Please
note: There is no paid advertising on this website, any
advertising is for your information to assist you in
making your life as a veggie or vegan easier.
This
website advocates Veganism as the ultimate ideal for
the sake of animals, the planet and personal health.
Nothing will
benefit human health and increase chances for survival
of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a
vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein
Very little of the
great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to
cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or
inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are
not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come
when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness
will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let
us work that this time may come.
Albert Schweitzer
For ease of reading all quotations appear in a
Purple Font
Why should
you go vegetarian or vegan?
Becoming
vegetarian is a matter of thinking differently. Consider
that the majority of people never question the need to
eat meat or have indeed ever even consciously decided to
eat meat, wear wool or leather. Rather, it is simply a
habit, a result of cultural learning and upbringing handed down from generation to
generation by people who have also never questioned the
ethics of or indeed the need to eat meat or consume
or use other animal products. At least not until more recent
times when fortunately more and more people are
questioning the morality of eating meat and exploiting
animals.
Few people know the cruelty behind the vacuumed
wrapped meat bought in the supermarket now
unrecognisable as a once living creature. Few who visit the
Yorkshire Dales and similar places who stop to admire the adorable lambs in
spring and than go on to eat local lamb in the many pubs
and tea rooms in the region consider the incongruity.
Sitting in a pub overlooking a field of tiny lambs they
devour lamb stew without a second thought.
Lets discuss vegetarianism and veganism, what are they
and what is the difference and why is it important to
make a choice and become one or the other, but
preferably vegan.
I am vegan
after being vegetarian for over 16 years, but more later
about why my family and I went veggie. Personally I
now consider becoming vegan as the ultimate goal that will
have the most impact on how animals are treated.
Most people
who have decided not to consume animal products become
vegetarian rather than vegan, at least in the beginning
but as soon as it is known that cows and poultry are
abused in the process of producing milk and eggs
respectively, many people become vegan. More about this
later.
So we will start with an explanation of vegetarianism.
In short a vegetarian is someone who does not eat
meat. Simple enough right? Wrong, many people it seems
have some confusion concerning the words meat and animal, and you will come across people who say they are
vegetarian, but who than go on to tell you that they eat
chicken or fish. Clearly there is some confusion as to
what is an animal and what is a plant. It may seem obvious
to many of us that fish and birds are not plants but
rather they are animals as is also an insect; a silk
worm is an insect, and if you are vegetarian for ethical
reasons rather than health reasons you may not wish to
wear silk( silk worms are boiled alive in their cocoons
to extract the silk), I will discuss this again. So as
you can see vegetarianism is more complex than many
people realise and many
people it seems are confused. If of course you have made
a choice to continue eating fish and poultry this is of
course your prerogative, but you are not strictly
speaking a vegetarian and the term demi vegetarian is
more applicable and is the term that is in common use
concerning the type of diet which includes fish and
poultry. However personally I think that such a diet
has little to do with vegetarianism in any way shape or
form and if you continue to eat fish and poultry you are
still as much an omnivore ( an animal whose diet
consists of both meat and vegetables) as a person who
eats a cow, pig or sheep.
I think the main problem however lies in the confusion
of the word animal rather than a conscious decision to
not consider fish, birds and insects as animals. On the
other hand some people do not consider fish, birds and
insects as
sentient, this misconception I hope to clarify, as in fact birds in
particular are one
of the most obviously sentient of creatures, some of whom have in
the case of crows learned to use tools. Please refer to
the section
Sentience in farm animals
So before
going on to explain vegetarianism lets look briefly at the
difference between a plant and an animal.
For the
last two hundred years In the science of biology all
living things have been divided into two basic
categories or kingdoms: plants and animals. In more
recent times however some biologists distinguish some
different types of organism which seem not to fit into
either category and which need a classification separate
from either plant or animal, such as Fungi and some
single celled organisms and that these should be given
their own separate Kingdom or category. But perhaps
these categories need not really concern us as it is
unlikely, although of course not impossible, that these
organisms are sentient. All we need to realise is
that with a few ambiguous exceptions all livings things are either a plant or an animal.
The basic
and obvious differences between plant and animals are as
follows:
Plant cells
have cell walls composed of a ridged material called cellulose, and other
materials, these cells also have chlorophyll, this is a
light absorbing pigment which makes plants appear green,
it is the means by which plants obtain nutrition in a
process called photosynthesis where sunlight is
converted into energy. Animals cells do not contain
cellulose or chlorophyll, rather animals obtain energy by consuming
and digesting organic substances, food, into an internal
chamber, Stomach, and converting this into energy.
