Living Without Meat

Positive vegan stories have been increasingly more prevalent in mainstream news lately. There were numerous good responses to ABC’s new cartoon The Goode Family, including one at the forefront of the New York Times’ television section titled “A Clan So Virtuous Even Its Dog Is Vegan.”

In June alone, all of these and more have popped up as newsworthy articles with “vegan” as a keyword:

* Meat: The Slavery Of Our Time on NPR.com
” I have a prediction: Sooner than you might think, this will be a vegetarian world. Future generations will find the idea of eating meat both morally absurd and logistically impossible. …”

* Goodbye to meat: Switch gradually to become a vegetarian. More fruit, healthy protein likely to improve quality of life in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“As gardens get greener, farmers markets overflow with produce and our cravings for light, summer foods intensify, there’s that temptation to do the unthinkable: turn that dinner salad into a meal, then a habit. Go all the way —- go vegetarian. …”

* Vegetarianism has become mainstream: Is vegan next? in the Sonoma Valley Sun
“Vegans have to endure the resistance that used to greet someone’s announcement that, “I refuse to eat anything with a face.” Vegetarians once seemed a rather fussy lot, as if chicken stock were the equivalent of hemlock – that is, they did until vegans came along, with their laundry list of taboo foodstuffs. …”

Seen veganism in the news online or in print recently? Share it here - leave a comment!

Stop what you’re doing! Turn on the TV and be sure not to miss PETA’s Senior Vice President Dan Mathews on the Today Show this morning, Wednesday, May 20, between 7:30 and 8 a.m. Eastern time.

According to PETA, “Dan will be talking about PETA’s position on elephants and Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus, Ringling’s breeding facility (the “Center for Elephant Conservation”), and the current lawsuit against the circus for alleged abuse of its elephants.”

If you miss it, I’m sure that it will be available online later in the day, just as vegan author Kathy Freston’s recent Extra appearance already is: click here to watch it.

On this episode of Extra Freston, author of the Quantum Wellness Cleanse that was featured on Ellen almost exactly one year ago, interviewed Dr. T. Colin Campbell and his son, Thomas M. Campbell, co-authors of The China Study, about the benefits of a plant-based diet and the many myths surrounding meat and dairy.

Thanks for all the vegan coverage, news media!

Whether or not you’ve been following W magazine’s attempts to include vegan fashion, and regardless of whether or not fashion interests you, the new issue of W is sure to excite you!

In the beginning of April, W published their first ever article with an animal slant when their online version featured “The Best Vegan-friendly Accessories.” A couple weeks later, editor Dana Wood wrote “Trials of a Fashion-Loving Vegan!”

Now, their vegan love is bigger and better … and printed on the front cover!

HBO’s Big Love star Ginnifer Goodwin is W magazine’s June cover model. And she’s a vegan. The accompanying blog post from the editor, “She’s just not that into meat: Ginnifer Goodwin on going vegan,” went live today. Read what made the He’s Just Not Than Into You star start thinking about what she was eating.

Don’t forget to check out Dog Whisperer’s puppy mills expose episode tonight at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel!

I have never watched, or even had the desire to watch, Cesar Millan’s TV show Dog Whisperer … until now!

On the May 8 episode at 9 p.m. on the National Geographic Channel, Millan and the Nat Geo crew will go into a puppy mill!

Dog Whisperer: Puppy Mills Exposed is going to be huge! I just watched a preview of the episode on The Insider (click here to watch it) and it is not going to be a puff piece. They are showing dogs getting beat in the head, living in disgusting conditions, sick and dying, with visible diseases and ailments, going blind, suffering in pain … and they are going to attempt to rescue them!

This is surely a do not miss show! If you can’t wait until May 8 to see the great things Millan is doing, check out the episode’s pictures, videos, and recaps at Nat Geo online.

The Grey’s Anatomy episode about animal testing, “Life During Wartime,” is re-airing on Lifetime right now!

Find a brief review and recap with quotes and pictures at TV.com. BuddyTV.com has an elaborate, four-page recap.

Still haven’t seen the highly talked about episode? Check it out in its entirety at Cucirca.com.

Groundbreaking movement in the fashion world this week! For the first time ever W Magazine wrote an article with an animal-friendly slant.

Senior Fashion Features Editor Dana Wood put together a cruelty-free collection of “The Best Vegan-friendly Accessories” for the online exclusive article. The list of 13 items features bags, shoes, makeup brushes, and more by top designers including Vivienne Westwood, Matt & Nat, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, and others.

