Hatchery

take a look at this and then give me five reasons why anyone should eat eggs



actually, just give me one good reason to use eggs in cooking... what's that you're saying? grass fed and free range? and what do you suppose happens with male chicks in the so-called free range farms? oh, right! they get an early retirement plan on endless green and sunny fields, just like the cows that can't give milk any more. and flowers and rainbows and unicorns...

The Problem With Bottled Water

this is a trailer for a film called Tapped about water commodification. why do we still keep taking water for granted?

I Will Never Give Up

One Week Into The Transition

It has already been a week since I started my transition. And I must say I'm feeling good, no real detox syndromes what so ever! So what have I been up to during this first week?

First of all I discovered – to my great satisfaction – that there is a gym-person hidden deep down inside me, which is pretty amusing. Yes, I went to the gym, did some dancing and even went to my first-ever meditational yoga class. I really need to start working on that one and hopefully I'll be able to concentrate a lot better in no time.

I won't hide that there were also some difficult moments throughout the week. For example ignoring the bad old habit of eating bread when I'm at work. It's not easy just because it's right there under my nose and I always used to nibble on it a bit. Freshly baked baguette still smells good and tempting, plus my hand is so used to reaching out for it. So I thought about the fact that all the ingredients in that bread are quite useless to my body anyway and had some nuts and fruit in stead. Plus I read an interesting article on how we tend to crave more of the aliments that are already fermenting in our system. For example the yeast that we consume from bread needs to feed off yeast and quick sugars in order to sustain itself inside our body. That is why the more you eat it the more you "need" it. Have you ever noticed that you can not stop after just a tiny bit of bread, that you want one more slice and then one more? So we are no longer in charge of our needs, it's the yeast inside us. Same thing for coffee and many other things. (source) Sounds a good enough reason for me to stop craving!

The second difficulty sometimes comes up in the evenings when I find myself all alone and deprived of communication. I do have many internet sites to read from and many podcasts to listen to on the raw subjects, as well as countless recipes to try out... But no (vegan) friends who could even remotely relate to the subject and with whom I could share my little joys and rants. In stead I feel that I'll have to justify my choices or that I'll annoy my omnivorous friends with my incomprehensible raw stories. I now realize how important it really is to have a community of raw people for support.

This lonely feeling obviously makes me grab for food and crave for something sweet. So one evening I improvised this really quick and easy desert by taking some ground almonds and a bit of walnuts and mixing them with about the same volume of soaked soft dates (the recipes usually advise using date paste, but I added a couple of prunes in stead), then rolling the dough-like mixture in almond powder in order to avoid stickiness. That makes a pretty nice sugar- and fat-free desert.

During this week I've seen, heard and read a lot of new and interesting things. For example I watched the documentary "Crazy Sexy Cancer" where the young and beautiful Kris Carr fights cancer with raw food.

I also heard a very interesting interview with Philip Mcluskey on the We Like it Raw podcast about how he lost over 60kg, avoiding a gastric bypass surgery, by switching to a raw food diet. Check out the before and after photos on his website, he's rather a hotty.

Right now I'm reading a book called "The Raw Foods Bible" by Dr Craig B Sommers and it is fascinating – filled with interesting and useful material that I would like to share on this blog. So coming up soon...

Raw Vegan 3-Week Transition

It has been nine months since I decided to go vegan. And already then I got a bit familiar with the idea of raw foodism and was persuaded that this was the way to go - the very best way of eating and living. But at that time it had still seemed a faraway goal, quite complicated and frightening. Which is all very normal since the first steps of going vegan also seemed a bit intimidating and very exciting. It was a lot to handle for a beginner, especially being the only vegan I know in this town (and in this country actually), I simply wasn't ready to take on the raw adventure.

By now the whole vegan thing has become just so natural that I'm only rarely reminded of it, for example when friends ask me to go eat French food in a restaurant with them (which basically means that the only vegan option on the menu will be the wine and even that is doubtful). Or when I see people eating their jambon-fromage sandwiches and wearing fur and leather coats in the streets... Most of the time I completely forget about it so that it starts seeming unnatural to me that I can not get non-dairy latté or milkshakes or vegan pizza when I'm out on town. How is it possible, I catch myself thinking, that no-one provides it when it is all so easy to make and all the substitutes are completely available?!

So lately I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading things on the internet that have made me think about raw foodism again. But let me explain a bit about what raw foodism is:

Vegan raw foodism is a lifestyle promoting the consumption of un-cooked, un-processed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet (I'd say at least 75%). Typical foods include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouted grains and legumes that have not been heated over 40°C. Heating food destroys the enzymes, which assist in the digestion of foods and are known to be the "life force" of food. Researches prove that cooking not only destroys nutrition and enzymes, but chemically changes foods from the substances needed for health into free-radicals and poisons that render food unrecognisable to the organism and therefore toxic. Living and raw foods have enormously higher nutrient values than the foods that have been cooked. There are several different subcategories of raw foodists like fruitarians, sproutarians,  juicearians, but I prefer regarding the subject in a general manner for now.
As raw foodists claim all over the web, after an initial detox where the body ejects all the toxins that had been stored during all the years of eating cooked, follow the great benefits like weight loss, higher energy levels, clearer skin, overall improved health and many more. Soon the body will require much less food than before because everything it gets is alive and thus much fuller of energy. Eventually the organism starts regulating its needs a lot more efficiently by craving only the foods that contain the nutrients it is running low on.

