11.24.2011
Cake Duchess Maple Pumpkin Pie for the win!
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| Cake Duchess Vegan Maple Pumpkin Pie |
Link; http://www.cakeduchess.com/2011/11/vegan-maple-pumpkin-pie.html?spref=fb
More Turkeys, Animal Emotions
Do animals think and feel?
The Thanksgiving Day Massacre: A House of Horrors
Why give thanks by slaughtering sentient beings?
I know many of you have heard this questions over and over again, "Why kill turkeys to celebrate thanksgiving?" They say repetition is boring conversation but I feel it's essential to ask this question repeatedly, because there really is no reason at all to slaughter sentient beings in the name of a holiday, and turkeys surely are sentient beings (see also). Dr, Ian Duncan, a world renowned expert on the behavior of food animals notes, based on detailed scientific research, "It is indisputable that poultry are capable of feeling pain. All poultry species are sentient vertebrates and all the available evidence shows that they have a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. Poultry can suffer by feeling pain, fear and stress." More information about the lives of turkeys can be found here. Turkeys are also very smart and have distinct personalities. People used to write off fish as being unfeeling "lower" animals but we now know, also based on solid scientific research, that they are sentient and feel pain (see also). The more we study other animals the more we learn about how complex their lives are, even for animals previously thought to be unfeeling creatures.
Holidays should be times for deep reflection. Ponder these facts. More than 45 million turkeys are killed every thanksgiving. More than 300 million are killed annually. Before they are mercilessly slaughtered they are kept in the most inhumane conditions, on the floors of dark, filthy sheds, a house of horors, where they walk through their own excrement, breathe ammonia-filled air, and are cramped together so tightly they can't move or get away from one another. As a result there are numerous fights among normally peaceful individuals and they suffer from massive injuries and a variety of diseases. When one eats a turkey carcass they are eating a genetically engineered animal and also consuming pain and misery. To keep turkeys from injuring one another their toes and beaks are cut off with hot blades with no anesthetic or analgesic, and when their throat is slit many are still conscious. We knowchickens feel empathy and there is every reason to believe that turkeys do too. I know no one would put treat their dog like turkeys are treated from birth to their heinous road to death.
There are numerous tasty non-animal alternatives and even if you don't think they're as yummy as a dead bird is it really asking too much to give up something that isn't a necesssary part of your diet? I don't think so. In order to make changes in the way we live, including who, not what, we eat, we occasionally need to leave our comfort zones. By not turning a blind eye to the incredible suffering that turkeys experience and choosing to forgo eating them, you can add more compassion to the world. You can even adopt a turkey. I urge everyone to try to make this simple change right now, for this coming holiday. I can't imagine you wouldn't feel better about yourself. Thank you for trying.
I just arrived in Vancouver and on the plane ride up here I was talking with the guy next to me and it came to me that many people who don't normally think about other animals rightfully got incredibly upset about the recent bloodbath in Zanesville, Ohio but most seem totally unconcerned with this bloodbath and the massacre of other factory farmed and other food animals that involves hundreds of millions of more sentient beings.
Holidays should be times for deep reflection. Ponder these facts. More than 45 million turkeys are killed every thanksgiving. More than 300 million are killed annually. Before they are mercilessly slaughtered they are kept in the most inhumane conditions, on the floors of dark, filthy sheds, a house of horors, where they walk through their own excrement, breathe ammonia-filled air, and are cramped together so tightly they can't move or get away from one another. As a result there are numerous fights among normally peaceful individuals and they suffer from massive injuries and a variety of diseases. When one eats a turkey carcass they are eating a genetically engineered animal and also consuming pain and misery. To keep turkeys from injuring one another their toes and beaks are cut off with hot blades with no anesthetic or analgesic, and when their throat is slit many are still conscious. We knowchickens feel empathy and there is every reason to believe that turkeys do too. I know no one would put treat their dog like turkeys are treated from birth to their heinous road to death.
A typical battery cage
There are numerous tasty non-animal alternatives and even if you don't think they're as yummy as a dead bird is it really asking too much to give up something that isn't a necesssary part of your diet? I don't think so. In order to make changes in the way we live, including who, not what, we eat, we occasionally need to leave our comfort zones. By not turning a blind eye to the incredible suffering that turkeys experience and choosing to forgo eating them, you can add more compassion to the world. You can even adopt a turkey. I urge everyone to try to make this simple change right now, for this coming holiday. I can't imagine you wouldn't feel better about yourself. Thank you for trying.
