We aren't the typical vegans/vegetarians. By typical, I mean:
A) We don't have pets that are rescued from a local shelter. In fact, we don't have any pets...nor would we force an animal to be "vegan," just like we wouldn't make any future kiddies be "vegan"....
B) We don't work, volunteer, or really want to volunteer at a farm sanctuary...Sorry if our priorities on our free time seem odd...but we currently volunteer to help humans...
C) We don't have random pics of us smiling all pacifist-y, "altruistic-like" with those "rescued" domesticated animals at the farm sanctuary.
D)We do not use the phrase "shocking facts about animal treatment" when we state our reasons...nor do we agree with or endorse to PETA headlines like, "
"horrific abuse to mother pigs and their piglets at a supplier to the largest pig-killing company in the world.."
may work to convert hundreds of tweenie girls into vegetarianism....but somehow I believe this is promoting vegetarianism from the wrong angle.
This route follows the same formula that Oprah uses ("he raped babies!...Girls, you need to urinate on your attackers so you can escape!.....Try to fight and scream!") Gee, thanks for that wise tidbit Oprah, being a helpless female, I'm glad you are getting to big bucks for teaching me such common sense wisdom. Dammit, now I know that rolling over and playing dead won't work. Unless a bear attempts to rape me....I guess that is what Republican candidate Ron Paul has in mind when he says Americans need to be able to protect themselves in potentially hazardous situations...in the National Parks.
The Lifetime channel uses this formula with inane showings of movies that have ridiculous plots, like A Kiss So Deadly...
"A bizarre love triangle develops when a father has a secret fling with his daughter's flirtatious roommate. This sexually deviant dad goes from robbing the cradle to stalking and then turns outright deadly when the affair starts to fizzle. It's fun watching the charming Charles Shaugnessy (from "The Nanny") play such a creepy character."
The Shock Factor Formula
-seems insulting to one's own intelligence....reeling you in with the emotional, tear-jerk response instead of presenting rational facts.....and I don't know about you, but comparing the killing of animals to Holocaust conditions seems to trivialize the atrocities of the Holocaust or a mass genocide. By using such language as "torture of mother" "horrific abuse to mother...piglets" and "largest pig-killing company," PETA hopes to conjure up the image of "innocent women and children" being brutally killed in a calculated genocide by state-supported murderers.
"Torture of mothers" = torture of mothers "Horrific abuse to mother...piglets" = horrific abuse to women and children "Killing company" = state sponsored murder
....Yes, I agree that this does put the life of an animal as important as the life of a human....but on the flip side...does this not also put the life of a human only as important as an animal?
Something like a genocide is a horrific atrocity with individual human beings, and the wording that goes along with it should NOT be generalized into a tool for a pop-culture shock.
End
"Why don't you ( you--referring of course to the scary person that doesn't eat meat, hm...you must be like, Buddhist or Gandhi or something..) eat animals? Why? Is it because you think animals have souls? Animals are too cuddly for you? Hah! I got you on that one!"
Oh, for funny. Nope, sorry, I have a hard time believing that people have "souls," much less animals. And no, I don't want to go hug a cow or chicken.
Rather...I like to use something called reason, which can be defined as the following:
----1 kg of grain-fed beef needs at least 15 cubic meters of water, .....but 1 kilo of cereals needs only up to 3 cubic meters of water (and even less for certain vegetables)
----Health related issues-call it preventative measures...no need for an explanation, just look at the rapidly expanding waistline of Asia, trying to catch up to our American and wealthier European "luxury" diet...
----Ethical issues- No, Gandhi did not just abstain from meat for the "animal have souls" reason, rather he was highly influenced by Henry S. Salt, an Englishman who wrote about ethics.
But the Ethical argument is usually a lost cause, because the person that usually thinks that all vegetarians are
**PETA supporters /KFC protesters /crazy hippies that don't shower**
That person also usually supports the death penalty, loves to hunt animals (yes, I understand the whole hunting thing--of course you middle class, mid-western American wouldn't be able to survive the winter without that venison summer sausage in this day and age), and loves to wear that nauseatingly bright neon orange hunting hat around--so the Ethical argument is lost. It never even stood a chance against that thirty-ought-six.
And no, not all vegetarians throw up at the smell of meat (some involuntary throw up with dairy, but that is an entire different matter) but...in fact, my mouth waters at the smell of roast beef, a whiff of sizzling bacon, I think meat substitutes like the scary "Tofurky" taste nasty, and I am jealous of all the hungry Americans gouging themselves out with the traditional meal of turkey, gravy, and giblet stuffing...why can't I join in with the "pass the gravy, please, oh, yes, some of that dark meat would be wonderful, yum, yum, giblets"...sounds like a lot more fun than morosely picking at the salad, probably the only vegan dish around that all-american turkey fare. That is, of course, hoping that Americans still eat salad...without the bacon bits and heavy ranch dressing......hmmm...not much hope for that, I guess the lonely vegan will have to cook and eat their dinner themselves...while the self-righteous "environmentally-conscience" individuals ironically discuss their new showerhead-water-savers and fancy new energy-efficient lightbulbs while chomping on that turkey leg...
