Vegan Wishes

Noodling around at lunchtime today, I found a lovely post called And the winner is... over at Vegan Hope. I am crossposting here and adding a few wishes of my own....
(comments in italics are mine too)

My vegan wishes…

That I could present the facts and information to skeptics in a clear concise way.
(- a major wish of mine too)

That my friends and family would see truth before it is too late.

That the general population would come to grips that they are being lied to every single day by the food industry.

That diabetics (type 1 & 2) could know there is an answer, and it is not a hard one.
(- and that those who DO know this would actually stick to their vegan choices - you know who you are!)

That going vegan to people was something that sounded easy and enjoyable (because it actually is)

That people would understand the cruelty of what is done in order for them to consume the food they eat.

That people would understand the harsh addictions that are in things like dairy and meat.

That people would not associate political motives for things like living healthy, refusing to accept cruelty and destroying the earth.
(- when did kindness and compassion become politically subversive concepts?)

That people in all religions and non religion would be able to incorporate a compassionate life, and would want to treat their body with respect and honor by living as healthy as they could.

That people would realize they are strong enough to break their addictions and from what they think they could never change.

That people could understand why we have the diseases that we do.
(- not to mention the ones we're saving up for the future)

That people would see truth as something that is beautiful, and be thankful for it.

That people would WANT to live and thrive.

That people could understand what it is to feel life, to be healthy, and to be contributing to saving life.

That people would come together to help one another, not to rip each other apart.

That people would see past what the media shoves down their throats.

That factory farms would be made with glass walls, so that we could see what is happening.

That I could give people an ounce of what it feels like to be so sick that you are afraid you won’t make it another day, and let them know that if they continue to do what they are doing, they will most likely end up in the same place.

That I could give people an ounce of what it feels like to actually be healthy, full of energy.

That I could give people the strength they need to make it through a couple of weeks of detox.

That everyone could see themselves on the other end of giving up what they feel they could never give up, and see that it wasn’t that hard after all.
(- absolutely!)

And I have a few of my own to add:

That people would accept once and for all that fish and chickens and other non-red-meat-types are not vegetables. They are animals. And as such they have no part of a vegetarian diet.

That slaughterhouses had glass walls and that a visit was compulsory for every meat eater to see the reality for themselves.

That people could break through the arbitrary distinctions they make between the animals we cuddle and the animals we eat. Dogs, cats, pigs, sheep...they all just want to live.

That the concept of being vegan was not immediately dismissed as radical and extreme even by those who should know better.

That there was a will to understand and that empathy was a norm in our society.

That no-one would seriously believe that the satisfaction of a fleeting moment's taste of meat could ever justify the unconscionable abuse and torture of fellow beings.

That we could all - for one moment - experience life as a farmed food animal. (In Anna Sewell's novel 'Black Beauty', the equine narrator says something along the lines of 'I used to think seeing was believing. Now I know it is not: feeling is believing'. That is an elegant distinction.

What are your vegan wishes?

I feel sheepish...

I guess irony doesn't play well in blogland. I am so sorry to the folks who believed I'd won something.

I have not.

The point of the previous post was that I'd received all of this spam at work congratulating me on winning a small fortune, provided I relay my bank account details etc. You all know that kind of scheme, right? So I kind of tied this 'win' in with the desire to actually win a copy of Ricki's new book over at dietdessertndogs.com and hence the confusion.

I feel very sheepish and not a little silly.

I will curb my ironic tone in future posts.

Sorry - especially to Ricki herself and to Maria-Rose. :(

Sweet Freedom!

Yesterday I won big.

And when I say big I mean BIG!

Huge!

This much in fact: 'a prize of Three hundred thousand Euros only (Ђ300,000.00) and a laptop.'

Did you see that? 'and a laptop'....well, that just blows me away!

And today, my luck continued when I received the following by email:

CONGRATULATIONS

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the just clouded annual final draws of YAHOO FAIR LONDON international programs. You are therefore been approve to claim the sum of £850,000.00Eight Hundred and Fifty Thousand POUNDS.

Erm, that equates to around $399,637.74 + $1,285,592.32 = $1, 685, 230.06c according to my pencil and paper calculation.

Oh and let's not forget the laptop of course!!!!

However I have not yet won what I **really** want to win: Sweet Freedom!

