Food-for-Thought Animal Ads

Check out these food-for-thought photos:

ANIMAL ADS PROVE A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS 

Ten Incredible Animal Rights Ads

Buddhism and the Environment

"In an age of increasing environmental destruction, Buddhism can inspire the ecological awareness that’s necessary for a more balanced existence."

Below is a great article that ties Buddhist beliefs with a healthy environmental awareness:

Seeing true nature: Buddhism and the environment

7 Common Cooking Problems You May Run Into When Going Vegan

Here is a fabulous article for people who are having some issues regarding the dietary part of veganism:

7 Common Cooking Problems You May Run Into When Going Vegan

What Does ‘Vegan’ Really Mean?

Here is a terrific article that reminds everyone what it truly means to be vegan, regardless of how people or society makes an attempt to redefine it. Veganism can never be redefined unless the person who coined the name/definition redefines it themselves:

What Does ‘Vegan’ Really Mean?

Also according to the Vegan Society, the society who coined and defined the word, Vegan, it also means to love, respect, and have compassion for all beings, not just animals and the environment.

Vegans Better for Environment than Meat-Eaters

Carnivores are twice as bad for the Earth as vegetarians, a new study out of Oxford University found.

Researchers found that meat-eaters have carbon footprints about twice as large as vegetarians do. They concluded that the more meat you eat, the more you're harming the planet.

The scientists estimated the greenhouse gases emitted from 130 foods, with each type of gas (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide) getting a specific "weight." Those weights were then assigned a "food code" to show the link between emissions and foods.

High meat-eaters were found to have the biggest carbon footprint, followed by medium meat-eaters, low meat-eaters, pescatarians, vegetarians and vegans.

Meat-eaters have large carbon footprints because more energy is required to raise animals than plants. Plus, cows produce large amounts of methane--from burping and farting--which is a more powerful gas than carbon dioxide.

(Source: NY Daily News)

Singapore Film Promotes Animal Rights/Adoption

A Taiwanese documentary “Twelve Nights,” a film produced by bestselling author Giddens Ko, was screened in Singapore last week to raise awareness of animal rights in the city state.

The screening of the film focused on the fate of dogs in shelters was attended by over 1,000 people--many accompanied by their dogs--at the outdoor Marina Barrage Green Roof. Director Raye and Taiwanese actress Sonia Sui, a sponsor of the film, were also present at the event.

Raye hopes that by showing “Twelve Nights” in Singapore, she can promote the adoption of stray animals and discourage the abandonment of pets.

The charity screening in Singapore was sponsored by home appliances brand Beko.

“Twelve Nights” records the lives of stray dogs at an animal shelter in Changhua County's Yuanlin Township. The title refers to the number of days the dogs have to be adopted before euthanasia to make more space.

The documentary grossed over NT$60 million (US$2 million) at the Taiwan box office during its run from November last year through February. The proceeds of NT$20.91 million--after deducting taxes and the share paid to cinemas--have been given to animal protection groups, including Taipei-based Stray Cats TNR (Trap Neuter Return) Association.

(Source: The China Post)

How Veganism Changed These People

(*Note: the first line above is sarcasm, hence the quotes.)

Below is a wonderful, inspirational article of people who became vegan. A Gentle World volunteer did an experiment on her Facebook page where she simply asked people to complete the following statement: “Since I became vegan, I’ve noticed…”

Check it out here:  How Veganism Changed These 58 People

"The hardest part about being vegan is dealing with other people. While some questions and comments are truly genuine, many are not. Anyone who has been vegan for any length of time can probably relate to being annoyed by some of the most frequently reoccurring questions and statements. The link below takes you to some of the most common things vegans hear on a daily basis and what we may be thinking in our heads:"

Ten Things Every Vegan Is Sick of Hearing

How to Avoid Animal Cruelty While Traveling This Summer

A tourist’s involvement with animal cruelty can be either conscious or unconscious--people might think that they would never buy something unethical, but it’s easy to make the mistake, especially in unfamiliar surroundings.

