12,000 More Burned Babies - Factory Farm Fire

I guess in my own way I'm keeping vigil on the warehoused animals that have been burned alive... In this post I regretfully add 12,000 baby chicks who perished in a Georgia "poultry" operation.  The cost of rebuilding will be  around $100,000.  The cost of the replacement lives is 92 cents each.  

And the cost of these lives gets even cheaper in the "bargain" sections of the "Barbeque Specials" and "Meat-N-Egg Combos"... Sounds like a restaurant menu even before the birds are charred...

Now I wonder... Would any kind person allow with their money - To have a baby chick burned alive?  

No! Of course not!  I only wish that they'd make the connection that every time they support these industries... That's exactly what is done - And worse!

Please don't burn innocent beings alive.  Please spend your money with wisdom and compassion.
Live Vegan.

Gross and Disgusting? Taco Bell Uses Vegan Meat as Food!

Okay so today I watched a news story where the anchorwoman turned up her nose, made the "icky face", and said "Ewww!  Just listen to what Taco Bell is putting in their tacos"!  Well, I expected to hear some really gross stuff.  Story however is that Taco Bell is being sued for adding "meat extenders".  Meat extenders, according to their site consisting of: Isolated Oats, Wheat, Soy Lecithin & Soybean Oil, Yeast, along with sugars and spices.  Now, I'm wondering... What was the "OMG! I'm gonna barf!" statement all about???

Hum... What these ingredients are is basically Textured Vegetable Protein - TVP is just made of plants!  Legumes and grain!  What on earth makes this food so unappetizing compared to what's in the "beef" products that are consumed at Taco Bell and other places?

Textured Vegetable Protein

Really??? Oats, Wheat and Soy are "disgusting"- But consuming blood, tendons, veins, muscle, bone, gristle, growths, abscesses,  tumors, scar tissue, fat, (possible *ooops*!) evisceration contents... Eating necks, joints, legs, behinds (and anus parts), tongues, snouts, testicles, livers, lungs,... brains...  Ummm - That's not disgusiting???  I apologize, I digressed to the (awful) "offal".

Even if the "natural" flesh, blood and guts don't turn a stomach, the plethora of allowable  drugs, pharmaceuticals, wormers, pesticides and insecticides should.  Oh, and don't be deceived that these chemicals are being properly monitored.  Just yesterday The New York Times reported that the FDA is suing the dairy industry for inadequate testings and excessive drug residues in slaughterhouse calves and moms...

"The agency said that it planned to test milk from about 900 dairy farms that had repeatedly been caught sending cows to slaughter with illegal levels of drugs in their systems.

It said it would test for about two dozen antibiotics beyond the six that are typically tested for. The testing would also look for a painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug popular on dairy farms, called flunixin, which often shows up in the slaughterhouse testing".

Now... If this anchorwoman (or anyone else) is still not convinced that oats, soy and wheat aren't that "yucky" after all - This 34 page listing of FSIS approved chemicals in meat processing should alarm anyone.  From ammonium hydroxide to xanthan gum, there are moisturizers, stabilizers, preservatives, coloring agents, gasses, antimicrobials, dyes and bleaches... Maybe a little dioxin too, but whose counting?


There's Sodium hydroxide to minimize fecal material from adhering to carcasses - Oh yummy!
There's Chlorine gas for reprocessing contaminated poultry carcasses... I don't even wanna know!
There's  Alkyl polyglycosides to wash beef after the hide has been ripped off, to remove any extraneous hair, dirt, etc.) during butchering... Sure, just like pressure washing your driveway!


So, Ms. Anchorwoman... And anyone else who finds oats, wheat and soy repulsive:

There's Sodium tripolyphosphate a sequestrant/anticoagulant for use in recovered livestock blood which is subsequently used in food products.  And Polyglycerol ester added to fresh livestock blood during collection to eliminate foaming...