And no, I don't necessarily mean from my day job (although of course were the above notifications genuine, I would already be sunning it up on a Caribbean beach with My Beloved, swinging in a hammock under a palm tree, sipping on a fruity little rum concoction, drowsily watching the hibiscus come in and out of focus while deciding what useful vegan thing I could do with the rest of my life...), nooooo....I mean 'Sweet Freedom', the new cookbook by Ricki Heller of dietdessertndogs.com.

OK, OK, I'll wait until it's published on May 15th - the day after my birthday, it should be noted! - to purchase a copy of what promises to be a fantastic set of recipes for delectables utterly free of eggs, dairy, wheat and refined sugars.

But it would be awesome if I could win a copy....just to cap off an extremely lucky week!

Stay vegan, friends!

Oh, and go buy a copy for yourselves!!!!!

An emotional recharge...

Spring truly IS finally here! After an abominably bad day at work, I arrived home tonight to an entreaty by My Beloved to come outside and see a 'glorious spectacle'. What follows are a few snapshots of what we saw.


Our tree in the front garden really needs a 'haircut', but we should have done it in February apparently. Now it'll have to wait until next year. Sigh.



I love experimenting with the macro mode of my little point-and-shoot camera!



I forget what these are called but I love their little heart-shaped leaves. And I swear, none of these were out when I left for work this morning!



I remember what *these* are called! Actually, this is the self-same bunny I see frequently in our herb garden. I have taken to leaving him/her the odd apple core, the remnants of my drive-home-from-work snack and I do believe that *someone* is enjoying them.....



We have a rhododendron outside the front door and it puts on a particularly spectacular show every year. The bees are just in heaven around it and we are in raptures watching them! Although the flash maybe got in the way, My Beloved got better shots, I think....



Bee coming in to land....



Getting on with the job...



On the wing again...


Forgive my indulgence. Sometimes it really recharges the batteries to spend some time with the creatures you are trying to help. Even if they're only bees.....

Stay vegan, friends!

Simplicity, humility and plain humanity

Today was crazy at work so I had to limit myself to ambling around just one blog and the one I plumped for was www.vegansoapbox.com. There is always something interesting, sometimes heartbreaking, usually insightful and often uplifting to be read there and today was no exception.

The following is a post by Eccentric Vegan and I love its simplicity, humility and plain humanity. Enjoy....


I’m Not Perfect, Just Vegan


I’m not perfect.
I ate fishes for another two years before I realized fish felt pain too.
I ate eggs and dairy for decades before I realized just how easy it is to be vegan.

I even understood the logic behind veganism: that every dairy cow is destined for slaughter, that calorie for calorie eggs are one of the most cruel foods you can eat, that male chicks and male dairy calves are killed very near the beginning of their lives, that dairy cows are forcefully impregnated, given hormones, steroids, and antibiotics, and most importantly, that animals are not tools for human use...yet I didn’t go vegan.

See, I tried going vegan once before, but it felt too difficult. I had trouble finding food, finding support, finding good information. It was just too much trouble.

Once I got my priorities straight, once I felt safe to be the person I wanted to be, once I felt supported to live my values… I went vegan. And I stayed vegan.

Sometimes doing the right thing takes practice.

But no, I’m not perfect. I eat too much sugar. I drink too much coffee. I used to smoke cigarettes. I don’t exercise often enough. I don’t say “sorry” often enough. I don’t say “thank you” often enough. I can be petty and mean.

I’m not perfect.
I’m not superior to you.
I’m just vegan,
and i think you should be too.


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For the original post, click here and show Eccentric Vegan some love!

Stay vegan, friends!

It's been ' a bit of a day'...

I've had one of those days today when I am constantly reminded of the magnitude of the problem. Some of it I brought on myself, through my own actions; some of it just washed over me regardless. It started on my drive to work when I listened to a podcast on the Canadian seal hunt, later continuing with another on Germany's boycott of battery-cage eggs and culminating in PETA's podcast entitled 'What We Did to Rodney'. In essence, what I was listening to was an exploration of the myriad ways in which mankind is utterly contemptible.

The Canadian seal slaughter (Animal Voices podcast) is an annual occurence which has been protested since the 1960s. Despite creating no significant contribution to the Canadian economy, the hunt continues and I have to wonder why? According to statistics furnished by IFAW,

"the seal hunt accounts for less than one-half of one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Any money earned at the hunt is used to supplement other forms of income."