Check out this link below for some information about staying cruelty-free in unfamiliar territory:

How to Avoid Animal Cruelty While Traveling This Summer

Backpack Style Purse Vegan "Leather" Handbag 11"H Pockets Drawstring

Last week, I received this super-cool vegan handbag from Amazon! It has lots of pockets--which I love--and designed like a daypack, only in a very stylish way! 

I wanted another casual handbag, as I only have one other and that one is pure cloth, which on rainy days, the rain goes right through it, wetting everything I have inside. Plus, with cloth bags, it's easy to wear out on the side I'm carrying it, with its constant rubbing up against my side. Also, colored pants--like blue jeans--can even "bleed" on cloth bags!

I only have another cloth handbag--which is for more formal wear--but I don't carry it often and it's of better quality than my casual cloth handbag.

Anyway, I'm SO happy I have this handbag; now that I have it and can see it up close, it's almost too nice looking to be considered a casual handbag--

LOVES IT!

American Goldfinches: Strict Vegetarians

Female and Male American Goldfinches

For my Fourth of July blog, I would like to talk about the American Goldfinch.

With a diet consisting entirely of seeds and an anti-confrontational attitude, the American Goldfinch is a vegetarian pacifist!

This bright yellow songbird is one of the strictest vegetarians in the bird world, preferring an entirely vegetable diet and only accidentally eating an occasional insect. Their cruelty-free lifestyle extends to adversaries as well, opting to turn the other cheek rather than join other songbirds mobbing predators.

American Goldfinches are numerous and their populations have been stable from 1966 to 2010. Partners in Flight estimates the global breeding population at 42 million, with 57 percent breeding in Canada, 71 percent spending some part of the year in the U.S., and 5 percent wintering in Mexico.

Habitat

Weedy fields, open floodplains, and other overgrown areas, particularly with sunflower, aster, and thistle plants for food and some shrubs and trees for nesting. Goldfinches are also common in suburbs, parks, and backyards.

Food

Goldfinches eat seeds almost exclusively. Main types include seeds from composite plants (in the family Asteraceae: sunflowers, thistle, asters, etc.), grasses, and trees such as alder, birch, western red cedar, and elm. At feeders prefers nyjer and sunflower.

Behavior

American Goldfinches are active, acrobatic finches that balance on the seed-heads of thistles, dandelions, and other plants to pluck seeds. They have a bouncy flight during which they frequently make their po-ta-to-chip calls. Although males sing exuberantly during spring, pairs do not nest until mid-summer, when thistles and other weeds have gone to seed. Goldfinches do not join other songbirds mobbing predators.

Other Facts

American Goldfinches are the only finch that molts its body feathers twice a year--once in late winter and again in late summer. The brightening, yellow of male goldfinches each spring is one welcome mark of approaching warm months.

American Goldfinches breed later than most North American birds. They wait to nest until June or July when milkweed, thistle, and other plants have produced their fibrous seeds, which goldfinches incorporate into their nests and also feed their young.

When Brown-headed Cowbirds lay eggs in an American Goldfinch nest, the cowbird egg may hatch but the nestling seldom survives longer than three days. The cowbird chick simply can’t survive on the all-seed diet that goldfinches feed their young.

Goldfinches move south in winter following a pattern that seems to coincide with regions where the minimum January temperature is no colder than 0 degrees Fahrenheit on average.

The oldest known American Goldfinch lived to be 10 years 5 months old.

Paired-up goldfinches make virtually identical flight calls; goldfinches may be able to distinguish members of various pairs by these calls.

Vegan Organic Gardening

For those who are preparing their garden plot for this season, or contemplating creating a garden for the first time, this is a terrific opportunity to explain what “natural” and “organic” truly mean.

Many new gardeners may be surprised to find that blood, bone meal and fish emulsion are all considered “natural” ways to fertilize organic gardens. These substances are obtained from slaughterhouse floors or mass fishing operations… and they reek of the industries which they support.