All this sounds super great to me, although this is only the very surface of raw foodism. It is far from being just a diet; it is a whole lifestyle and a way of thinking. For example, as I see it, it also includes a more conscious and spiritual way of regarding life, the universe and everything: being more aware of myself and my surroundings, living in greater harmony with nature...

I will be posting updates and thoughts as I go through my transition, as well as links and further information on raw food during the next three weeks. Hoping that the detox period will pass quickly and that my addiction to cooked foods (it might sound like I'm over-dramatizing it but believe me, we really are addicted to cooked food just as we can be to nicotine, alcohol, sugar, cheese etc.) will pass without huge withdrawal cravings.

I've survived the fist two days pretty well, making myself a yummy eggplant lasagne, listening to Raw Vegan Radio podcasts (if you are interested in this subject I really advise you to listen to this episode) and being encouraged by Jenna Norwood's experience (hey, if she did it, why can't I)...

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Raw Vegan Eggplant Lasagne

• 1 medium to large eggplant (aubergine)
  
• 2 cups of water
  
• 1/4 cup nama shoyu, or tamari sauce
  
• 1 tsp. sea salt

Peel the eggplant and cut it thinly lengthwise. Marinate in water, nama shoyu, or tamari sauce and sea salt for at least 3 hours, and up to 12 hours - the longer the better. Dry the eggplant slices with a paper towel. 

Tomato sauce:

• 1 cup (cherry) tomatoes
• 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes (soaked for 1-2 hrs)
• 1 tsp. tomato concentrate
• 2 dates (soaked for 2 hrs), or some agave syrup
• 3 tbs. olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3 tbs. fresh parsley, 1 pinch fresh oregano,
1 handful fresh basil,
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp. sea salt 
  

Blend everything together, add the soaking water from tomatoes for better consistancy if necessary.

Cheese sauce:

• 1/3 cup tahini (sesame purée), or chickpea purée
  
• 1/3 cup olive oil (I used half of it and half of water)
  
• 2 Tbs. nama shoyu, or tamari sauce (unless the tahini is already well salted)
  
• a pinch of tumeric powder (curcuma) or light curry powder for the extra zing

Mix together in a bowl until smooth.

You'll also need about 2 cups of shredded zucchini (courgette). Create different layers, alternating: tomato sauce, eggplant, cheese sauce, shredded zucchini, tomato sauce, etc. Finish with shredded zucchini, and decorate with a few thin slices of red onion. (source)

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For more information check out also:

Steve Pavlina's 30-day raw food diet trial

The Living and Raw Foods F.A.Q.s

Raw foods educator Angela Stokes talks about how to survive food cravings

The Easiest And Healthiest Homemade Ice Cream

This is just so good that I must share. We all have had times when we have too many bananas lying around at home and they start getting all mushy and black and not tasty. Well, from now on I always buy more bananas than I can eat without worrying about having to throw them away. Why? It's very simple: as soon as your bananas start getting too ripe and ugly, just peel them, put inside a tupperware and into your freezer. After only a couple of hours they will make a nice popstickle that melts in your mouth. But to make even better use of the frozen goodness just blend them together with some non-dairy milk. I used one banana and about half a cup of soymilk for one portion and added some agave syrup for the extra sweetness. But you can also add a tiny bit of vanilla extract or a spoonfull of cacao powder for that chocolate ice cream effect. It's quick, dairy-free, sugar-free and absolutely delicious raw ice cream. Enjoy!

Male Violence Against Women: some numbers

Worldwide, male violence against women is the cause of more deaths and disability around the world in 15 to 44 year-olds than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war, COMBINED.

In Europe, more women are killed or injured by domestic violence than by cancer or road accidents. The council of Europe has stated that domestic violence is the biggest cause of disability for all women aged 16 to 44.

In the UK, one in four women experience domestic violence in their lifetime and between 1 in 8 to 1 in 10 experience it annually.

Less than half of all incidents are reported to the police, but they still receive a domestic violence call every minute in the UK.

Women are ten times more likely to be victimised by an intimate.

In the US, a woman is beaten every 18 minutes. In Peru, 70% of all crimes reported involve women beaten by their husbands. In Russia, one woman in five is regularly beaten by her partner. In India and Bangladesh, women are killed or burned with acid for not bringing enough dowry into their husband's family when they marry.

At least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime, according to a study based on fifty surveys from around the world.

The world health organization has reported that up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.

Worldwide in 2006, 70% of the casualties in conflicts were non-combatants, most of them women and children.

Systematic rape is used as a weapon of terror in many of the world's conflicts. It is estimated that between 250 000 to 500 000 women in Rwanda were raped during the 1994 genocide.

30% of the people in the UK think that violence against women is OK and 50% think that domestic violence should be kept behind closed doors.

