March 4, 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/horse-meat-scandal-eating-meat_b_2720783.html
INDEED!!! Happy reading, folks. Comments welcome and appreciated! Stay plant-strong, fight for the animals! ❤
February 12, 2013
There’s nothing manly about eating meat…! Check out this 15 minute video featuring some men who have chosen to go vegan and why they do it.
January 10, 2013
This is unjust and unnecessary. Here and around the world, animals need help and compassion.
January 8, 2013
How does veganism help more than animals?
If you have ever wondered “What is all this talk about how consuming animal products destroys the planet? How is consuming animal products mainly responsible for world hunger? What is the relationship? Where is the correlation?”, this post should answer some of your questions. For more information www.veganvideo.org
January 7, 2013
Hello ASAP blog lovers, it’s Krista Simon here, and I’m back in action here at ASAP (Abolishing the Status of Animals as Property).
ASAP is a Canadian, all-volunteer, non-profit animal rights organization. ASAP is committed to challenging the view that non-human animals exist for human use and to raising their status beyond property, commodities, and/or things. ASAP advocates a vegan lifestyle as the most direct and practical way of achieving this goal.
Our website (http://www.towardsfreedom.com/kindred/asap/) is available currently but will be undergoing regular updates and edits over the next few weeks. Check it out! If you see something that is outdated, incorrect, or otherwise doesn’t belong there, please let me know and I’ll make sure to fix it! I’m looking forward to making our website as accurate and empowering to all of us as possible.
Please check back regularly for information on animal rights issues, recipes, videos, and upcoming events!
January 7, 2013
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.
— Rachel Carson
November 13, 2010
For years and years, the egg industry has been able to mislead the public, using images of happy chickens running around and eating worms and healthy grains in outdoor settings. This popular image is conveniently used to sell more and more eggs, making the consumers believe that egg-laying hens lead a happy, content life for which they ‘thank us’ by providing eggs. Yet, the egg industry might not be able to keep much longer from the general public the real way in which hens are treated.
While many undercover photos and videos have already started to reveal the gruesome reality of the egg industry, helping the public become aware that their eggs instead come from hens crowded in tiny cages, the group “Anonymous for Animal Rights” is leading the way towards an even greater awareness of the suffering of egg laying eggs. By installing a hidden camera inside a battery cage in a chicken shed, we are provided with the live broadcast, 24 hours a day, of the life – or should we say total lack of – of three egg laying hens locked in a cage 40 cm long, 33 cm wide and 45 cm high. Unable to stretch their wings, dust bathe or peck at the ground, forced to lives of daylight deprivation and toxic fumes, these sentient beings, enslaved by the egg industry, have nothing to do.
More than anything before, this live video allows us to watch the hens’ miserable life of stress, pain and boredom, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day.
We can choose to close our eyes on this terrible injustice and horrific cruelty, because it is convenient and because eggs taste good. Or we can refuse to support a system that treat other sentient beings in a way we would never want to be treated ourselves. Options for cooking without eggs abound. Please don’t be a part of this suffering and choose a vegan diet.
November 8, 2009
Working hard to overcome the many challenges of growing up in a poor and violent Brooklyn neighborhood, Eddie Lama developed a deep sense of identification with the vulnerable and voiceless beings of our world. In one of the most moving sections of the documentary The Witness, he describes the harrowing experience of being beaten and left for dead, crying out for help and no one responding. Eddie then shares how this trauma helped him understand the plight of animals, who so often endure violence with no one to even witness their tragic fate, much less advocate on their behalf.
Please think of holding a free screening of this powerful, moving documentary in your community.
For more information about The Witness, or to order the DVD, please visit:
http://www.witnessfilm.org/home.htm
October 7, 2009
Millions of turkeys are slaughtered and put onto the tables of Canadians every Thanksgiving for a holiday centered around celebrating life and giving thanks for our food. That this celebration of life involves the mass-slaughtering of these intelligent birds, which can live long and fulfilling lives of anywhere from 10 to 12 years, is contradictory at best (1).
Most of these birds are shoved into filthy and over-crowded factory farms (2). As an alternative to factory-farmed turkeys, people may look to “free range” birds in hope of a more humane choice. “Free range” simply means that the birds have an opportunity to access the outdoors; there are no other requirements (3). Free range certification does not protect the birds from over-crowding or de-beaking (4). In most cases, the opportunity for thousands of birds to access the outdoors is one small exit leading to a very small, filthy area (5). In many cases, these “free range” birds are shipped for long periods of time (without food or water) to the same slaughter houses where factory farmed birds are killed (6). The “free range” alternative is just as inhumane and cruel as the situation for factory farmed birds is.
There is no vital imperative for us to eat turkeys, or any other animals. We can all celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving without bringing harm to any animal- human or non-human.