Now, a word to Taco Bell... If you could replace all the "beef" with 100% "TVP", I know for sure this one vegan would be delighted to return as a customer!

And the funniest thing of all is this - The cattle folks are worried this incident may shed a bad light on them... That people may distrust their industry all the more.  But might they have a valid fear that lots of unknowing (Taco Bell), TVP eating folks find this food very acceptable after all!?! 

Fake Taco Bell Meat Is Reason to Celebrate!

Photos from MEAT PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

I Can't Believe It's Not Meat!

Match Meats

Meet Field Roast Grain Meat:Vegan “Meat” That Could Fool You

Invisible Birds - Forgotten Killing - I Only Eat a Little Chicken

"I only eat a little chicken."  I hear that a lot from those who still consume animals.  I think most of the time, their references are to their health... But it really is true - They do eat a little chicken. And even though today's modern "broiler" breeds are significantly larger than nature ever intended a chicken to be... They weigh a fraction of what a heron or sand crane would.  Yet the thought of killing or eating a snowy egret, swan or flamingo is repulsive to most. How bizarre to place a certain breed beneath the respect of other (prettier) birds.

I thought about that a lot when I read this article Conspiracies Don't Kill Birds.  People, However, Do.  The author laments the 5,000 blackbirds that died a mysterious death.  There is despair over habitat loss, pesticides, the hunting done by feral cats, death by vehicles, window glass, power lines, pollution, poisons, etc.  "That means that on average, 13.7 million birds die in this country every day."


But sadly lacking in this figure are the 9 to 10 billion birds callously classified as "poultry."  And by naming these birds as such they disappear from our sphere of consideration.  When people eat "breasts", or "legs" or "wings", the living being is forgotten as is the en mass brutalization of them.  More than 250 of them every second!


Each valued their lives.  All wanted to live.  None of these deaths are in any way "necessary" to human survival.   No thoughtful person would say they only ate "a little" cardinal, or sparrow, or robin... So I suggest a close examination as to why they think it's okay to eat only "a little chicken."  I did.  And I believe I am a more consistent and kind person for it...  

The Choice is in Your Hands

Please choose compassion.  

World Problems - Vegan Solutions

As if this story isn't chilling enough:

This comment from from ezeflyer, brings it all to a deeper understanding.  

"641 Brazilians, 230,000 Haitians, 108,492 Iraqis, 1,384 Afghans, 1,100 Pakistanis, 3,650 Palestinians, 1,142 Israelis, 2,750 Americans on 9/11, 4,435 American troops, 40% of all deaths worldwide from pollution, etc., all casualties of overpopulation, resource depletion and extreme wealth and power concentration."

Meanwhile Cargill 2nd quarter earnings nearly triple.  Ivory Coast post election Violence Rises. As do the waters from the historical El Nina driven floods in Australia.
  
In the U.S. wheat prices are up 50%, corn 70% and sugar has doubled... There are newly erupting food riots in pockets around the world as we speak...  American unemployment hasn't been this high in over 50 years.  Nor has homelessness.
  
It's easier to face possible disasters if you're vegan.  Plan and plant a garden.  Invest in bulk food items such as beans, rice, lentils, nuts/seeds, oats/grains and dried textured vegetable proteins.  In crisis situations these foods could  make all the difference in the world.  In the now... These food choices make all the difference in the world to these guys.

Not only might you protect your own future but you'll make a better world... Go Vegan!

In the Crosshairs of Gun Violence & Slaughter of the Innocent

Is it really that hard

to make

the connection?

There is a sacred spark in all life...