These statistics were presented in The Angry Hippies Podcast, episode n° 20.

Channa Masala and Veganniversary Despite Everything

Today is a special day. Today I feel good even though I watched "We Feed The World" yesterday and it made me feel desperately small, hopeless and helpless. Even though I listened to another ranty Angry Hippie's podcast, which was about "Bullshitatarians" whom I've myself had to encounter on several occasions lately and who have only had a rather frustrating effect on my optimism. Even though some of my closest friends refuse to even try to understands my reasons for leading a vegan lifestyle, let alone support it. Even though reading the new post on the Peaceful Prairie Blog made me cry again (tears of delight, of hope, of being moved to the bottom of my heart by the simple beauty of life that is of such strong will, but so neglected by us). Even though I am still forced to share my dinner table with sausage-munching and dead-chicken-limb gnawing individuals. Even though my own mother still probably thinks I'm going through somekind of a phase or that I am part of some sinister sect. Even though my temporary flat mates had already cooked something by the time I got home ignoring the fact that I was supposed to make a special meal for them tonight. Even though they first invited me to eat with them and then discovered there was nothing vegan on their menu, so I could not join them unless I wanted to end up chewing on bread and watching them devour dead bodies...

Despite all that I am feeling good today because it is my 6-month veganniversary. A tiny mile-marker in view of many more to come and that I wish to celebrate serenely.

For this occasion I am making the wonderful Channa Masala (a huge shout-out and thank you to Dino here!) even though I'll end up eating it alone (that leaves more for me!). And to all the countless people who have asked me in the past six months and who are yet to ask me in the years to come this perpetual question: "what DO you eat??": this recipe is for you. Trust me, it is easy to make. Try it while listening to the last episode (n° 101) of Vegan Freak Radio or the episode n° 6 of Satisfy The Mind and I assure you that many more of your potential questions shall be answered.

CHANNA MASALA (Annu's style)

Take a large skillet or a saucepan, put it on heat and pour in cooking oil (sunflower, canola, peanut oil or whatever you have lying around. And don't be stingy!) Let it get very hot, then throw in about a teaspoon-full of cumin seeds, let them start popping and then add about as much crushed coriander seeds. As the popping gets crazier, throw in one chopped onion and a head of crushed garlic (or more if you love them as much as I do), add some grated ginger and let them get soft in the oil.

As soon as they're nice and soft, add about 1/2-1 ts of tumeric (curcuma) powder. Then throw in almost-cooked-through potatoes cut into cubes and the pre-cooked chickpeas (in about the same proportions). You can use canned chickpeas or cook them yourself in salty water for about 1,5h after having soaked them overnight. Shortly after that add some finely chopped tomatoes as well as about 2-3 tbs of tomato paste/concentrate (after heating it for a minute or two on a separate little pan). You might also want to keep the tasty liquid of your cooked chickpeas and add it to make everything juicier. Or add some tomato sauce or vegetable broth. Let it simmer on medium to small heat until it looks something like a slightly thick stew. When it's almost done cooking, add the very last bit of taste with garam masala spice-mix. No worries in case you don't have it - you can very well replace it by mixing together a little of cinnamon, clove and ground nutmeg (muscade). Add salt and pepper (or even something hotter!) according to your taste and serve with rice or pita bread or whatever else you want. And don't forget: don't be afraid to improvise!

Bon appetit and happy vegalienation and veganniversation and de-channamasalation!

Some More Products of Animal Slavery (Vol. 2)

WOOL

Many people believe that shearing sheep helps animals who would otherwise be burdened with too much wool. The truth is that without human interference, sheep grow just enough wool to protect themselves from temperature extremes. In Australia, sheep are specifically bred to grow excess wool and to have wrinkly skin, which means more wool per animal. The idea that taking wool does not harm the sheep is comforting mythology. Most shearers are paid on a piece rate and not by the hour, which encourages extremely fast work (“gun shearers” can spend as little as 2 minutes per sheep) and many animals end up being severely injured in the process. Besides that, young lambs’ tails are chopped off not long after birth and the males are castrated without anesthesia.

Australian ranchers perform a barbaric operation called "mulesing" where they, without any painkillers whatsoever, slice chunks of flesh from around the animals’ tail area. This is done to cause smooth, scarred skin that prevents flies from hatching eggs between the warm moist skin wrinkles. Ironically, the exposed, bloody wounds themselves often get flystrike before they heal, so mulesing may kill more sheep than it saves, but it still continues. After the operation, lambs can be seen writhing over the ground on their sides, trying to escape the pain.

Once the sheep are no longer producing prime wool, they are shipped to slaughter to the Middle East or North Africa. Only about 17% survive the enduring weeks- or months-long journey through all weather extremes on crowded and disease-ridden ships with little access to food or water, only to be killed at their arrival.

Even though sheep’s wool is the most commonly spread, there are also other sorts of wool like angora, cashmere, mohair or alpaca that all involve similar violence and abuse. As for “cutting” the wool out, there are plenty of lighter and less itchy alternatives out there, including cotton flannel, polyester fleece, nylon, acrylic, orlon, Tencel (breathable and biodegradable) or Polartec Wind Pro (made from recycled plastic bottles with four times the wind resistance of wool).