I just arrived in Vancouver and on the plane ride up here I was talking with the guy next to me and it came to me that many people who don't normally think about other animals rightfully got incredibly upset about the recent bloodbath in Zanesville, Ohio but most seem totally unconcerned with this bloodbath and the massacre of other factory farmed and other food animals that involves hundreds of millions of more sentient beings.
11.23.2011
Turkeys!!
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/my-life-as-a-turkey/introduction/7268/
“Had I known what was in store—the difficult nature of the study and the time I was about to invest—I would have been hard pressed to justify such an intense involvement. But, fortunately, I naively allowed myself to blunder into a two-year commitment that was at once exhausting, often overwhelming, enlightening, and one of the most inspiring and satisfying experiences of my life.”–Joe Hutto, Illumination in the Flatwoods
After a local farmer left a bowl of eggs on Joe Hutto’s front porch, his life was forever changed. Hutto, possessing a broad background in the natural sciences and an interest in imprinting young animals, incubated the eggs and waited for them to hatch. As the chicks emerged from their shells, they locked eyes with an unusual but dedicated mother.
Deep in the wilds of Florida’s Flatlands, Hutto spent each day living as a turkey mother, taking on the full-time job of raising sixteen turkey chicks. Hutto dutifully cared for his family around the clock, roosting with them, taking them foraging, and immersing himself in their world. In the process, they revealed their charming curiosity and surprising intellect. There was little he could teach them that they did not already know, but he showed them the lay of the land and protected them from the dangers of the forest as best he could. In return, they taught him how to see the world through their eyes.
Based on his true story, My Life as a Turkey chronicles Hutto’s remarkable and moving experience of raising a group of wild turkey hatchlings to adulthood. My Life as a Turkey premiered Wednesday, November 16, 2011.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/my-life-as-a-turkey/introduction/7268/
11.10.2011
Bruce Friedrich: Top 10 Reasons to Pardon a Turkey this Thanksgiving
Originally posted on The Huggington Post
Did Sarah Palin's recent interview in front of a turkey slaughter operation cause you to almost lose your lunch? If so, you're not alone. Even conservative pundit Joe Scarborough says he may well skip the bird this year. With Thanksgiving upon us, here without further ado are PETA's top ten reasons to pardon a turkey this Holiday season:
Did Sarah Palin's recent interview in front of a turkey slaughter operation cause you to almost lose your lunch? If so, you're not alone. Even conservative pundit Joe Scarborough says he may well skip the bird this year. With Thanksgiving upon us, here without further ado are PETA's top ten reasons to pardon a turkey this Holiday season:
10. If you wouldn't eat your cat, you shouldn't eat a turkey.
As poultry scientist Tom Savage says, "I've always viewed turkeys as smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings. The 'dumb' tag simply doesn't fit." They're as interesting and have personalities every bit as developed as any dog or cat.
When they're not forced to live on filthy factory farms, turkeys spend their days caring for their young, building nests, foraging for food, taking dustbaths, preening themselves, and roosting high in trees. These social, playful birds relish having their feathers stroked and like to chirp, cluck, and gobble along to their favorite tunes.
9. Factory farms deny turkeys everything natural to them.
Ben Franklin called turkeys "true American originals." He had tremendous respect for their resourcefulness, agility, and beauty. In nature, turkeys can fly 55 miles an hour, run 25 miles an hour, and live up to four years. Yet turkeys raised for food are killed when they are only 5 or 6 months old, and during their short lives, they will be denied even the simplest pleasures, like running, building nests, and raising their young.
8. Turkey consumption may kill you.
Turkey flesh is brimming with fat and cholesterol. Just one homemade patty of ground, cooked turkey meat contains a whopping 244 mg of cholesterol, and half of its calories come from fat. Turkey flesh is also frequently tainted with salmonella, campylobacter bacteria, and other contaminants. And a vegan meal won't leave you sprawled on the couch, belt buckle undone, barely able to move.
7. You may stave off bird flue apocalypse.
Current factory-farm conditions, in which turkeys are drugged and bred to grow so quickly that many become crippled and die from dehydration, are breeding grounds for disease. Cooking meat should kill the bird flu virus, but it can be left behind on cutting boards and utensils and spread through something else you're eating.
6. Don't support their crack habit.
Dosing turkeys with antibiotics to stimulate their growth and to keep them alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them poses even more risks for people who eat them. Leading health organizations--including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association--have warned that the farmed-animal industry is creating possible long-term risks to human health and will spread antibiotic-resistant supergerms. That's why the use of drugs to promote growth in animals used for food has been banned for many years in Europe.