“It’s not easy to be a fashion-conscious vegan when every bag, belt and shoe seems to involve calfskin, suede or python,” writes Wood, who is personally passionate about good veg fashion.

The only problem? The cashmere dress by Stella McCartney is not vegan. Cashmere is a light-weight wool from the kashmir goat. Many people don’t know this, and many also falsely believe that Stella is a vegan designer - even though she regularly uses wool and silk - so I’ll let this one slide. But if the vegan feature becomes a regular occurrence, which I really hope it does, a little more fact checking will be needed.

All things considered, this article is very exciting to me as a stylish vegan. Thanks, W!

Cross posted at Style Fix.

Do you follow “vegan” mentions in the news? Well I do! Here are some recent headlines from around the globe and the Internet that were veg-related:

* Hot off the press, the March 23 issue of Newsweek features a health article by David Noonan titled “I Can’t Believe I’m Still a Vegan: Feeling Healthier as a Vegan.”

* The New York Daily News published “He hogties abuse on HBO documentary ‘Death on a Factory Farm’” on Friday, March 13.

* The New York Times printed a letter to the editor on March 10 called “A Vegan Plea.”

* Health News Digest asked ”
Can Domestic Cats Live On a Non-meat Diet?” on February 28.

* The Vancouver Sun had “Second Thoughts on Veganism and Pregnancy” on March 14, after asking on March 11 “Is Eating Vegan While Pregnant as Bad as Smoking, Drinking?”

HBO Documentaries attempts to show viewers the “hidden corners of society,” about the topics that most of us choose to pretend don’t exist. The current featured documentary film is Death on a Factory Farm where Tom Simon, the seven-time Emmy winner filmmaker of the previous HBO doc Dealing Dogs, takes his crew undercover, investigating the truths of animal cruelty at a hog farm in Ohio.

The 87-minute long film premieres on HBO on Monday, March 16 at 10 p.m. For the rest of the month it will air almost daily, sometimes up to four times per day. It is rated mature for adult language, adult content, and mild violence. In other words, crude people are caught abusing innocent animals, which we all know can be upsetting to watch.

Check out Death on a Factory Farm’s homepage at HBO’s site for a detailed scheduled, full synopsis, and brief preview.

This came to my e-mail inbox this morning as part of a much larger collection of cute animal pictures with “may you …” blessings and well wishes:

May you find the perfect diet for your body and your soul.

(If this face doesn’t make you want to stop eating bacon, nothing will.)

I love each and every mention to avoiding meat in one’s diet that I see, but this one is extra cute! Look into this piglet’s eyes and tell him that you choose to eat pork products even though you know it causes pigs disgusting, inhumane pain and suffering. Or, if you don’t eat meat, look at him and smile. Remember that this is the impact of your diet. By abstaining from food that’s not really healthy for you anyways, you are making it a better world for animals.

Spoken by a younger Edward Bloom, played by Ewan McGregor, in the movie version of Big Fish:

“It was that night I discovered that most things you consider evil or wicked are simply lonely, and lacking in social niceties.”

This statement has so many possible applications to real life: People who torture animals. Animals, such as wolves, that are considered mean by many people.

But perhaps we could also expand on the “lonely” and “lacking” aspects of this quote. Many misunderstood animals or people are simply following a routine, they are doing what they know how to do. For animals, this is their nature and it is neither our right nor place to qualify one’s actions as bad, and another’s as good. The fact that a lion eats antelopes does not make him mean, just as the fact that a bunny eats vegetables does not make him nice. (See where I’m going with this?) Meat eaters are not inherently mean; vegans are not automatically nice.

Likewise, people who kill animals at a slaughter house are just doing what they know as a way to feed their family. Granted, some of them get swept up in the moment and take it to an unnecessarily cruel level, but I generally believe that most people do not want to kill animals, regardless of their moral standing on eating meat.

We don’t have to understand or agree with anyone’s choices and actions, but it does make for a much more peaceful existence if you try to see where they are coming from and why they do what they do.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” (Plato)

I am embarrassed to confess that I just watched some of E!’s 101 Celebrity Slimdowns, but I have to admit that in order to share some of the awesome things that the comedians and fitness pros said.

At least two people included on the list - Alicia Silverstone and Tobey Maguire - had veganism connected to their weight change (I am proud to say that I did not watch all 101 weighty stories). Alicia went from average girl skinny to celebrity woman skinny when she became vegan. On the flip side of the scale, Tobey’s story was about how he muscled up for his role as Spider-Man.