But there is another way to garden, without animal products (including manure). It is often called veganic, vegan-organic or stock-free gardening; there are a lot of different gardening styles under these labels, so you’ll have plenty of options to explore, for the benefit of our fellow animals, our health and the health of our planet.

Whether you are new to gardening or looking to transition your garden to a vegan organic plot; from how to set up your compost pile to an overview of veganic fertilizers, check out more on this subject at the link below:

(source: gentleworld.org)

What is Vegan Organic Gardening?

9 Vegan Grocery Store Locations Around the World (including online too)

One of the joys of a vegan grocery store is that you don’t have to be so diligent about looking for hidden animal ingredients. Non-dairy cheese, for example, sometimes contains the milk protein casein. Casein is a cheap way to make fake cheese melt, but companies like Daiya are creating vegan cheese that melts and tastes better. At a vegan grocery store, there’s no guesswork.

The list below has some brick and mortar locations and some shops that are online only: 

1. Viva La Vegan has two brick and mortar locations: one in Santa Monica and in Cucumonga, California. You can also shop Viva La Vegan online.

2. Veganz is a full on vegan grocery chain that started in Germany and is opening its first U.S. location in 2016.

3. Food Fight Grocery in Portland, Oregon, was one of the first vegan grocery stores in the U.S., and you can shop it in person or online.

4. Rabbit Food Grocery in Austin, TX is almost all online, but local customers can pick up their haul at local vegan businesses to waive any shipping fees.

5. Vegan Online is a virtual Australian vegan grocery store. They’ll ship Australia-wide, so no matter where on the continent you live, you can get vegan treats on your doorstep.

6. Vegan Perfection is another Australian vegan grocery store. If you live in Melbourne, check out their physical location.

7. Honest to Goodness is a UK-based vegan grocery store that will ship anywhere in the United Kingdom.

8. Vegan.co.uk, which also ships UK-wide.

9. Pangea’s Vegan Store in Rockville, MD has both a physical store and an online shop.

Flexitarian Samples a 100% Plant-Based Vegetarian Diet

Blog author, Zoe Lintzeris, goes on not a vegan diet (because veganism isn't a diet--it's a social justice cause), but on a strict vegetarian diet for a week (meaning no animal products at all, including eggs, dairy, and honey) and a bit more as she stays away from beeswaxed lip balm too. Check out her honest opinion of it here:

"I Don't Diet, I Just Go Vegan"

Kick Your Leather Habit For Good With These Awesome Alternatives

Womens' vegan leather jacket

Mens' vegan leather jacket

Many people see leather as fashionable, timeless and think it lasts forever. But if people knew how it affects our planet, people's feelings about leather may change.

As we know, leather is the skin of a slaughtered animal. In many cases, these skins come from cows, but skin from goats, sheep, pigs, and even cats and dogs are used to make leather. Some of the most luxurious and softest leather comes from the skin of newborn calves; so if you have decided to stop eating veal because you just can’t stomach the thought of eating a baby cow, but you’re buying leather, you are likely still contributing to the cruel exploitation of these babies.

Also, the leather industry is wreaking havoc on the planet. The leather tanning process, which turns raw skins into usable leather, fills the environment with such nasties as formaldehyde, cyanide, lead, and other known carcinogens. Tannery workers, as well as people who live in close proximity to tanning facilities, are riddled with a host of health problems which have been linked to the chemicals used in the leather making process.

Manufacturers are taking notice and are offering up products made from materials that are cruelty-free and kinder to the environment, which is better for us all. Here are five terrific alternatives that won’t even have you missing the leather:

Kick Your Leather Habit For Good With These Awesome Alternatives

10 Frozen Vegan Recipes to Cool Down This Summer

Above photo: Tofutti Cuties

The temperatures are rising and the sun is shining--summer is here! Plant-based and vegan eaters don't eat dairy ice cream, but that does not mean ice cream and other frozen treats are off limits. Thanks to non-dairy milk and fruit, it’s much easier to make a dairy-free ice cream or frozen treat than you may think. 

