value menu.

This is the face of dairy. This is where the cheese on your veggie pizza came from. This is where the half-n-half in your grande mocha latte came from. This is where the cow’s milk in your cereal came from. Is THIS worth it when there are humane, compassionate vegan alternatives to every dairy product in existence?

Do the right thing. Dump meat. Dump dairy. No mother deserves to be robbed of her child and a life that even remotely resembles a natural existence so that humans can eat what her breasts secrete. No food has or ever will be worth that price.

[image credit: Word1000.com]

May sound counter intuitive coming from a strict, “no, not even honey” vegan but I’m completely serious. Granted, I’d rather lick the soles of Britney Spear’s feet after she’s come traipsing out of a gas station bathroom than gnosh a slab of steak but if I had the choice between meat and dairy, I’d take the meat, all the way. And here’s why.

Male cattle raised for their flesh live a horrific existence, no doubt. Ripped from their mothers at birth with no chance to bond and know love, having their testicles and horns cut off with no pain killers (a method approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association yet, if you did the same thing to a dog, you’d be arrested on animal cruelty charges); living in feces filled feed lots, often times being denied veterinary care for fatal infections that the massive amounts of hormones they are fed can’t ward off. There’s no denying, cattle raised for their flesh live a life I would describe as hell on earth. Think it can’t get worse?

In order for cow mothers to make milk for their babies, they are repeatedly raped again and again by farm hands with a shoulder high latex glove and a vile of bull cum. A little after 9 months of gestation (hmmm, just like humans… but no! We have nothing in common!) and feeling their sweet little babies kick in their bellies, cow mothers push through the natural pains of child birth only to have their babies ripped from them the second they hit the ground. Cow mothers cry and bleat and beg and kick at their confine bars – they love their calves and like any mother, it kills them to have their precious little one stolen away.

How Dare We consume DAIRY

Then cow mothers, whilst recovering from the physical and emotional trauma of having their babies stolen, don’t even get to feel the lips of their little babe suckle their udder. Nope. Shortly after giving birth, there are hooked up to a steal machine that rips and tears their teat – and they get this fabulous little spa treatment six times a day, every day, after they have their first baby. A mama cow’s milk that her body has made for her baby is sucked out of her breast by the same people who raped her, who kidnapped her freshly newborn baby before she even had a chance to turn around to smell them, all so they can sell it for profit.

What does mama cow get as compensation? While we humans are paid for the time we spend making money for the man and we get to go home at the end of each work day, cow mothers are forced to devote their whole lives, their whole existence, to making profit for their rapists, without a day, an hour, a moments rest. They don’t even receive a soft bed of hay, a nice pet behind the ears, a healthy meal free of by-products and hormones. No. These mothers are treated like trash, production units, baby-making machines.

They are forced to live in mud and shit filled lots, sometimes sheds void of any natural lighting. They suffer case after case of mastitis, a breast infection (which results in puss in your milk) – coming from a mother whose has mastitis, it’s like someone punched you square in the tit. It hurts to high hell and along with the breast pain, you’re whole body aches like you have the flu. I only had it one day – dairy cows live with it every day of their lives. And when their tits don’t make enough milk, they don’t even get the luxury of retirement to a happy little field with rolling green hills. When Farmer John is all done raping her, stealing her babies, stealing her milk, he shows his gratitude by shipping her off in a feces encrusted, over-packed trailer to be chopped up into ground chuck.

The life of a dairy cow sounds like a hell on earth that no sick mind could even make up. As a mother, the thought of living a life like that physically makes me ill. But it doesn’t stop there. Next post, let’s take a peak as to where that stolen baby ends up.

In the year 2000, Jackie Chan, Hong Kong’s ambassador for tourism was dismayed and saddened by the well documented torture of millions of Indian cattle, who were killed for meat and leather export. In deep anguish he shot off a letter to the Indian Prime-minister urging him to fight the widespread corruption and illegal practices that permeate the cruel transport and slaughter. The Indian prime minister promised remedial action. But nothing has changed since.

The cows, bullocks and calves are transported from remote places in India in the dead of the night. The animals are racked with pain and filled with fear and often have to endure a long journey without food and water. The collapsing animals are savagely beaten, have chilly and pepper rubbed into the their eyes, their tails are broken and some have their horns broken without the use of anesthesia.

Enshrined in the Indian constitution are the rights for cattle. It prohibits cruelty to cattle but the government simple looks the other way.

The problem of illegal abattoirs:

According to some estimates there are more than 800 illegal slaughter shops in Mumbai, where illegal slaughter goes unchallenged. These shops are concealed in marketplaces and there is no animal welfare regulation, no adequate water supply and poor drainage.

There is no proper animal waste disposal. The waste is simply dumped into the sewer system and putrefaction results and poisonous gases are released. The whole sewer system is a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode one day. In addition the organic waste can breed bacterial and viruses and it can spread infectious diseases. In fact there is no proper waste removal system at the Deonar Abattoir, which is Mumbai’s biggest facility.

At a recent press meeting the members of PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, accused the municipality for turning a blind eye to the burning problem. In the past year, PETA representatives have made several unannounced visits to Deonar, but the shocking inhumane conditions still persist and nothing seems to have changed. The PETA officials repeatedly caught officials lying about animal welfare measures. The slaughtering facilities are in violation of both Indian and Muslim law.

How can we make a change?

The Leather industry In India employs 2.5 million persons. A large part (nearly 60-65%) of the production is in the small/cottage sector. The annual export value poised to touch about 2 billion US dollars. India is endowed with 10% of the world raw material in terms of leather hide and export constitutes about 2% of the world trade. This sector has enormous potential for future growth.

Hidden within the statistics lie the solution to the problem of cruelty to animals. The Indian government must step in and must monitor animal transportation and implement international slaughter norms. The leather industry on its part must wake up because it can be shut down if the major importers clam down on Indian leather products on the grounds of cruelty to animals.

Finally, we can make the biggest difference. We have to be actively compassionate to animals

References and links:

petaindia.com
mcgm.gov.in