SILK

The silkworm produces a fine thread by making a figure-eight movement some 300,000 times over several days, constructing a cocoon to inhabit in a state of sleep and casting off its skin. After this the pupa begins the period which would normally result in transformation into a winged moth. However, the pupa would normally begin to secrete an alkali that eats its way through the cocoon — ruining someone’s future silk suit. Therefore, as the cocoons take shape, the silkworms are killed by heat: immersed in boiling water, oven-dried, electrocuted or microwaved.

The silk production terminology - stifled for killed and crop for pupae - echoes the denial that we are dealing with living creatures which are awe inspiring when one considers their metamorphic life-cycle

Plant fibers are capable of producing some great silk alternatives. For example, fibers from the pineapple, silk-cotton tree or milkweed seed pods may be made into fabrics as strong and lustrous as any silk. Synthetic fibers like nylon, polyester (Terylene, Dacron) or acrylic (Courtelle, Orlon, Dralon) also have their qualities.

DOWN

Down, the soft feathers from the breasts of geese and ducks, is either plucked from birds slaughtered for food or from forcibly restrained live animals. Either way, they live miserable lives, packed by masses in confinement inside large warehouses. Birds who undergo live de-feathering may be plucked every six weeks - up to five times during their short painful lives.

The down industry is directly linked to the meat and foie gras production, so the cruelty that ducks and geese endure is as horrifying as for any other factory farmed animal. Let me just derive from the subject fot a little bit and use the opportunity to show you this video on foie gras:

Meant to keep the birds and their eggs warm, down feathers are commonly used in pillows, jackets and comforters, for which it can take the feathers of dozens and dozens of birds to fill. So why rob these millions of birds bare naked if we don't really need down anyway? In fact, hypoallergenic synthetic down, polyester fill, Primaloft or Polarguard may even probably end up weighing less on your wallets, not talking about your consciousness.

And do I even have to mention the use of fur and leather? If you hesitated with answering that then why haven't you still seen the "Earthlings"? It's too scary and sad and revolting? Then go see the wonderful, beautiful film produced by Tribe of Heart called "The Witness" and take a look at this while you're at it.

Some More Products of Animal Slavery (Vol. 1)

First of all let me start by reviewing the basics. In 1944, Donald Watson created the term "vegan" and gave it the following definition:

Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals.

Bearing this in mind, I’d like to go through all the products that, as soon as I mention my not consuming them, make even the most vegan-tolerant people mostly go "Huuuh? But whyyyyy!?" and roll their eyes behind my back…

 

HONEY

It is not a question of whether bees are intelligent or not. They are obviously amazing creatures in many different ways: able to communicate on several different levels (odor, sound, movement, etc.), they have an incredible skill of orientation, covering over 100 km² per colony and always finding the straightest way back to the hive; they are the hardest workers and their society is extremely well organized. (Watch this for example).

It is not a question of whether they can or can not feel pain. Although I’d like to remind you that bees, as all living creatures, have a complex nervous system as well as the ability to move in order to avoid harm (which you must have noticed if you have ever come across one of them and tried to slap them away). It is not only an evidence of common sense and logic but has also been researched in scientific studies.

 

The real ethical problem is in the simple fact that humans have enslaved bees, using them uniquely for our own benefit. Now, there are many misleading general perceptions on the way beekeeping is organized. Firstly – most honey is not produced at sweet little flowery farms, but in huge industrialized factory farms. Secondly – people do kill bees and not only by getting stung. In fact, beekeepers kill their queens and replace them by new ones coming from commercial suppliers every one or two years in order to maintain control over the hive and to keep honey production at maximum. Even worse – some bee farmers kill off their hives before every winter because it is more profitable for their income.

Contrarily to what we might expect, bees are not domesticated and if given the opportunity they could abscond (the entire colony leaves) or swarm (they raise a new queen and divide the hive in half to leave and form a new colony somewhere else). But bees cannot leave even if they wanted to because beekeepers control their queens and capture the swarming colonies to bring them back. Even during fall and winter a mouse guard is placed in front of the hive entrance.

”Beekeepers are continuing an ancient tradition," one might say in their defense. Think again: the hives used in bee farming today were invented only 150 years ago and are specially designed for large-scale honey extraction. These methods are therefore radically different from those created thousands of years ago and have nothing in common with beekeeping methods that emphasize humility, respect and being part of nature as opposed to managing nature for human gain as our capitalist order dictates.

"They only take the excess honey that bees produce," some claim. Actually, all beekeepers take nearly every last bit of spring-season honey. And according to James E. Tew, an Extension Specialist in Apiculture: "Commercial beekeepers frequently extract [read: steal] all fall-season honey and then feed colonies either sugar syrup or corn syrup in quantities great enough to provide all the winter food the bees would need." But anyone in their right mind can guess that honey is not just some random sweet sticky stuff that bees like to eat – it is their natural food that contains just the right amount of fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals that their bodies need to function and that they will not get from plain sugar water. Just like infants need their mother's milk and not the milk produced by a mom of another species... 

