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Becoming a full vegan is one of the most rewarding, empowering and compassionate statements a person can make. It is a decision that benefits mankind, the earth and all of it's inhabitants. Yet most raw foodists are NOT vegans. They at most only embrace a vegan diet. This just goes to show how much more education is needed in the field of living foods.
It is important to be as clear as possible about the following two points:
1. If you already are eating a vegan diet, it is very important for the Earth, the Animals, and your legacy (i.e. grandchildren, friend's children, etc.) that you extend your budding veganism to a fully vegan lifestyle.
2. As disease-causing as animal products are, THE #1 REASON TO GO VEGAN IS A MATTER OF ETHICS AND NOT HEALTH.
What Is A Vegan? A vegan not only follows a diet devoid of ALL animal products, as most raw foodists do, but who also embraces a cruelty-free lifestyle. The simple, humane philosophy behind veganism is not extremism, but the following understanding:
ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO EAT
Vegans do not eat any animal products.
ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO USE FOR ENTERTAINMENT
Vegans do not attend circuses that involve animals or frequent zoos, etc.
ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO USE FOR EXPERIMENTATION
Vegans do not purchase personal care products or medications that were experimented on animals. This practice is also known as vivisection.
ANIMALS ARE NOT OURS TO WEAR
Vegans do not support the leather, fur, silk or wool industries, or any other industry that utilizes animal hides or fur.
Simply put, being a Vegan is the greatest individual decision that a person can make to make the most positive and profound impact on the world today and in the areas where it needs it most.
VEGAN = ETHICAL
When You Reflect On African-American Slavery, Are You Against It?
Most of us have a hard time even fathoming a time period when the African American citizens of our country were treated as and looked upon as slaves. As human cargo. As products. Even upon the end of over 400 years of slavery, southern neighborhoods would gather to watch the hellacious lynching of African Americans, who were often dismembered, tortured, and murdered by mobs of enthusiastic white professional Christians and their adorable children. In mainstream society, these practices were widely-accepted, and those who believed it immoral or improper were deemed outsiders, unpopular and strange. After all, it was widely "known" that African Americans were 'beasts' that could not feel. Everybody "knew" this during these times.
Just as we now know better about African Americans, very few people would agree that dogs, cats and other animals have no feelings and no intelligence. Animals have very distinct personalities, communicate through body language and sound, demonstrate their ability to communicate with and care for each other, and have proven themselves to be emotional beings capable of responding to the emotions of others and displaying affection, anger, love, pain, depression, fear, playfulness, guilt and more. Animal-owners love to tell stories about their beloved "pets", etc, and would go off the deep end if they thought off somebody torturing their pet dog or cat in any way.
And yet, although many bristle at the idea of African American slavery, lynching or the notion that their beloved pet is devoid of emotion or the ability to feel, every day the majority of Americans fully support the same gruesome institution of slavery----just in this case in the wrongful name of "food" and not the economy----and support the same ludicrous belief that pigs and cows cannot feel having their legs cut off, being boiled alive, or being skinned alive. In truth, pigs reach the intelligence of six-year old humans, and can be trained to play crude video games. Cows have demonstrated problem-solving capabilities as well as great emotional intelligence, and chickens have scored as well as monkeys on intelligence tests. Although we all know IQ is not the only factor that should inhibit us from torturing another peaceable, sentient animal.
African American slavery and animal slavery are identical in nature when you consider that both involve the auctioning of live bodies, hideous means of transport (slave ships, truckloads of cattle with no food, no water, no temperature control, overcrowded, etc), the tearing of young offspring from their mothers, torturous punishments, muzzling, the vicious practice of "breaking" animals or "uppity slaves", vivisection (African Americans were often experimented on in the name of science), forced breeding, major prejudices against the mental capacities of the slaves in question, and more dreaded comparisons. African American slavery was also considered "necessary" for the good of the nation, the economy that relied upon it, and more. They were preserving the moral fabric of the nation. Just as the U.S. Dairy Council is looking out for your children by ensuring they all drink milk, etc. These slaveries and heinous crimes are institutionalized and made into widely-accepted as rights, not wrongs.