Hmm...so there goes the 'it's their livelihood, we can't interfere' excuse. So let's look at the market for these products. Again according to IFAW, demand for seal products has decreased significantly within mainland Europe - something to which I personally can attest, having grown up in the UK and witnessed my peers turning away from fur products in the 80s. Indeed, one of the biggest remaining markets is Norway, which - let's face it - is a relatively small country. In fact, it has a total population of just over 4.5 million, with an annual growth rate of 0.57%.

Hmm...not exactly a HUGE market.

Given the level of cruelty involved, and the fact that no humane standards can be applied to this hunt, I began the day utterly distressed that this slaughter continues despite generalised public opposition within Canada and despite a complete lack of economic imperative.

On my way home, I listened to PETA's podcast 'What We Did to Rodney' which catalogued part of the surgical training of one veterinarian, Peter M. Henriksen. He writes of how he and his peers used Rodney, a German Shephard dog sold to a research laboratory, to learn how to perform neutering, broken bone reconstruction and abdominal explorations. The incidents recounted by Henriksen detail the animal's slow and painful decline, from one botched surgery to another, until he had finally outlived his usefulness and was euthanised for his pains.

With the number of humane alternatives to animal models in medical research, you would think that we had stepped beyond the desire to inflict ceaseless pain and suffering upon an individual of a 'lower species'. But it seems we have not.

In between listening to these podcasts, I spent my day - as do most vegans, I suppose - around those who casually, indiscriminately and unthinkingly perpetrate and support inexcusable and unconscionable cruelty to the vast legions of animals commonly referred to as 'dinner'. And try as I might, I could not drown out their chatter about the chickens they barbequed or the hams they baked for Easter.

And I just wanted to scream.

Seeing a sign for a 'Pig Roast' to advertise a local sale of Harley-Davidsons truely capped off my day....

I guess I am tired of knowing. Worn down by the scale of the problem. Sickened by the widespread denial that there is even anything wrong with a world that sees fit to torture and kill billions upon billions of our fellow creatures for no justifiable reason whatsoever. And which looks at me, as a vegan, with curious, amused or condescending eyes.

To live - and to live well - we don't need the animals' flesh, their milk, their eggs, their fur, their feathers, their skins, their bones, their lives.

And yet we take them anyway. Because we can.

A Trio of Treats

After the last post, I really have to write something fun and frivolous. And so, here's a trio of treats for you...as long as you are 'of the canine persuasion'.



'Up the Apples and Pears'


You will need:

2 cups wholewheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup brown rice, cooked and cooled
1 cup finely chopped apple
1 cup finely chopped pear
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup hot water
2 tbsp peanut butter

1. Pre-heat your oven to 325.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, apple, pear, rice and cinnamon.

3. Dissolve the peanut butter in the hot water to make a thick sort of slurry. (OK, it won't actually 'dissolve' as such, but you'll make a thin paste which allows the peanut butter to disperse more easily into the dry ingredients.)

4. Mix the wet into the dry and bring together to form a thick dough. If it's tough going with a wooden spoon, feel free to channel your inner child and get your hands in the bowl and squeeeeeeeze the dough together. Go on, it's very therapeutic!

5. Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and roll into a large circle.

6. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

7. Cut into bite-size pieces and return to the oven for a further 30 minutes. At the end of this second 30 minute stint, turn the oven off leaving the cookies inside to dry out completely.

Once they are cooled, perform a taste-test with your favourite furry companion...s/he'll love you forever!


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'The Top Banana!'

This is a favourite of Darwin (The Beagle) Dog who seems to fancy himself as something of a top banana....


You will need:

2 1/4 cups wholewheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup peanuts, chopped
1/4 cup dried banana chips, chopped
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp peanut butter

1. Pre-heat your oven to 325.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, rolled oats, chopped peanuts and chopped banana chips, reserving one whole banana chip per dog.

3. Dissolve the peanut butter in the hot water to make a thick sort of slurry. (See above recipe for long-winded caveat/explanation of this process...)

4. Mix the wet into the dry and bring together to form a thick dough.

5. Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and roll into a large circle.

6. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

7. Cut into bite-size pieces using a knife or a pizza wheel. Because it's a chunky sort of recipe, it doesn't really lend itself to cutting out cute dog-bones or hydrant shapes, so just go with the strips or squares...your dog really won't care!

8. Return to the oven for a further 30 minutes. At the end of this second 30 minute stint, turn the oven off leaving the cookies inside to dry out completely.

But what of the reserved banana chip of step #2?? Well, since the cookies will be too warm to eat for a while after they come out of the oven, it might be prudent to have a little something to assuage the anxiety of the eventual recipient....it works for me!