Bees are also used for other byproducts such as beeswax for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, polishes, and candles; royal jelly (that some people believe has youth-preserving qualities) and venom, sought for medicinal purposes. All this does not mean that vegans are left without any thick sweet and sticky yummy stuff to spread over our vegan pancakes or to add into our vegan cookies. There are numerous plant-based honey alternatives out there including Agave nectar, Maple syrup, Barley Malt syrup and many more. You can find plenty of information on honey alternatives and vegan honey recipes here.

And if you are sick and tired of all these "vegangelical" and hard to digest facts about bees, I encourage you to go and see the "Bee Movie" which is light and funny and sweetly sincere regarding many points of the bee-being.

More About the Fish

To all you fish-eating "vegetarians" out there:

How It All Vegan

Now that the first basic steps have been taken, I think it's time to explain a bit why the hell I'm writing all this, in a word - how it all vegan... So today I did this little something in order to celebrate my two-month "veganiversary". And who knows, maybe this story about a new beginning also marks a startingpoint for a long tradition of more talking and less writing... you never know ;)

HERE you have the possibility to subscribe for the upcoming "podcasts" (just click on the RSS icon) or download the audio source directly to your computer.

The links to pretty much everything I talk about here are available on the sidebar and in my older posts (steps 1 & 2).

Step Five (Death in Dairy)

The ethical problems behind dairy are probably of the least obvious ones in the consideration of an average omnivorous or vegetarian consumer. Especially for those who - like me - were used to seeing cows happily munching away the grass and lying in the sun on the green pastures when they were kids. Drinking milk and consuming milk products is encrusted in our cultural mind as something so very natural that we don't give it any thought at all, nor do we question the ways that this stuff gets onto our table. But is it not a least bit troubling that humans are the only animals who drink the milk of another species and do so far beyond infancy..?
That being said, it is even more troubling to realize how little we actually know or care about milk production (and I'm speaking from my personal experience here).

The fact is that cows (or goats, sheep or any other animal we use for their milk) do not naturally produce milk non-stop throughout their whole life just because their stomachs turns grass into the white liquid and because people "help and alleviate the burden" by milking them.* Milk is not nature's or animals' gift to humans. (Is anything?)

As all the other mammals on earth (including us), they naturally produce milk for a period of time after giving birth in order to feed their young. Thus, to maximize milk production and the farm’s profits, cows are artificially re-inseminated shortly after giving birth over and over again. Dairy cows are deliberately bred to produce ten times more milk than a calf would naturally drink. This and the continuous pregnancies put an enormous strain on the young cows’ bodies, often resulting in udder tumors, infections and breakdown. As soon as their milk production declines – at about 4-5 years of age – dairy cows are sent to slaughter, even though they would normally live for over 20 years. Their bodies are so bruised and exhausted by the time they arrive to slaughter that the meat can only be ground up for use in burgers.

Most cows never get to nurse their little ones – calves are separated from their mothers at only few days of age. Female calves are added to the dairy herd or slaughtered for the rennet in their stomachs that is used to make cheese. Male calves are either slaughtered at birth, raised for beef or sold to veal farms, where they will spend the remaining few months of their fleetingly brief lives in confinement (in tiny individual cradles where they can never turn around nor lie down) and darkness, fed an iron-deficient diet in order to keep their flesh pale. That is why, even after refusing to eat any meat, but by continuing to consume dairy, we are directly supporting the cruelty of the meat industry.

The processes are roughly the same whether it is an industrial farm or an organic (bio) farm. I deeply encourage you to read this beautiful letter posted by the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary to take a little glimpse at the faces of organic and free-range farming.

*This may sound exaggeratingly stupid to many, but it was more or less the image I had before I started digging into those questions.

Step Four (What's Wrong With Eggs?)

Besides the obvious fact that eggs are chicken-embryos? Well, let's see...

Battery eggs:

A huge majority of eggs come from factory farms. Egg laying hens are packed by 5 to 11 into small battery cages of about 40cm (the wing range of an adult chicken is twice this size). Their wings and legs atrophy from disuse, and their legs and feet become deformed from standing on wire cage bottoms. The tip of their beak, full of sensitive nerve endings, is seared off in order to prevent them from injuring each other and thereby obliterating the farmer's financial investment.

When their egg production drops, hens are deprived of water and food for up to 14 days at a time in order to shock their bodies into a period of increased laying. This extremely cruel practice, called “forced molting,” causes birds to lose their feathers and a significant percentage of their body weight, many birds die from hunger and dehydration.

After a year or two of being treated as egg producing machines, their output decreases and hens are sent for slaughter. They are so battered and emaciated by then that their meat can only be used in companion-animal food, instant soups or pasties and pies where the pathetic condition of their bodies will not put consumers off their meal.

Male chicks are worthless to the egg industry - they do not lay eggs nor grow fast enough to be raised profitably for flesh. Thus the egg industry kills millions of newborn male chicks every year by suffocating them to death in trash bags or by dropping them alive into high-speed grinders and then feeding them to the chicken.