It’s more accepted by the general public (read: non-veg folks) that vegans are skinny than that vegans can be ripped. So I was certainly pleased when the commentators response was fairly positive.

Two male comedians commented went for the easy target, tofu, but did so in a very animal rights-ish way: Tofu is nasty. I mean, not as nasty as killing, plucking, cooking, and eating an animal, but it’s pretty nasty (quote paraphrased from memory).

Aussie speaker, trainer, and nutritionist Susan Powter pointed out that it is harder, but not impossible to gain muscle mass on a purely plant-based diet: People think you can’t bulk up and can’t get protein from a vegan diet, but they’re wrong (again, paraphrased from instant recall).

If you still don’t believe that you can lose fat and gain muscle on a strict vegan diet, check out these pages:

* VeganFitness.net
* Vegan Bodybuilding blog and Vegan Bodybuilding Web site
* The Vegan Fitness Team

As of yesterday, February 23, U.S. MTV viewers will be shown two vegetarian ads produced and paid for by Compassion Over Killing (COK).

Erica Meier of COK excitedly announced the new ad campaign, saying that “viewers around the country will see, perhaps for their first time, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the cruel world of factory farming - and they’ll be further directed to visit our website TryVeg.com for more information.”

The 30-second TV ads, “Exploring Your Food” and “A Side of Truth,” will run for the next five weeks. Watch them, and COK’s five other pro-veg ads, online by clicking here. COK began their ad campaign in 2004, and have since done test runs on MTV of select ads in target cities. At just pennies per viewing, the ads have “proven to be a strategic and cost-effective way to expose the hidden horrors on factory farms and encourage people to explore compassionate eating habits.”

COK is hot right now in the animal rights movement! Earlier this month, COK teamed up with Mercy for Animals and the Animal Protection and Rescue League to launch a campaign urging BOCA to stop using eggs in their veggie burgers and other products. Check out this campaign at BOCAEggFacts.com. Before targeting BOCA, COK had success urging Morning Star Farms to use less eggs, thus making more of their products vegan not just vegetarian.

COK is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that makes a nationwide impact with their efforts. Learn about all of their current and recent campaigns at COK.net.

My first letter to the editor was published this week in the Middle Tennessee State University student newspaper, Sidelines. Here’s the published version of what I wrote in response to their article about a MTSU student group, Solidarity, protesting the ARAMARK cafeteria:

ARAMARK’s cruelty

“It’s great to read about the empowering actions of the student group Solidarity. The Humane League has also been protesting ARAMARK.

Despite other options, ARAMARK knowingly chooses to use eggs from caged hens. Cages for egg-laying chickens are a cruel method of confinement that prevents hens from ever leading a natural life.

With battery cages, each hen has less space than a standard sheet of paper. Birds spend their lives without ever seeing the sun or feeling solid ground beneath their feet, and have their feathers torn off from constantly rubbing against cage bars.

ARAMARK’s competitors, like Compass Group, already made the socially responsible decision to switch to cage-free eggs. More than 350 colleges and universities have also switched to cage-free eggs.

Eggs from chickens contained in battery cages are a cruel practice that has no place in today’s sustainable market. ARAMARK should go cage-free.

Thanks, Sidelines, for letting me share! If you want more info about ARAMARK and cage-free eggs, check out the ARAMARK Go Cage Free campaign site.”

Hopefully this is my first of many published letters. Consider writing your own letters to editors. It doesn’t have to be a local paper, and student papers are more likely to print what you send them. Follow the guidelines for length, and make your point tie back to a previously published article. Then let me know if you get published!

There has been a lot of chatter in the news about vegetarianism in schools. Here’s a few recent highlights; click on a title to read the article.

* “PETA Urges Obama to Give Kids Vegetarian School Lunches,” U.S. News and World Report

* “Some school cafeterias offer more meatless meals,” Morning Sentinel, Maine

* “Maine Schools Expand Meatless Options,” Bangor Daily News, Maine

* “Free Money for College Students,” Washington Post

* “Vegan Students Start Grass Roots Campaign,” Daily Illini, Illinois

* “Public School Offers Fees Discount for Vegetarian Students,” Telegraph, U.K.

* “Scholar Wanted: Only Vegetarians Need Apply,” Independent, U.K.

* “Schools Offer Vegetarian Fee Cut,” BBC News, U.K.

* “U.S. to Boost Healthy Lunch in Schools,” Green Planet, Italy

* “The School Lunch Revolution,” Health News, California