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'The Utterly Nutterly'

In honour of Humphrey The (Wiener)Hound who is, it cannot be denied, somewhat nuts...but in a good way....possibly.....

You will need:

2 cups wholewheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup ground peanuts
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 cup warm water
2 tbsp peanut butter

1. Pre-heat your oven to 375.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, rolled oats, ground peanuts and sunflower seeds.

3. Dissolve the peanut butter in the hot water to make a thick sort of slurry. Add to this the peanut oil.

4. Mix the wet into the dry and bring together to form a thick dough.

5. Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and roll into a large circle.

6. Slide the parchment onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

7. Cut into bite-size pieces using a knife or a pizza wheel and return to the oven for a further 15-20 minutes to bake hard.


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Sprinkle the cookies liberally into the life of your favourite canine/s. Accompany each serving with a hug, chin tickle or simple pat on the head. And enjoy....

Stay vegan, friends!

The economy is tough indeed.

I don't remember the random trail of links that brought me to this site a couple of nights ago, as I surfed around idly checking out the vegan news. But I came across an article that shook me to the core. But first, a little background....

In Western Massachusetts, we recently heard the chilling news that the MSPCA is closing 3 of its 7 shelters across the state, one of them being in our area. As quoted in a recent issue of the Pet Gazette "'For the good of the entire organization we need to close down certain facilities," MSPCA spokesperson Brian Adams said recently, pointing to a loss in revenue as the reason for the closures." The economy is tough indeed.

And it seems like the volume of pet surrenders is rising as people face foreclosure or the downsizing of income. As the same article points out, "'Foreclosure’ is now a check box on our surrender sheets, when it had not been there in the past.'" Honestly, I cannot think of a worse thing than to lose your livelihood, your income, perhaps your relationship, your home...and then to lose your pet too. It must be the last straw for some people. It certainly would be for me.

There could be nothing worse. Unless, I suppose, you happened to be the animal in question, the one who is surrendered. The pet sacrificed to the 'economic downturn'. For the animals, it is a lot worse. I imagine that the owners let themselves believe that their animal will be adopted. Of course, s/he is a good dog, a great dog with kids, loyal, funny and loves to give kisses....s/he is bound to find a good home.....

And so off they go, leaving the animal in the 'care' of the shelter.

Which brings us back to the article I mentioned at the start of this post. I found it on Eye on the Sparrow, an all breeds/special needs dog rescue website and its raw honesty was painful to read. It is an open letter from a shelter manager in which she (?) lays out very clearly the situation of the surrendered dog:

Odds are your pet won't get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies.

Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps.

It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it.

If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose.

If your dog is big, black or any of the " Bully " breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted.

It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are.

If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed.

The author then describes in clear terms the process that turns a surrendered animal into a

'corpse [that] will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind.'

I don't have the heart to reproduce it in its entirety here, but it is something we should all know about.

Here's the link.
Please take a moment to read it.
The animals need us not to look away.
Not to retreat into the comparative comfort of ignorance.

Earlier this week, a coworker announced that a friend had just got a puppy, a gangly darling of a baby who hadn't yet even grown into its own feet. Puppies are magic, aren't they? All nose and feet and astonishment at their own tails. I would love to have a puppy, someone I could actually train to behave well - unlike my two rescue dogs, who do as they wish and have *me* expertly trained in the arts of cookie giving and pillow plumping.

But I will never buy one.

Because for every puppy purchased from a breeder, from a pet store, online, from an acquaintance whose dog 'has just had a litter', another dog in a shelter somewhere will take their final walk to 'The Room' where a 'euthanasia tech' will start the process that ends with the life draining out of yet another pair of 'sad, lost, confused eyes'.

Between nine and eleven million times per year.

All that waste. If that doesn't make you think twice about buying that cute puppy in the store window, I really don't know what will.

Stay vegan, Friends.

Sending postcards....

I have been unable to post recently. And the reason was not a lack of time or inclination. But instead an acute sense of failure. The support offered after my last post was so welcome and I really took to heart what was said. So when it came time - after one week - to check my results I felt I'd let not only myself down but those kind enough to offer encouragement.

The truth was: I lost no weight.

None at all.

I could not believe it. All the stories on the web, in the podcasts, in the book...everywhere...tell of people who lose 10lbs, 15lbs or more in their first ETL week. OK, I was not aiming that high, but *something* would have been nice.