Now you might say "yeah well that's just in the US, but the situation is much better in Europe!". Think again. Eggs = food = profit anywhere in the world. It is true that the European Union is planning to ban all the battery cages by 2012, but we are not there just yet. The Estonian company TallEgg has "battery eggs" written all over it. Indeed - the problem is not abstractly "elsewhere", it is right here inside our omlets and our mousse au chocolat.

Free-range eggs:

Free-range is not a legal industry term; therefore it basically means nothing. It is used by farmers to imply a more humane way of production, but in reality there is no regulation regarding how the word is interpreted. Thus, to most producers this merely means a bigger cage.

Free-range farming is still about business where profit surpasses concern for the animals' welfare and comfort. And even if free-range hens were treated with kindness and given all the grass and sun and space, they will still be killed for meat as soon as their egg production drops, even though a hen could live about fifteen years in a natural environment. And like all the other animals raised for food - they will be subjected to the horrors and abuses of transportation, handling and slaughter.

Besides, the appellation bio- (or organic) and free-range is becoming more and more profitable because more people are starting to become "aware" consumers. Bob and Jenna Torres make very interesting points on this phenomenon in their podcast.

Alternatives:
And last but not least: we don't really need eggs - unless you crave for a dose of cholesterol and salmonella. In fact, they are quite simple to replace in all your cooking:

2 tbs of corn starch or 2 tbs of potato starch = 1 egg

1 tbs of soy flour + 2 tbs of water = 1 egg

1 tbs of soy milk powder + 1 tbs of corn starch + 2 tbs of water = 1 egg

2 ts of corn flour + 2 ts of water = 1 egg

For cakes you can also use some ripe mashed banana or apple sauce. Tapioca powder works well as a binding agent. Obviously there are numerous other alternatives out there like the Ener-G egg replacer for baking or silken tofu for that "scrambled eggs" effect, or even eggless mayonnaise... In the end it's not so much a question of need nor even comfort, as about making concious and responsible choices.

"No matter what words or systems are used to candy-coat animal production, when we treat sentient beings as commodities, we invariably invite abuse." (Joanne Stepaniak)

Step Three (Why Stop Eating Meat?)

Your Health: it has somehow become a general acknowledgement that eating meat is vitally important for a healthy and varied diet. It's what I would call one of the greatest myths of the capitalist society. First of all because we don't need to consume meat, in fact - we're not even physically built for that. Our stomach does not produce enough acid, our intestines are very long (about 10 times our body length compared to 3 times the body length for carnivores). It takes us a very long time to digest meat - it basically stays rotting in our system for several days and all the unnecessary substances like saturated fat and cholesterol get absorbed by the body, whereas a carnivore "ejects" it much faster, having absorbed only the necessary. You can get more information on this subject here.
Factory farms use a lot of antibiotics on the animals, not as much to treat illnesses but to make them grow faster or prevent their death before arriving to the slaughter house. Some of those “growth promoters” are used to treat serious human diseases. Animal products transmit them to humans and lead to the increase of treatment resistant bacteria and thus - more incurable diseases.

Chicken, as “white meat”, has often been considered being healthier and containing less fat. Since chickens are bred and drugged to grow very large, their flesh today contains three times as much fat as it did just 35 years ago. The most toxic form of the poison arsenic is used in chicken feed because it promotes faster growth. This cancer-causing chemical is then ingested by people.

Fish is considered to be health food by many. In fact, the oceans are now so polluted that fish flesh contains a lot of toxins, especially mercury. Eating fish even just once a week can increase your mercury level over 30% above the safe limit. This can lead to many health issues including coordination problems and depression.


The Environment: Livestock grazing transforms fertile land into desert, and thus affects a great number of threatened and endangered species. More than 50% of forests and rainforests has already been cleared to use the land for grazing or animal feed crops. As for the crop – a great majority of it is fed to farm animals, while it could be used to feed hundreds of millions of hungry people. Same thing goes for water: an estimated 15 000 liters of water is needed to produce just one day animal-based food supply (for one average meat-eater), whereas a one day plant-based food supply requires about 13 times less water.
Factory farms produce thousands of tons of manure every day. This often finds its way into the groundwater supply, the lakes, the rivers and the oceans, polluting drinking water and killing aquatic life. Here’s an interesting story for those who want to find out more about factory farm manure “lagoons”.
Livestock rearing also produces gases known to contribute significantly to global warming. See here for more detailed information on this subject.

Seafood consumption is driving many species to extinction. In fact, overfishing is responsible for the depletion of about 70% of fish populations worldwide. Tens of thousands of marine animals (like dolphins, sharks and turtles) get stuck in tremendous fishing nets and are killed and thrown back into the ocean each year.

Even if dolphins aren’t accidentally trapped in nets, they are still killed intentionally by tuna anglers because they prey on tuna.Fish farming, like livestock farming, damages delicate aquatic ecosystems, polluting water with run-off containing potentially hazardous chemicals, drugs and pathogens. Plus, farmed fish is usually fed with wild fish and it takes approximately 2-3 kg of wild fish to grow 1 kg of “farmed” shrimp or salmon.