Letting turkeys live and replacing your turkey dinner with a vegan meal doesn’t mean all vegetables and no gravy! You can have a great Tofurky dinner that will satisfy your taste buds and fill your belly. Here are some recipes we have collected:
You can make your own homemade Tofurky if you are feeling adventurous and creative (although we suggest to make your own stuffing from scratch).
For a recipe, please visit:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tofu-Turkey-I/Detail.aspx
Alternatively, you can buy a Tofurky (7).
Make a savoury stuffing to go with your homemade Tofurky (try using half of the recipe inside the homemade tofurky and bake the other half in the oven for a crispier stuffing).
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup diced onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
4 cups soft bread cubes
1 cup chopped apple
1/3 cup raisins
1/4 cup cranberries
1 cup vegetable broth
salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large skillet, heat the oil and then sauté the onion and celery until tender, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Pour the sautéed vegetables into a casserole dish. Add the remaining ingredients, bread cubes through seasonings. Toss well, making sure all of the bread cubes are soaked in the vegetable broth. Bake for 45 minutes.
We couldn’t find a recipe online that we loved as much as the recipe from How It All Vegan (8):
Mighty Miso Gravy
6-10 mushrooms chopped
1 medium onion chopped
1 tbsp. Olive oil
2-3 tbsp. Braggs Liquid Aminos or soy sauce
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
Dried basil (to taste)
Dried dill (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
1/3-1/2 cup of flour
1 1/3 cups vegetable stock or water
1 tsp. miso
In a medium saucepan, saute the mushrooms and onions in oil on medium high heat until onions are translucent and mushrooms are tender. Add the Braggs, cayenne, basil, dill and pepper and stir. Remove from heat and slowly stir in the flour, mixing together well. It will become past and dry. Slowly start adding the stock a little at a time until everything becomes well mixed and there is no lumps. Place back into medium heat and simmer until sauce is thickened, stirring often. At the last minute, stir in miso and serve.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving, look around your table and be thankful that you can have compassionate, animal-free harvest feast, and most of all have fun!
References:
1: http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenlivesturkeys.asp
2: http://www.humanefood.ca/pdf%20links/Turkeyfact%20sheet.pdf
http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_turkeys_farms.asp
3: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/LDP/2006/12Dec/LDPM15001/ldpm15001.pdf
4: http://www.free-range-turkey.com
5: http://www.veganoutreach.org/freerange/
6: http://cetfa.com/images/stories/The__Life__of__a__Turkey__Food__Facts.pdf
7: http://www.tofurky.com/
8: http://www.govegan.net/
September 27, 2009
Go to any rodeo, and you will hear that it has the world’s “meanest & wildest” animals, and the “greatest cowboys”. Rodeo promoters claim their animals are “born to buck.” According to the announcer at even the smallest event, it is a “world championship rodeo.” The truth isn’t nearly as impressive. Animals used in rodeos do not buck, run, jump or fall because they enjoy doing so. They are physically provoked into displays of “wild” behaviour. Cruel devices such as electric prods/shockers and spurs are used on them, and the flank or ‘buck’ strap causes irritation, making them buck so violently that they can suffer injuries.
Electric prods/shockers are easily concealed, but videos taken in Halifax (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnA_zK7gk08) and elsewhere (see for example http://www.sharkonline.org/) show the reality. Although small, the device can deliver 5,000 volts of electric shock. Cattle are particularly sensitive to electricity, and rodeo participants use that to their advantage to make bulls appear to be wild killers. Despite so-called “humane regulations”, rodeo workers often shock their victims secretly and repeatedly before releasing them, having driven them wild with torment.
The buck strap, as it name suggests, is the foundation of the bucking events. The strap is loosely fitted like a belt around the bull’s abdomen, just in front of the hind legs. When the gate is opened, a person behind the chute pulls on the buck strap as the animal departs, automatically tightening it around this extremely sensitive flank area. This is similar to an unrelenting sharp squeeze in the groin area of a human being. The animals struggle and buck violently in a futile attempt to escape. As a result, they can sustain severe bruising, pulled tendons, broken bones, and internal bleeding; some are even paralyzed from spinal cord injuries.
Rodeos maim, injure and kill untold numbers of animals every year. They victimize and abuse animals for profit. If these animals were “born to buck,” they wouldn’t get blasted repeatedly with thousands of volts of electricity, they wouldn’t have tormenting straps tightened around their flanks, and they wouldn’t have to be raked with spurs.
Please help us stop rodeo events at the Maritime Fall Fair. Patronize only non-animal events like festivals and sporting events, and express your opinion on bull riding competitions by sending a polite letter to the Maritime Fall Fair event manager, Randy Johnston, at:
rjohnston@tradecentrelimited.com
ASAP
ASAP 