5. There are healthy, humane alternatives
Everyone can give thanks for Tofurky, Celebration Roast, Garden Protein's new Veggie Turkey Breast With Wild Rice and Cranberry Stuffing, and other animal-friendly holiday meals. PETA's scrumptious holiday recipes will please every palate and make it easier to give up the giblets.
4. Eating birds supports cruelty to animals.
When the time comes for slaughter, turkeys are thrown into transport trucks, and at the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside-down and their heads are dragged through an electrified "stunning tank," which immobilizes them but does not kill them. Many birds dodge the tank and are still conscious when their throats are slit. If the knife fails to properly slit the birds' throats, the birds are scalded to death in the defeathering tanks.
3. Turkey consumption is bad for the environment.
Turkeys and other animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population--all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines to regulate how factory farms treat, store, and dispose of the trillions of pounds of concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they produce each year.
2. Which contributes to human starvation.
You have to feed a turkey grains, soy, oats, and corn that could otherwise be fed to human beings. Only a fraction of the calories fed to a turkey are turned into meat calories. While there is ample and justified moral indignation about the diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat. Is the diversion of crops to our cars a moral issue? Yes, but it's about one-eighth the issue that meat-eating is.
And the number one reason to give the birds a break:
Factory-farmed turkeys have nothing to be thankful for
On factory farms, turkeys live for months in sheds where they are packed so tightly that flapping a wing or stretching a leg is nearly impossible. They stand mired in waste, and urine and ammonia fumes burn their eyes and lungs. To keep the birds from killing one another in such crowded conditions, parts of the turkeys' toes and beaks are cut off, as are the males' snoods (the flap of skin under the chin). All this is done without any pain relievers.
A PETA investigator recently went undercover at a massive turkey breeding facility in West Virginia and documented workers stomping on turkeys, punching them, beating them with pipes and boards, and twisting their necks repeatedly. One worker even bragged about shoving a broomstick down a turkey's throat because the bird had pecked at him. Our previous investigations show that such gratuitous abuse is the norm on turkey farms.
Check out www.VegCooking.com for tasty alternatives that will allow the turkeys to give thanks this Holiday season along with you and your family.
Happy eating!
As poultry scientist Tom Savage says, "I've always viewed turkeys as smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings. The 'dumb' tag simply doesn't fit." They're as interesting and have personalities every bit as developed as any dog or cat.
When they're not forced to live on filthy factory farms, turkeys spend their days caring for their young, building nests, foraging for food, taking dustbaths, preening themselves, and roosting high in trees. These social, playful birds relish having their feathers stroked and like to chirp, cluck, and gobble along to their favorite tunes.
9. Factory farms deny turkeys everything natural to them.
Ben Franklin called turkeys "true American originals." He had tremendous respect for their resourcefulness, agility, and beauty. In nature, turkeys can fly 55 miles an hour, run 25 miles an hour, and live up to four years. Yet turkeys raised for food are killed when they are only 5 or 6 months old, and during their short lives, they will be denied even the simplest pleasures, like running, building nests, and raising their young.
8. Turkey consumption may kill you.
Turkey flesh is brimming with fat and cholesterol. Just one homemade patty of ground, cooked turkey meat contains a whopping 244 mg of cholesterol, and half of its calories come from fat. Turkey flesh is also frequently tainted with salmonella, campylobacter bacteria, and other contaminants. And a vegan meal won't leave you sprawled on the couch, belt buckle undone, barely able to move.
7. You may stave off bird flue apocalypse.
Current factory-farm conditions, in which turkeys are drugged and bred to grow so quickly that many become crippled and die from dehydration, are breeding grounds for disease. Cooking meat should kill the bird flu virus, but it can be left behind on cutting boards and utensils and spread through something else you're eating.
6. Don't support their crack habit.
Dosing turkeys with antibiotics to stimulate their growth and to keep them alive in filthy, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them poses even more risks for people who eat them. Leading health organizations--including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and the American Public Health Association--have warned that the farmed-animal industry is creating possible long-term risks to human health and will spread antibiotic-resistant supergerms. That's why the use of drugs to promote growth in animals used for food has been banned for many years in Europe.
5. There are healthy, humane alternatives
Everyone can give thanks for Tofurky, Celebration Roast, Garden Protein's new Veggie Turkey Breast With Wild Rice and Cranberry Stuffing, and other animal-friendly holiday meals. PETA's scrumptious holiday recipes will please every palate and make it easier to give up the giblets.