Shark finning (consists of removing shark fins and discarding of the carcass at sea) annually kills over 100 million sharks and has decreased worldwide shark population by 90% over the last few decades. Experts estimate that within a decade, most species of sharks will be lost because of longlining. This could have devastating impact on marine ecosystems. For more precise information watch the film Sharkwater.

What about protein, iron and fatty acids?
There are numerous great plant-based protein sources. You can get enough protein from legumes like beans, peas and lentils; grains like rice, oatmeal and wheat; vegetables like potato, tomato, cucumber, cabbage, onion, broccoli, spinach; fruit like apple, banana, orange, grape, strawberry, peach and many many more…
Plant-based iron sources are for example ginger, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), lentils, spinach, prunes and raisins. It is best to consume them along with a source of vitamin C for better absorbtion.
Nuts and seeds (for example pumpkin and sunflower seeds, walnuts and almonds) contain good fatty acids, but are also great protein and iron sources.

Step Two

Assuming you followed the "step one", or if not don't worry, I won't be upset... So now you might be wondering werther it's not too late, werther doing something would make any difference what so ever? I honestly don't know, but I'm sure as hell that trying to change is better than giving up on it. If we give up now then it's surely true that there is no hope for any change for the better - the icebanks will keep melting, the canadian sealers will continue slaughtering seals, the plastic bags will continually not decompose, the poor people will keep eating dead animals and the rich people will keep eating shark fin soup until there will be no more sharks left in the oceans, thus no plankton, thus no air. And we will all eat factory-produced food and keep factory-produced pets and breathe factory-produced air through our factory-produced special air masks or something...

I don't know how about you, but I'd rather try and keep the hope of a brighter scenario. "Okay smartass, how do we do that?" you ask me? I would start with something small and simple like changing some of my wasteful habits. Here are some personal examples:

• Water: try to use as little as you can - don't leave it running while brushing your teeth (I know, it seems obvious but there actually still are some people out there who don't pay attention to that) or while washing dishes or rubbing shampoo in your hair... Well, I just try to minimize the moments where it stays running uselessly. Don't buy water in bottles! Tap water is ok to drink and if you don't like the taste then getting a filter is not a bad idea. Have you ever noticed that if you spell the name of a famous bottled water backwards you get "naive"? Do you think that's a coincidence or could it mean something about the fact of selling people water for more than 1 euro per liter whereas they can get it as much as they want for free at home? Besides, some of the chemicals used in making the bottles are actually transferred into the water, which makes it bad for you and the nature.
• Recycle: I know, I know, it's obligatory in most countries now, but from the example of my flat-mates I also know that we can always try harder. Re-use the glass and tin jars to put in your tea/coffee/sugar etc. If you have the possibility of choice, buy the products that aren't packed into ten million different bags and boxes.
• Plastic bags: Get a cloth tote bag for your grocery shopping (or make it yourself with personalized decorations). Don't hesitate to refuse the free bag they give you in all the different clothing and what not stores, unless you really need it. Re-use the old ones instead of trash bags... And I still haven't really figured out how to replace or reduce the little bags used for fruit and vegetables in supermarkets (the ones we use to weigh out and then stick the price on, which makes them tricky to re-use)...
• Transport: walk or take the bicycle as much as you can. Or use public transportation rather than a car. Pay attention to where your food (especially fresh stuff) comes from: did the orange travel all the way across the globe, polluting a lot of air and wasting a lot of fuel on its way to your plate? Prefer your local products as much as possible, they are surely better for your body too.

This obviously is far from being a thorough list and all new propositions, ideas and/or objections are very welcome. Those to whom the above is not only a habit but already an obvious one, might want to take a little step further in the whole "making a difference" business. On this occasion I eagerly encourage you to take the 30-day Veg Pledge. You can even download your free Vegetarian Starter Kit, which might seem a bit cheesy for the skeptics, but it's actually quite informative and motivating and answers to pretty much all the questions that might arise for a beginner-vegetarian. Plus there are some really nice recipes and who wouldn't appreciate a possibility to eat somehting new and tasty?!

Any more ideas on this subject? Let me know! In the meanwhile I hope you'll keep tuning in and that the next time you read my new post, it will be as (even temporarily) a meat-free person :) As for all the already-meat-free readers: thanks for bearing with me, I promise that the steps yet to be taken might interest you guys...

Step One

If you are here on my blog and reading this post then hopefully you are willing to hear me out...
So I would like to benefit of this privilege and share with you some of the things that I hold very dear, hoping that you might understand (wherther you know me in person or not). This will be the prelude (The dress rehersal I should say) to my explaining and reassuring and facing scepticism etc that I feel is yet ahead of me. But this is not about me, it is about everything that is and should be important.

So step one: If you haven't yet seen or heard of the film "Earthlings" and if you are still reading my post inspite of the crappy and confusing intro, then please go and watch it, it's available here. I'm not sure about how legal and thus lasting this Internet-available version is, so check it out before it's gone. But I must warn you: unless you suffer of severe compassion defficiency, you will probably need some hankys to go through it. It's probably best to watch this alone or in a close company, at least for the first time. So please take a moment to sit down and go through the whole lot of it right away... (You can come back here and finish reading the post afterwards if you want, but I thinks it's important that you see this first).

click here to watch

After you've watched it (or if you've already seen it), you might feel hopeless and powerless (maybe even unwilling) to change anything. Or you might feel like doing something, anything about it... That's how I felt anyway - and here I am, writing this post. I assure you - even the smallest effort is already a good start and the fact of having watched the film through shows you have consciousness and interest regarding these questions...