Non-vegans--you'll love them too!

Check out these 10 frozen recipes to cool down this summer.

Destroying Our Environment, Losing Our Languages

As we continue to cut down forests and lose biodiversity, there’s something else that we’re also losing: languages.

Since the 1970s, linguistic diversity has been declining as fast as biodiversity--at about a 30 percent decline. There are fantastic comparisons between linguistic diversity and biodiversity; both are products of evolution and have evolved in tremendously similar ways, but both are facing an extinction crisis.

It’s not the first time biodiversity and languages have been linked. Another study showed that 70 % of the world's languages are found in biodiversity hotspots. Which means that as those hotspots are threatened, so are the languages. One in four of the world’s remaining languages are threatened--the exact same ratio as mammals that are endangered.

Today there are 7,000 languages spoken worldwide. Half of those have fewer than 10,000 speakers, making them spoken by only 0.1 percent of the global population. The rest of us have a much smaller diversity in the languages that we speak. 95 percent of the world’s population speaks one of just 400 languages, and 40 percent of us converse in just one of eight languages: Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian and Japanese.

That loss in diversity of language is leading to a kind of cultural homogenization. We are losing the richness of human diversity, becoming more and more similar. And as we become more globalized, and our consumption and use of natural resources increases, we lose both languages and our environment. 

As we lose languages, we lose local know-how of how to function within a certain environment. New Guinea for example, is a hotbed of biodiversity and culture. It has one of the greatest varieties of life in the world. As deforestation continues, all of those are threatened, and as cultures and languages are destroyed in the process, we lose the knowledge that has been developed over tens of thousands of years. How to use traditional plants for medicine, how to live a symbiotic relationship with the natural world, these are all things that we lose in the process.

(source: care2.com)

Inexpensive Cruelty-Free Foods That Brighten Your Skin

There are some delicious, inexpensive cruelty-free foods you can eat to brighten your skin that anyone can take advantage of and that are easy to find. At the website below, most all of the foods can be found at your local supermarket or even at a farmer’s market. 

Eating to protect your skin is incredibly important, especially during the summer months when the sun’s harsh rays can cause everything from wrinkles to skin cancer, not to mention acne and dryness. Avoid buying all those pricey products none of us really need anyway and just eat your way to beautiful skin instead:

Inexpensive Vegan Food That Can Brighten Your Skin

10 Childhood Favorites Made Cruelty-Free, Part II

I already mentioned 10 childhood favorites made cruelty-free. If you’d like to take a walk down food memory lane in a healthier, vegan way again, then check out 5 more some simple ways to remake your favorite childhood snacks vegan-style and get started!

How to Remake Your Favorite Childhood Snacks, Vegan-Style

"I am 'all in.'  It is a singular devotion to moving forward with all you have with confidence knowing that you not only have the cards on your side, but in the case of this conscious lifestyle, the answer for so many of the challenges we face in the world today and what is absolutely necessary for justice for animals, for our personal health, well-being, and to preserve the precious resources of our planet.  This is what living a conscious, vegan lifestyle brings to this  world. It is my contention that in order to move this great movement forward, we are going to need to move beyond just a casual allegiance to eating a particular way.  Being vegan is not a hobby, it is a lifestyle that should have a profound impact on not only how we live, but also impact all living creatures and the planet that we all inhabit."

Read more of what Paul Graham has to say about veganism at this article:

BEING VEGAN – It’s Time to Go All In

How to Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication

This PHENOMENAL book should have been on the best seller list when it came out in 2000!!

If you, like me, are tired of dog books simply telling people how to house train dogs, and not telling people how dog's REALLY feel and how to REALLY communicate with them in a respectful way then PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! I promise you, you will not regret it!