4. Eating birds supports cruelty to animals.
When the time comes for slaughter, turkeys are thrown into transport trucks, and at the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside-down and their heads are dragged through an electrified "stunning tank," which immobilizes them but does not kill them. Many birds dodge the tank and are still conscious when their throats are slit. If the knife fails to properly slit the birds' throats, the birds are scalded to death in the defeathering tanks.
3. Turkey consumption is bad for the environment.
Turkeys and other animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population--all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. There are no federal guidelines to regulate how factory farms treat, store, and dispose of the trillions of pounds of concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they produce each year.
2. Which contributes to human starvation.
You have to feed a turkey grains, soy, oats, and corn that could otherwise be fed to human beings. Only a fraction of the calories fed to a turkey are turned into meat calories. While there is ample and justified moral indignation about the diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat. Is the diversion of crops to our cars a moral issue? Yes, but it's about one-eighth the issue that meat-eating is.
And the number one reason to give the birds a break:
Factory-farmed turkeys have nothing to be thankful for
On factory farms, turkeys live for months in sheds where they are packed so tightly that flapping a wing or stretching a leg is nearly impossible. They stand mired in waste, and urine and ammonia fumes burn their eyes and lungs. To keep the birds from killing one another in such crowded conditions, parts of the turkeys' toes and beaks are cut off, as are the males' snoods (the flap of skin under the chin). All this is done without any pain relievers.
A PETA investigator recently went undercover at a massive turkey breeding facility in West Virginia and documented workers stomping on turkeys, punching them, beating them with pipes and boards, and twisting their necks repeatedly. One worker even bragged about shoving a broomstick down a turkey's throat because the bird had pecked at him. Our previous investigations show that such gratuitous abuse is the norm on turkey farms.
Check out www.VegCooking.com for tasty alternatives that will allow the turkeys to give thanks this Holiday season along with you and your family.
Happy eating!
10.28.2011
Vegan Dogs
A resource and a community for people that share an interest in providing plant-based diets for domestic dogs.
Taken from the V-Dog website, "As well as the obvious ethical benefits of a vegan diet, feeding a meat-free diet to your dog can also be beneficial for your dog's health."
10.26.2011
You know you live in the Rocky Mountains when...a photo essay
Not all seasons are created equal.
Fall really gets the short end of the stick.
It's definitely the shortest season we have. Winter is the longest.
The yellow season. Then the white season. With a blip of the green season in the mix.
Slow going. Some slippin' and slidin' here & there...but home safe and sound!
Fall really gets the short end of the stick.
It's definitely the shortest season we have. Winter is the longest.
The yellow season. Then the white season. With a blip of the green season in the mix.
It takes more than an hour to make the round trip to the nearest "convenience" store.
Slow going. Some slippin' and slidin' here & there...but home safe and sound!
p.s. That is not my house. I live to the left up the road, but I love this view of the remnants of the yellow season, Crystal Peak and the snow -the white season. I'm sure my occasional neighbors won't mind.
10.25.2011
Cruelty Free Shopping
Leaping Bunny
By 1996, ‘cruelty-free’ shopping had become popular, but it was also confusing, sometimes misleading, and ultimately frustrating. Companies had begun designing their own bunny logos, abiding by their own definition of ‘cruelty-free’ or ‘animal friendly’ without the participation of animal protection groups.
In response, eight national animal protection groups banded together to form the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). The CCIC promotes a single comprehensive standard and an internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo. We are working with companies to help make shopping for animal-friendly products easier and more trustworthy.
By 1996, ‘cruelty-free’ shopping had become popular, but it was also confusing, sometimes misleading, and ultimately frustrating. Companies had begun designing their own bunny logos, abiding by their own definition of ‘cruelty-free’ or ‘animal friendly’ without the participation of animal protection groups.
In response, eight national animal protection groups banded together to form the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). The CCIC promotes a single comprehensive standard and an internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo. We are working with companies to help make shopping for animal-friendly products easier and more trustworthy.
Caring Consumer
By purchasing only cruelty-free products, you can help save rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, rats, and other animals. Hundreds of thousands of these animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated and ineffective product tests for shampoos, household cleaners, cosmetics, hairsprays, and other personal care and household items. Although more than 1,000 companies have banned all animal tests forever, some corporations still force substances into animals' stomachs and drip chemicals into rabbits' eyes. These tests are not required by law, and they often produce inaccurate and misleading results—even if a product has blinded an animal, it can still be marketed to you. Search for cruelty-free products and companies.