Letting other people know about what you've just seen is the first reflex I guess. Tell your friends, send them the link, put it in your MSN personal message, your blog, your internet site - anything might work to spread the word. Then you might want to find out a bit more about these things. Meat.org - for more precisions on the food issues; The 11th Hour - for a more global and less hard core view on how serious the problem is (this is what inspired me to believe that I can actually do something) ; Sharkwater - as extremely overlooked as it is important (unfortunately "Earthlings" did not feature the shark finning issue), this film is being screened all over the world and should definately be seen by the biggest possible number of people. This was also where I first found out about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and which gave me the last positive push I needed... The last two films are unfortunately not available directly on the internet, but they should be downloadable (sorry Rob and Leonardo, but the cause is more important than the copyright!). This is not about some commercial stuff or profit, it's - I repeat - about everything that's important on this planet and for our generation...

The conclusion of this post is not long, but sincere. If you have been patient enough to see "Earthlings" and are still with me: thank you..! Keep tuned for the upcoming.

Part 2 or How All Of The Sudden It Became So Easy To Be A Vegetarian

I spent the whole night watching interesting videos and looking for information around the net and what I found... well... there are things that just break my heart and things that infuriate me and make me feel ashamed of being a human. Sometimes I think that it's maybe just best to give up and not do anything, to ignore everything that's going on and just wait for the end of it all, hoping that in the end nature survives and humans will be just one more species extinct in the course of the evolution (not that I'm really sure about the whole concept of evolution, but that's another story)...

But then there are also things that give hope and make me want to do something - anything - to help and support the ones that are actually accomplishing things in battles against time and money and powerful corporations... I hope some people will agree...

This video of Captain Paul Watson (from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) is part of those hope-giving things. If you don't really understand what the hell this post is all about and the video here is too long and you don't have time to watch it then I suggest you go see a film called "The 11th Hour" or even better - the one that I just discovered with awe yesterday called "Sharkwater" (and which was the reason I stayed up all night, surfing around to get more informed). Wathc it ASAP and I'm sure that, as I, you might suddenly find the time and the motivation to want to see and hear more.. to go further in the investigation of what's really going on and maybe even act on it.

As for the title of my today's story: it's maybe the recent accumulation of the people i've talked to and the things i've seen and heard and thought. And maybe having watched "Sharkwater" just before also helped shifting something into place. Anyway, there is something in what Captain Watson says here that just made a click in my head and all of the sudden it became so easy to be a vegetarian... I just had to put this out here (as to respond to my previous post) and share what I'm thinking. Now I'm wondering if someone might get a similar reaction, so let me know what you're thinking too...

PS: during the time you spent reading and watching this, about 5000 sharks were slaughtered. To find out more go see the film...

Why I'm Not Vegan

(in response to Hanna's last post)

I've also been thinking on this subject for quite a long time. But first of all, soy milk is not exactly healthier (concerning calcium and protein). Secondly, the soy products are so damn expensive, as are all the bio and fair trade products, which means that a poor student is in the obligation of eating junk filled with genes and hormones and pesticides. Besides, start to think of it - there is milk inside chocolate and inside ice cream, sauces and many bakery products, inside body cream and shampoo etc etc etc. And it's even worse with the eggs - almost anything we eat containts "traces of egg" (that's what they write on the packages). So putting in a lot of money and effort it is possible to exchange our usual milk products with the soy products. There is even vegan ice cream and vegan shampoo out there. It's obviously not in our normal supermarket just around the corner, but still possible to find. But how to replace, or even just avoid the eggs? That one I haven't figured out yet...

It is a different problem with meat: in general it's too expensive to buy, so that solves the problem. But if I'm eating out it is absolutely impossible to find something that wouldn't contain meat or at least chicken or fish. And if I decide to be the false-vegetarian/vegan who's afraid of missing on some vital substances and therefore continues eating fish.. well, it's impossible to find a tuna sanwich without mayonnaise and/or eggs...

Being vegetarian (and I'm not even mentioning vegan) is quite harmful for your social life as well. Because it rules out eating out with friends ("hey, want to grab a kebab?" - "um, no") or at a friend's place - unless the inviting person is vegetarian, they will not even once consider asking about special diets of people (once again, poor students who do what they can)... And if you are strong enough to pass the evening watching others eat (and without grabbing any of those aperitif chips - they too contain traces of egg!) then good for you, but it is extremely antisocial and makes you feel weird or bad, as well as your friends.

These are more or less the problems and the questions that arise when I consider becoming vegan or even just part-time vegetarian. If someone can share their experience on the subject, I would be more than happy to hear about it. And I hope that one day I will be able to stick the black & green star full-time to my front and vote against the massive and torturing production of meat, eggs and milk by not eating them...