Plants are
generally fixed in one place; such as a tree which is
rooted into the ground. This is of course a
fundamental and an obvious distinction if we consider the
differences between a plant and an animal. Plants unlike
animals do not have a nervous system or sensory organs.
They respond to stimuli but only slowly. Plants grow
continually throughout life and unlike animals have no
maximum size or characteristic form in the adult.
The above
information is only very basic and highlights the more
obvious differences, differences that clearly tell us
that fish, poultry and insects are animals.
Should
anyone need further clarification, fish (cod, salmon,
plaice caviar) , birds (chicken and turkey and duck )
and insects ( bees, silk worms) are animals. If you eat
poultry or fish you are eating meat. Incidentally
beware of pink colouring in food which may be
cochineal which obtained from the carminic acid
produced by some scale insects.
To
reiterate; a
vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat, this
includes the flesh of any animal such as cattle, sheep,
pigs, fish, poultry and insects. Neither do vegetarians eat animal
by products which involve the death of the animal such
as gelatine. Vegetarians will however consume
dairy products - milk, yoghurt and vegetarian cheese,
non vegetarian cheese is made using rennet from a
cow's stomach - and eggs, although most vegetarians tend
to eat free range eggs only. However the ethics of dairy
products and eggs needs to be questioned please refer to:
Animal Rights. Even free range
are not cruelty free;
contrary to what many people believe free range chickens
are, except perhaps in small holdings, often kept in
small cramped living spaces, where disease runs rampant.
Many do not have access to the outside as people
imagine, and moreover these birds are still subjected to
the cruel method of debeaking. They will eventaully of
course be subjected to the terror of transportation to
the slaughter house to meet a bloody death, once
the hen's egg laying rate decreases and they are no longer
profitably viable. Also because male chicks can’t lay eggs
they are for commercial reasons considered useless, and
therefore just like their counterparts on factory farms they
too are killed at
one day old. Few people who buy free range eggs for
ethical reasons are aware of this. This was the reason
why finally after sixteen years as a vegetarian and a
couple of years as a lactose free vegetarian I decided
to become vegan.
Vegetarians do not wear leather, fur,
or wool - most of which
comes from slaughtered
sheep - or silk. Also animal products such as stearic
acid used in the making of candles, Cochineal a red pigment derived from insects and
used as food colouring and other less obvious
commodities are avoided by vegetarians. For more
information about such products in both food and other
commodities please click:
The page cited in
the link above is
meant for caterers but will help you to identify hidden
animal products in prepared food. Access the information
on the left of the caterer's page: Stumbling blocks, E
numbers, Gelling agents, Cheese and rennet, Alcohol.
There are
vegetarian
subcategories, namely: lacto-free vegetarian: A person who
in addition to being a vegetarian does not
consume dairy products but continues to eat eggs. And Ovo free-Vegetarian: A vegetarian who eats eggs but no
dairy products.
What is a vegan?
The human body has no more need for cows' milk
than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes'
milk.
Michael Klaper
The word
Vegan is simply the beginning and the end of the word
vegetarian, it is symbolises the logical conclusion of
the vegetarian ideal of good health and ethical living
with causing the suffering of death of any animal.
The word Vegan was coined in 1944 the UK by by Donald
Watson when The Vegan Society was founded.
A Vegan does not consume any
animal products or their derivatives and therefore, like a vegetarian
a vegan will not eat fish, poultry, cattle, sheep; no
flesh of any kind. However in addition a vegan will not consume,
milk, eggs or honey (if you do not know why honey is not
vegan click here). Like vegetarians vegans do not wear
leather or fur which are of course obviously derivatives
of slaughtered animals. In addition a vegan will
not wear wool or mohair because of the exploitation and usually death
of the animal who provides them,
most wool in fact comes from slaughtered sheep.
Most vegetarians will also abstain from the use of
similar commodities although some vegetarians may still
consider the use of wool as acceptable. Now in my
experience this results from not realising
that most wool is the product of slaughtered sheep,
mostly lambs and
unless it is clearly stated that the wool does not come
from slaughtered sheep it is not possible to tell the
difference so really wool should be avoided by both
vegetarians and vegans alike.