“We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop killing animals for food. The lust for blood has permeated the race thought and the destruction of life will continue to repeat its psychology, the world round, until men willingly observe the law in all phases of life, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”
Charles Fillmore, “The Vegetarian,” May 1920


The human cycle of violence will not stop until we stop the underlying violence, the remorseless violence we commit against animals for food.  The lesson is plain: when we harden ourselves to the suffering we inflict on animals in our own interest, and justify it by proclaiming our superiority or specialness, it is but a short and unavoidable step to justifying and inflicting the same kind of suffering on other humans in our own interest while likewise proclaiming our supremacy or specialness. 
Will Tuttle
Author of The World Peace Diet

There will never be any peace in the world as long as we eat animals. 
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Nobel Prize Winner in Literature 1978

To advocate the rights of animals is far more than a plead for compassion or justice towards the victims of ill usage; but for the sake of mankind itself, our true civilization, our race-progress, our humanity.
Henry Salt
Artist, traveller, diplomat, and Egyptologist 1780–1827

As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.  Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
Pythagoras
Greek philosopher 570 - 490 BCE


Please for the sake of our own species... For the want of a nonviolent world - Go Vegan

Meat - No Justification for Cages or Killing

Short and sweet - A state veterinarian did a follow up inspection at the Smithfield facility accused of animal mistreatment:

"Pigs are highly intelligent, curious animals, and there's no justification to so severely restrict their movement."

There is also no justification to kill them.  None.

Animal Ag - The Reckless Gamble Just to Eat Meat

A few headlines about some foolhardy "food" mishaps that have surfaced in just the last few days...
In Europe thousands of tons of contaminated feed  was sold with 77 times the accepted safe limit of dioxins for humans.
Said to have been sent to pig and chicken farms in Germany which prompted the government to close 4,700 farms across the country.
If you're curious what hazards there are to ingesting dioxins here's the low-down... By the way, 80% of time this carcinogen is introduced into the human body through meat, eggs, milk and farmed fish.  In other words: animal products.

And since late December Avian Flu has been found in South Korean wild ducks, cranes and other migratory birds as well as chickens.  Although not a huge threat to human health, as only 263 deaths in 7 years have been linked to H5N1, it certainly cost the early killing of hundreds of thousands of birds thus far.  Easy come, easy go I guess...


And this in Korea: More than a million animals were culled in due to a FMD outbreak
1.1 million pigs have been buried alive and about that many cows have been destroyed in an effort to control foot-and-mouth disease. 


So... If you know anything about animal ag... about "livestock"... and "commodities", you know that the lives lost are of little significance... All these stories have more importance in the realm of "bottom line".  What monies are to be made (or lost) on whose pound of flesh.  And clearly the top winner today has to be in Tokyo with the killing of the (nearly extinct) $39,000 blue fin tuna.  


In truth, when I ate meat I never really thought about these things.  About disease, or "wasteful deaths", or species genocide, or factory farms or any of it.  I just did my part as a consumer in blind servitude to the status quo.  But once I looked the only justification I had was that it was "necessary".  Still, looking further, even that proved to be a big, fat lie.    

So please, if you're still eating animals... If you've been able to ignore questioning why you do - Perhaps now is a good time to  look at what this meat-culture creates.  How reckless it is to human health.  How barbaric it's treatment to innocent lives is.  What are you waiting for?  There's never been a better time to Go Vegan.

2011 Happy New Vegan! Time for Compassion and Peace

We humans have such a luxury of time!  We can calculate how many minutes to bake a cake... Or know how many decades our life expectancy should be.  We have science to mark our ancient past and nano seconds that speed into the future.  And we celebrate time in some significant way every 365 days - Champagne and confetti bring in the Happy New Year!

But I was wondering in all that we can measure in space organized by our rules - Can we ever know the final moments in the life of an Other?  The cow...  The pig...  The deer, horse, bird, whale, dog, mouse, man, frog, fish or feline?  

No, we can't know - We can only imagine what that last bit of time must be like.  Life clings even when "Hope" says to give in.  We can't comprehend how life struggles for one more breath... For one more second...  How it desperately wants to hold on to it's time... To it's beingness... To it's life.

So who among us dares to cut short the time of an Other?  And by what right?


In 2011 it is long overdue time to have the Peace we so desperately need?  Choosing compassion is a great first effort towards that goal... Please Go Vegan.