And come on, why would you want to eat something that likes our current President, especially in this way?
A healthy dose of vegetarian perspective for supper
from "Everything is Illuminated"
I can relate well to this scene. You don't have to miss the subtitles to know what is going on...
The author of the book for this movie, Jonathan Safran Foer (a Jewish vegetarian), portrayed this scene excellently...for rural Ukraine can also be...New Rockford, North Dakota...where my husband and I had only a potato as the family chomped on beef ribs, sans dog (I was never allowed to have, or even touch a dog...they don't let the good angels in, apparently).
My deer hunting, fishing, sheep ranching, halal meat-marketing family must have thought I was joking when I asked, "Hey, Aaron and I don't eat meat, can you make sure there is a vegetable of some sort, we would so appreciate it."
They probably thought, "Oh, what a funny daughter we have...such jokes...next she'll try to convince us again that she is not a Muslim anymore...some good, way too-rare halal beef ribs will cheer her up!" And I'm being honest, for my special-education teacher mother told me growing up that, "Meat and milk has all the happy chemicals you need, that is why everyone is happy during the holidays!"
Well, I shouldn't complain, I guess a potato is like a vegetable, in an unhealthy way.
And my mother must be right about the happy chemicals, because Buddhists do seem to be the saddest people ever, being all tranquil and pacifist
...Meat and Milk don't seem to make my gun-toting, uber-Arab pride, Saudi Islamic world-view family very sad and reflective about life...I think Meat and Milk make them quite a zealot group. In fact, with that group of demographics, Meat and Milk consumption may be harmful to our society.
That situation puts you in a nice, awkward, reflective position on life, similar to my ever-closer-to-senile, but lovingly wonderful grandmother, who forgets that five minutes earlier I told her "That's okay, I'm good with the salad and vegetables, I don't eat meat" and exclaims loudly, "goodness, Nadia, I forgot to give you some roast, hand that plate over here!"
End
Globalization of B.S. -American Fat comes to China.
Yay! More Dairy for the Lactose Intolerant, Please!
Globalization's new B.S.A (bull-shit announcements) just increased.
It all started with fast-food.........
........................In a place where there was little, if unknown cancer cases, and childhood obesity was unheard of, fast-food chains emerged, promising "Western" food purchased with a good 'ol capitalistic ideology.....
Food that is bad for you, food that has no quality, but hey! It's cheap! And American!
Having a choice to eat fast food is one thing, but having a government agenda tacked on to a "Western" diet is another...
China's government is telling their lactose-intolerant individuals that they have a dream!
As stated by China's Premier Win Jiabao, "I have a dream to provide every Chinese...sufficient milk each day"
Hmmm...somehow that translated differently for me...
Because the Chinese, like 75% of the world's population, naturally has trouble digesting enzymes in milk after the age span of 3-5 years.
I don't know if the dairy industry caught this, but the least lactose-intolerant individuals are white (gasp! coincidence?)...as far as those "unfortunate" people...
95% of Africans are intolerant.. 90% of Asians are intolerant... 90% of Indians are intolerant... 75% of Mexican Americans are intolerant... 60% of Mediterraneans are intolerant...
and only 15% of North American Whites are lactose intolerant. But don't worry, being such evaders or responsibility to the world's problems as a whole, we got a pill for that... I don't mind choices for your diet, but with choices also comes social responsibility, especially for the children. And especially if the governmentpushes it onto a nation that had plenty of calcium for thousands of years from leafy greens, soy, and fish.
With China's dairy consumption increasing, I believe it is a good time to invest in some Lactaid stocks. ......
............Uphold your American capitalistic ethic....by buying stock in Lactaid (McNeil Nutritionals, LLC from Johnson and Johnson) so the Chinese can eat more of that deeeelicous dairy that we influenced upon them! Someone has to profit, after all, we are America.
End
Albert Einstein
Albert Schweitzer
Alice Walker
Allen Ginsberg
Aristotle
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Spock
Cesar Chavez
Charles Darwin
Charlotte Bronte
Clara Barton
Confucius
Coretta Scott King
Dennis Kucinich
Epicurus
Eve Ensler
Francis Moore Lappe
Franz Kafka
General Bramwell Booth
George Bernard Shaw
George Harrison
Gloria Steinem
H.G. Wells
Henry David Thoreau
Henry Ford
Henry Heimlich
Henry S. Salt
Howard Lyman
Ira Glass
Isaac Bashevis Singer
J. M. Coetzee
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Jonathan Safran Foer
Leo Tolstoy
Leonardo da Vinci
Louisa May Alcott
Luigi Cornaro
Mohandas Gandhi
Nicky Cole
Oliver Goldsmith
Paul McCartney
Pete Singer
Plato
Plutarch
Pythagoras of Samos
Queen Sophia of Spain
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sir Isaac Newton
St. Francis of Assisi
Steve Jobs
Susan B. Anthony
Sylvestor Graham
Ted Hughs
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thom Yorke
Thomas Edison
Thomas Hood
Upton Sinclair
Victoria Lidiard
Vincent Van Gogh