The term "dreaded" is used because nobody wants to look back at African American slavery or lynching as a supporter of such ignorance and darkness. But the truth remains that in those days it was popular, mainstream society that was behind all of the horror, not unlike today. The ugly truth is, if one eats meat, drinks dairy, wears leather, attends circuses or buys Proctor & Gamble products (to name just one), they are giving violent oppression, slavery, and torture a big stamp of approval.
Many have no doubt that a future society will look back upon our society of animal-eaters with the same embarrassment and disgust that we now look upon slavery. But until then it is up to a growing number of "unpopular" abolitionists----otherwise known as vegans----who will continue to try to spread the word about this socially-urgent and horrific topic.
Please pick up a copy of The Dreaded Comparison by Marjorie Spiegel to learn more about what you can do to discontinue supporting slavery.
ANIMAL-BASED DIETS ARE RUINING THE EARTH
The following information was put together by activist & researcher Kim McCoy:
Animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population----86,600 lbs per second! This usually leaches into streams and contaminates groundwater. In fact, nearly 90% of all U.S. farms drain into just one body of water----the Mississippi River .
Animal waste lagoons on livestock farms release large amounts of toxic fumes such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and methane----greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming----into the atmosphere.
Nearly 90% of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food. Twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a vegan.
For every quarter-pound burger made of rainforest beef, 55 square feet of land are consumed.
Livestock grazing is the #1 threat to our rainforests----our largest oxygen supply.
Nearly 50% of all water consumed in the U.S. is used for livestock. The production of one pound of California beef requires a total of 2464 gallons of water. You would save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for 6 months.
U.S. livestock production uses more than 30% of the country’s raw materials and fossil fuels. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fossil fuels to drive a small car 20 miles, not to mention enough water for 17 showers.
Fish and shrimp farms destroy habitats and contaminate water with heavy use of antibiotics, causing coastal pollution, displacement of local people from their land, and the clearing of large tracts of coastal forests. It also uses the land that is traditionally used for growing rice, the primary staple for most of the world’s people.
Just like their land-dwelling counterparts, fish and shrimp are highly inefficient converters of protein. Factory trawlers use long lines with thousands of hooks and huge nets, spanning up to 80 miles. These lines wreak havoc, destroying the ocean floor and drowning everything in their path, including seabirds, seals, dolphins, sea turtles, and countless other species.
It takes 5 lbs of wild ocean fish to feed and produce a single pound of farmed saltwater fish or shrimp, so avoiding wild- or ocean-caught fish will not solve the environmental devastation.
Open waste lagoons on factory farms store urine and liquefied manure, home to more than 150 pathogens (disease causing organisms) such as Salmonella, E. coli, and more. These pathogens are 10 - 100 times more concentrated than in human waste and pose a serious threat to human health.
Livestock are simply not efficient converters of protein---it takes 17lbs of grain to produce 1 lb of beef. As the meat industry devotes more and more grain to feeding livestock, valuable food resources are diverted from the hungry. If Americans were to reduce their beef consumption by only 5% it would free up the 12 million tons of grain needed to adequately feed every single person on the planet who dies from hunger or hunger-related diseases annually.
PLEASE Don’t Ignore The Suffering Of Animals Because It’s “Hard To Watch”
It's odd to me that people have such contempt of the term "animal rights", but I understand that that exists in all social movements. After all, the south had disdain for the term "civil rights" and so forth. It's just kind of comes with the territory of turning on the lights before everybody wants to wake up, I gather. I understand that the thoughts and images are not very pretty at times, but neither were images and descriptions that were coming out of Germany during the Holocaust. Is that to say we should have just ignored it? Nothing can improve until we at least acknowledge the problem. The ONLY reason the unbearable suffering of animals continues is because people refuse to acknowledge it and act on what they’ve seen. Are YOU one of those people?
If I had a dollar for every non-vegan who told me they "know" what goes on, but they "can't bear to watch the images" or read about it because it traumatizes them so much, I'd be rich. Nobody likes the images. But these same people are paying others to commit the very atrocities they cannot even acknowledge. That is the only difference between a vegan and non-vegan: Vegans walk it like they talk it when it comes to loving animals. I don't know a single person who would boil an animal alive or cut the legs off a struggling animal, but most will roll their eyes if you mention that these standard practices are what went into their hamburger. To me, this doesn't make much sense and I am glad that I am someone who has chosen not to shy away from the truth behind these atrocities.
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