By purchasing only cruelty-free products, you can help save rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, rats, and other animals. Hundreds of thousands of these animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated and ineffective product tests for shampoos, household cleaners, cosmetics, hairsprays, and other personal care and household items. Although more than 1,000 companies have banned all animal tests forever, some corporations still force substances into animals' stomachs and drip chemicals into rabbits' eyes. These tests are not required by law, and they often produce inaccurate and misleading results—even if a product has blinded an animal, it can still be marketed to you. Search for cruelty-free products and companies.
10.22.2011
When I Say I Love You It Means
In 1982, my friend Charlotte, began recording the answers people gave when asked,"When you say the words 'I love you' - what does that mean?"
A number of people either could not or would not give her an answer. Others skillfully dodged the question without ever answering it. Some people told her what love is not. Others gave her a list of requirements for a relationship.
Over the years, she surveyed a lot of people. They were young, not-so-young, male, female, of various sexual orientations, a broad range of ethnicities, many faiths and religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) and from at least five countries.
In 1995 she self-published a small book of her favorite answers and gave them away as Valentine's gifts.
She says that it has been an interesting project. Almost everyone she asked paused for a thoughtful moment before answering. At best, she hopes you'll be enlightened - possibly educated - and at the very least, mildly entertained by the responses.
Charlotte has continued collecting people's thoughts over the years, and now she would like to hear yours. Click the image to check out the website When I Say I Love You It Means! www.whenisayiloveyouitmeans.com
Leave your response or read other's!
Invite your friends to stop by and weigh in.
Oh, and... I love you!
A number of people either could not or would not give her an answer. Others skillfully dodged the question without ever answering it. Some people told her what love is not. Others gave her a list of requirements for a relationship.
Over the years, she surveyed a lot of people. They were young, not-so-young, male, female, of various sexual orientations, a broad range of ethnicities, many faiths and religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) and from at least five countries.
In 1995 she self-published a small book of her favorite answers and gave them away as Valentine's gifts.
She says that it has been an interesting project. Almost everyone she asked paused for a thoughtful moment before answering. At best, she hopes you'll be enlightened - possibly educated - and at the very least, mildly entertained by the responses.
Charlotte has continued collecting people's thoughts over the years, and now she would like to hear yours. Click the image to check out the website When I Say I Love You It Means! www.whenisayiloveyouitmeans.com
Leave your response or read other's!
Invite your friends to stop by and weigh in.
Oh, and... I love you!
10.20.2011
Candy is Dandy
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| Photo from "My Vegan Creations" |
Candy is Dandy... When it's vegan! (har har har) OK, so I'm lame. I can't even come up with my own halloween originals. Please forgive me and trust me when I say that my eyelids are being held up by toothpicks and that it's been a v e r y l o n g b u s y w e e k. thank you for understanding. :0)
Anyhow...here is PeTA's list of vegan halloween candy. Please vote with the one thing that actually counts: the bottom line: cold hard cash. If you buy candy that does not support cruelty to animals (even if accidentally) It makes a difference!
Anyhow...here is PeTA's list of vegan halloween candy. Please vote with the one thing that actually counts: the bottom line: cold hard cash. If you buy candy that does not support cruelty to animals (even if accidentally) It makes a difference!
This list includes very common and easy to find mainstream candies like dum-dums, dots, Jujubees, Sour Patch Kids, Twizzlers & Zots!
PeTAKids.com Vegan Candy List
About.com has a family crafts page on great halloween activites and party games like the eyeball hunt game, candy corn relay race, phantom ghost letter surprise, and more. 
and also on About.com: A Healthy Halloween?
Vegan Halloween tips, sugar-free alternatives to trick-or-treating
10.09.2011
Food Day!
Join FARM in Observing Food Day on October 24!
Dear Friends,
The month of October has become national "Food Month," offering an opportunity to save millions of animal lives by promoting a vegan diet. It began with World Vegetarian Day and World Farm Animals Day on October 1st and 2nd, continues with World Food Day on October 16th, and culminates with Food Day on October 24th and World Go Vegan Week on October 24th-31st.
The most influential among these is Food Day, launched this year by our good friends at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. CSPI has been dubbed "The Food Police," because of its frequent exposés of the deadly flaws of the standard American diet. The goals of this new national observance include promoting safe, healthy foods and protecting the environment, animals, and farm workers. More than 1,100 events have been registered thus far throughout the U.S.
Food Day organizers have invited FARM supporters to bring vegan literature to Food Day events in their communities, or to organize their own Food Day event!
To find an event in your community, visit the Events Page. To organize your own event, visit the Organizing Page. To request vegan literature, visit our Literature Page.
Please join us in this uncommon opportunity to work in concert with a superb sister movement!
Alex Hershaft, President
Michael Weber, Program Director
Michael Weber, Program Director
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