Anyone who is vegan is against
all forms of cruelty and exploitation of animals,
although there may be differences in opinion of what
constitutes cruelty and or exploitation between each
individual vegan. For example some may consider the
keeping of a pet as exploitative for reasons I will
discuss later. As already
stated cruelly and exploitation includes not only
the most obvious cruelty of rearing animals for
their meat but also for clothing and
other items : wool, leather, silk, ( silk worms are
boiled alive in their cocoons to extract the silk)
candles (tallow, fat from sheep or cattle although
nowadays stearic acid is used but mostly this is of
animal origin) to name just a few of the more obvious.
The slaughtering of animals for food and experimentation
on animals for cosmetic and medical research being
perhaps the ultimate cruelty. Exploitation of animals
includes the use of animals for labour or sport: such as
in sport, horse racing or riding and grey hound racing
and hunting, setting one animal against another for
sport such as fox hunting; for labour, for example rats used in Africa to detect unexploded mines:BBC: sniffer rats in Africa to detect mines,
sheep dogs referred to in farming circles, and
incidentally by the RSPCA, as working dogs are but two
examples of animals used for labour. Some may also
consider the keeping of pets and the abuses that arise
from this such as puppy mills as being unethical and may
consider that no animal should be subjected to any
interference by man. However there are no hard and fast
rules and it is all a matter of ones conscience, world
view, religious or personal considerations and these
tend to change over time as you can see from my own
personal account.
Some of the considerations above may apply also to
vegetarians.
However concerning diet as we
have already seen there
are clear differences. To reiterate a vegan endeavours to exclude from his diet any item
of food derived from an animal. Which similar to
vegetarians includes meat of course but in addition a
vegan does not eat any dairy products, - milk, cheese,
butter yoghurt, eggs or honey.
Watch this very poignant video:
The Philosophy of Vegan Values: The Practice of
Non-Violence
Why go veggi or vegan?
People become vegetarian or vegan for a number of
reasons: most importantly it is ethical; it is good for
animals, the planet, and ultimately for humans. Other
reasons may include less serious considerations: It is healthier, you loose weight,
its fashionable, although the last consideration rarely
results in a long term commitment to vegetarianism or
veganism.
Whatever your personal motivation,
vegetarianism and preferably veganism is most certainly
much better for you and most certainly better for the
animals and the planet. It is the last two concerns that
for me personally are the reasons why I gave up eating
meat or using any animal product in any form.
I am vegan for ethical reasons,
See Our Story.
Eighteen years ago after becoming increasingly aware that
the eating of meat was in simple terms wrong and an inhumane act against
others sentient creatures I became vegetarian; and than
about three years ago I became a lactose free vegetarian
once I understood the truth about the dairy industry and
the cruel treatment of dairy cows; and just a
year or so ago finally I became vegan after becoming aware
of the cruel treatment of so called free range poultry.
The progression from vegetarian to vegan was slow simply
due to my ignorance concerning the treatment of cattle
and poultry to produce milk and eggs, I hope for you the
progression is more rapid. One of the reasons for the
creation of this website is to inform others of the
dreadful cruelty of factory farming not only in the
production of meat but also milk and eggs.
Reasons to go vegetarian or vegan
It is ethical, compassionate, caring, just
and
humane.
Animals like us feel pain,
there is no denying this and that is why there are laws
to protect animals against
obvious acts of cruelty; even if these laws are
inadequate the laws that do exist, exist because we know
without a doubt that an animal feels pain. It
simply cannot be denied that animals feel pain
and have the same capacity to suffer as do we. Animals
are sentient creatures, and
therefore require the same consideration as human
beings. Please refer to :
sentience in
farm animals
Animal Rights.
But for the sake of some
little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun
and light, and of that proportion of life and time it
had been born into the world to enjoy.
Plutarch
Here in the UK over 800 million
farm animals die each year, 48 billion world wide,
eight times the earth's population and countless millions of
fish. Fish is the most traded animal commodity in the
world, with about 100 million tons of wild and farmed
fish sold each year. I find it abhorrent that living
creatures are measured in weight as though they are a
commodity, as a ton of flour, rather than individuals.