It not only talks about dog's relationship to humans, but also in how dogs relate to other dogs and cats as well. It discusses dogs historically and compares dog behaviors to human and cat behaviors. It's a MUST READ! An especially terrific chapter is on how to stop a dog from barking; this was my biggest mistake in I would say "No!" But the word "no" sounds like a bark to a dog; the word "quiet" and importantly HOW the word quiet is used, is the most effective and respectful way of silencing a dog in the way a dog would understand. Please read the book to find out more on this subject.

You can get this book probably almost anywhere books are sold, like here at Amazon.

If you have any dogs, it is indeed a must-read!

From Amazon:

"At long last, dogs will know just how smart their owners can be. By unlocking the secrets of the hidden language of dogs, psychologist Stanley Coren allows us into the doggy dialogue, or "Doggish," and makes effective communication a reality. Drawing on substantial research in animal behavior, evolutionary biology, and years of personal experience, Coren demonstrates that the average house dog can understand language at about the level of a two-year-old human. While actual conversation of the sort Lassie seemed capable of in Hollywood mythmaking remains forever out of reach, Coren shows us that a great deal of real communication is possible beyond the giving and obeying of commands. How to Speak Dog not only provides the sounds, words, actions, and move-ments with which we can effectively communicate with our dogs, but also deciphers the signs that our dogs give to us. With easy-to-follow tips on how humans can mimic the language dogs use to talk with one another, original drawings illustrating the subtleties of their body language, and a handy visual glossary and "Doggish" phrasebook, How to Speak Dog gives dog lovers the skills they need to improve their relationships with their pets."

Germany Vegan Supermarket Chain to Come to US in 2016!!

Jan Bredack founded the first vegan supermarket chain called “Veganz“, in Berlin, Germany. The business venture has proven successful with plans to open dozens of branches across Europe and for the very first time, in the US, in 2016.

In 2009, Bredack turned to veganism after suffering burn-out from a less than balanced life. After changing his lifestyle and ethical code, he wrote the book “Vegan für alle: Warum wir richtig leben sollten” ("Veganism for everyone: Why we should live right") to share his transformation with the masses.

After several trips abroad, the veggie entrepreneur, exposed to vegan products in other countries, decided to open his first store. Bredack says his decision to open a vegan supermarket came from a sundry of ideas after coming across various vegan products in the US and Russia. He said that it was difficult to shop normally when one adopts a vegan lifestyle, and he wanted to make the switch to veganism more accessible to everyone.

So for 2016, Bredack plans on taking his vegan chain to the United States. Veganz will open a vegan shopping center in Portland, Oregon--the U.S. vegan homeland.

When Veganz does arrive in Portland, I will never shop at Whole Foods again. Whole Foods is clearly ALL about the money and the owner believes a 100% vegan supermarket would fail. Well Whole Foods look and learn!

Food Retailers Continue to Pull Chinese-made Dog and Cat Foods

Petco became the first national companion animal food store to stop the sale of Chinese-made treats, due to concerns over contamination, and already another retailer, PetSmart, has announced that it will follow suit in taking Chinese pet treats off its store shelves. Over 1,000 dog deaths have been linked to problems with the imported jerky treats, but this problem goes back years. 

The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating thousands of reports of pet illnesses linked to jerky treats going back to 2007, most of which involve Chinese products, though there’s been a spike since last October.

There are many dog and cat cookbooks on the market where you can make homemade dog and cat foods and treats; I highly recommend them first over any commercial foods/treats. 

Click at the link below to watch Petco's video for very important information about companion animal foods from China and how to watch for early symptoms of food poisoning from dog and cat foods.

China’s Food Safety Problems Go Deeper Than Pet Treats

LA School to be the First Vegan School in US

If you took the time to count all the garden beds at MUSE School in Calabasas, you'd find nearly 50 between its two campuses. The students not only eat their own school-grown veggies, they do a lot of the work.

Here's more news on the LA SCHOOL TO BE 1ST VEGAN SCHOOL IN US