So, I felt stuck. I could not bear to admit this failure, but it was the elephant in the blogroom. Sitting right on my keyboard in fact! I could scarcely post about other topics without first addressing this. And so I was unable to write anything.

Luckily sense prevailed and I took heart from the advice of a wonderful friend who encouraged me to stick with it, rather than throw up my hands and grab a dinnerplate-sized chocolate-chip cookie. (Thank you, Colleen!) It's been 15 days since I started the ETL program and, following my initial disappointment, I'll admit I have not been 100% faithful to Dr Fuhrman. I have enjoyed larger servings of rice - for instance - than are recommended and I even went out for a beer with My Beloved last weekend. But, in general terms, I have stuck with it about 80%.

And so I am wildly happy to report that today I discovered I have lost 4.5lbs. I have eaten copious amounts of leafy greens, fruits and vegetables, cut back on my coffee intake, eliminated 98% of the processed sweet treats I used to bake (look back at previous posts and you'll see them all!) and generally felt satisfied, clean, balanced and rarely hungry.

I do believe this is going to work!


Coincidentally, I had a check up with my doctor last week who scheduled a routine lipid panel. I haven't mentioned 'The V-Word' to her (I sense she will not share my enthusiasm for this lifestyle) and so I was interested to know what my scores would be. I got them today so here goes:

My total cholesterol is below the norm at 171mg/dL (<200 = 'desirable'), triglycerides are at 53mg/dL (<150 is 'normal'), LDL is down 3 points to 117mg/dL (where 100-129 mg/dL is considered 'Near optimal/above optimal') and HDL is at 48 which is moderate. I guess this last stat could be improved and so I foresee more oatmeal in my future!

I am not being self-congratulatory here as I have a loooooong way to go before I restore my health completely. Thirty-plus years of the standard western diet tend to wreak a degree of havoc that's not quickly overcome.

But these results seemed like an excellent opportunity to bear witness - in specific, scientific, medical terms - to the benefits of our vegan diet. Whilst the ETL program is so new to me as to not influence the above results, I do however attribute this overall success to veganism.

Completely and totally.

So I am once again on my way to becoming the strong, energetic, healthy vegan I **so** want to be. This journey is wildly interesting and I feel I am on an adventure. So I'll be more diligent in the future about sending 'postcards' along the way....

:)

Stay vegan, friends!

I'm not a junkitarian, but still....

I am learning a lot by following Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live plan. There's tons of nutritional advice of course, but I'm also learning about how my other diet compares. I'm beginning to realise that although I cooked pretty much everything from scratch and am definitely not a junkitarian, I was still eating a remarkable amount of processed foods, without even really noticing.

I see now how much bread I usually eat. How much pasta. The vegan cheese in quesadillas and grilled paninis, white flour in the cakes and cookies I bake and write about here. The Gimme Lean sausages and white bread french toast on weekend mornings. And I am quite shocked. In an earlier post Sara was kind in pointing out that the biggest change has already been made - moving from omni to vegan - and that giving up a few processed foods would be easy in comparison. And for the most part she's right, of course. But I do miss the breads - especially the artisanal loaves we usually get from this tiny little independent place where they bake the bread in a wood-fired beehive oven and fetch the loaves out on long wooden spades - and the few convenience foods I used to enjoy.

And I guess the difference here is motivation. When I turned my back on animal products I did so because I could not bear to be a part of the suffering, to support the unconscionable cruelty that pervades the animal exploitation industries.

It was completely for the animals.

Eliminating processed foods from my diet is for me and - although I am motivated to improve my own health and drop the weight - the compulsion is just not as strong.

The ETL food is great - a huge variety of beautiful, colorful fresh fruit and vegetables, some brown rice and a little bread (1 slice in 5 days) and I am enjoying what I do eat. The broccoli and red pepper soup is a standout - I could have eaten the whole panful! And the stew from last night (Day 4) actually had me going back to the stove just to recheck and make absolutely sure nothing was left.

It's just that I am missing what I do not eat. And I am also feeling a bit lost without the comfort of our routine. Fridays, for instance, My Beloved and I frequently go for a pizza (cheese-free for me) and a movie. That will not happen tonight and I am totally clueless as to how to make a Friday evening special without using food. Everything I think of revolves around going out for a meal or winding down from the week over a pint or two in our local brew-pub.

I wonder how many of you can empathise and what you found would help?

Stay Vegan, Friends!