Farm animals prior to meeting an untimely death in the slaughter house live wretched lives on factory farms,
ridden with disease, confined in cramped conditions (
battery hens kept five to a cage
no bigger than a microwave)
never seeing the light of day nor ever feeling the
warmth of the sun on their backs. Moreover farm animals
are often subjected to cruel treatments: such as tail
docking in pigs and sheep. In addition many are fed
growth hormones. Most are prematurely killed, male ram lambs
and calves are killed
a day or two after birth unless required for breeding
purposes. The above is just a few of the horrors to which
farm animals are subjected. For more information about cruelty to farm animals please click
Animal rights
Furthermore in recent years I
have seen kangaroo and ostrich burgers for sale! In one
cafe wild boar! And In Glastonbury nonetheless! Can you
believe it, is there no animal to escape the insatiable
appetites of meat eaters. While one can appreciate that
many people eat cattle, sheep, poultry and pigs habitually surely
any sensitive thinking person must at least question the
inclusion of such animals as kangaroo and Ostrich on the
menu and as a result begin to consider the ethics of eating the
flesh of any creature.
Becoming veggie or vegan will
help to bring an end to these cruel and barbarous
treatments of our fellow creatures.
“Slaughterhouses should be in
restaurants and grocery stores. They
should have a glass wall so people
must see the animals and choose.
Look into the animal’s eyes and say,
“OK, slit his throat.”
Rain forests are still being felled to graze
hamburger cattle. Going vegan saves one acre of forest
every year.
Cornell University
Whole tracts of forest are
cleared for grazing, one of the reasons that one
and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second.
That is over 200,000 acres each and everyday!
"Experts
estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and
insect species every single day due to rainforest
deforestation."
Rainforest Facts
Methane from live
stock causes global warming. The erosion
of soil by cattle and the contamination of water by
slurry are further detriments along with the general
processing techniques of the meat industry. Over grazing
of live stock is causing deforestation. I personally
find this concept confusing and we need to be careful
here how we react to such as these environmental
problems should not imply that cattle as a whole are a detriment
and should not exist. No it is simply the
exploitation and over breeding of cattle to provide meat
and milk that is the problem; a source of food which we do not need in order to thieve,
in fact meat and other animal products are a detriment
to health. Furthermore every animal on the planet ceases
to consume milk after weaning except humans, it is
neither healthy nor natural. In their natural
state cattle are like any other
animal simply part of the environment and have as much
right to exist as any other creature. All creatures
impact in some way on the environment and have always
done so. Imagine the problems dinosaurs generated, the huge and
veracious herbivores must have laid waste to whole
swathes of land. However of course they probably did not
exist in such proliferation as to become a serious
detriment which threatened the survival of the whole eco
systems. It is man's interference with nature and enforced
breeding of live stock that has resulted in the
potential destructive consequences mentioned above.
Nonetheless these problems should not imply that it would
be in order to cull these animals but rather in the
future to allow animals to exist in their own indigenous
habitats, to breed,
graze and have a natural impact on the environment. I am
of the opinion that the earth is self-regulating to some
degree and it is only man's interference that has resulted in
nature's inability to bring about such self regulation.
Not only upon land of course
has man's interference with nature and his insatiable
need to consume meat impacted unfavourably, man has also
caused devastation to our oceans and water ways. From
lakes and rivers to the vast oceans of the entire world
the disastrous effects of over fishing and other
activities such as pollution has resulted in the
extinction or significant decrease in populations of
many species. This not only threatens the survival of
many species of fish but also threatens to wreak havoc
with entire ecosystems. For example fishing is
threatening the world’s populations of whales, dolphins
and porpoises, tuna, plaice, monkfish and cod. Other
creatures adversely effected as a result of fishing
include, birds, seals, turtles, mink and otters. Coral
reefs and aquatic plants are similarly effected.
For more information refer to information included in
the following
link to the Vegetarian society's website
The Vegetarian Society - vegetarians don't eat fish -
fish facts1
I consider that the
greatest problem concerning the planet is man's
inference with the natural evolution of all creatures
and none more so of course than in factory farming or the depletion of sea
creatures for food. Such activities create an
imbalance, a chain reaction that disturbs the whole
ecosystem. Perhaps if nature where left to her own
devices and her animals left unmolested, unexploited and
not interfered with, such as selective breeding, the
outcome of the aforementioned natural activities of
grazing and the prolific production of methane, which is
of course produced by all living creatures, would be less dramatic and would
in time balance out.
Way back in the time of ancient
Greece many Greeks, including Plato, recommended a vegetarian diet
for ethical or practical reasons. Plato believed that a
vegetarian diet made good economic sense because it
required less land than animal husbandry to produce
food.
If anyone
wants to save the planet , all they have to do is to
stop eating meat. That's the most important single thing
you can do. It's staggering when you think about
it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one
shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.
Paul MaCartney
The fact is that
there is enough food in the world for everyone. But
tragically, much of the world's food and land resources
are tied-up in producing beef and livestock-food for the
well-off, while millions of children and adults suffer
from malnutrition and starvation. -
Dr. Walden Bello,
executive director of Food First, Institute for Food and
Development Policy.
There is enough plant food
available on this planet to feed everyone yet 750,000
people go hungry everyday, every five seconds one child dies from
hunger. The annual UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) report says, present levels of hunger cause the
death of more than five million children a year.
One third of the world's
grain goes to feed animals, the food from which goes to
feed only about a third of the people on the planet of
six billion. Consider : The amount of
vegetable protein fed to the US beef herd would feed
almost the entire populations of India and China. If
animals where allowed to live out their natural lives,
in their own environments, left to breed and graze in
the way that nature intended, land used to feed animals
breed to an unnatural proliferation could be utilised to
directly feed people, with the result that there would be
enough food to feed everyone. Without the interference
of man, particularly concerning factory, farming animal's
would not in nature breed to the huge numbers that there are
today.
...the world produces more than
enough plant food to meet the needs of all its six
billion people. If people used land to grow crops to
feed themselves, rather than feeding crops to animals,
then there would be enough to provide everyone with the
average of 2360 Kcal (calories) needed for good health.
For more information concerning
this issue please read the article Feed the world from
which the above quotation came;
The beef industry
has contributed to more American deaths than all the
wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all
automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of
"real food for real people" you'd better live real close
to a real good hospital.
Neal Barnard
When we kill the animals to
eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh,
which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never
intended for human beings.
William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal
of Cardiology
Although for me personally this
is the least important of considerations, but if it
persuades people to stop consuming meat and other animal
products than this is as a good as reason as any to go
veggie or vegan. And health is an important issue is it
not. Most certainly when you are ill, health seems of
vital importance. A meat free diet is the healthier
option and prevents the occurrence of many diseases
which are prevalent in the population, particularly here
in the west, such as heart disease, hypertension,
obesity, (growth hormones in meat which make the
animal produce more fat are also likely to have the same
effect when the animal's meat is eaten and is
quite likely one of the main reasons for an escalation
in obesity in recent years) certain cancers, it
is a fact that 25 to 30 per cent less vegetarians suffer with cancer,
and diabetes to name just a few. Vegetarians/vegans
are less likely to suffer strokes. Ninety five percent
of food poisoning results from the consumption of meat.
Included in his website my son
has written a thought provoking article: Meat = Death
The insanity of the 'traditional' diet
essay-meat=death
Finally consider: Your lamb chop, steak
or beef burger, pork chop, sausages, roast or chicken curry once
looked like this
Recognize
meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and
pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal.
Ingrid Newkirk
Still not convinced ?
Watch this very disturbing video from PETA
(people for the ethical treatment of animals)
Meet your Meat: "The video that all meat-eaters
should watch and every vegetarian should own,
"Meet Your Meat", narrated by Alec Baldwin,
covers each stage of life of animals raised for
food. No PETA videos are copyrighted, so copy
them for everyone you know."
So now hopefully you have made the
decision to become vegetarian or vegan what should you
do, what can you
eat, what food should you avoid. For ideas and
information about becoming vegetarian or vegan please
click:
Please
note: There is no paid advertising on this website, any
advertising is for your information to assist you in
making your life as a veggie or vegan easier.
"PETA US formed in
1980 in the United States and has more than 2 million
members and supporters, making it the largest animal
rights organisation in the world.
PETA US and PETA Europe are dedicated to establishing
and protecting the rights of all animals."
Also the above have
many campaigns in which you can participate.
A comprehensive
list of useful websites advocating veganism and
vegetarianism, including both the vegetarian and Vegan
societies and information about similar societies around
the world, may be found here on this website:
So you want to go Vegan/Vegi
Important please note:
I am not an
animal expert of any kind just your average person who
loves animals, all animals, and feels deeply about the
plight of many of our fellow creatures. Neither am I a
writer, or any other expert. Therefore please keep in
mind that the information included in this website has
been researched to the best of my ability and any
misinformation is quite by accident but of course
possible.
