Rants and Raves

We just got back from a fabulous trip to San Francisco and LA - we spent time with my brother and his girlfriend in SF, plus two of our best pals in LA. It was a really magical trip; by far the best we've had as a family since we brought Carlos home nearly three years ago. He's finally at an age where traveling is starting to be pleasant again.

So first, the raves -

The food was amazing. We ate so much fantastic vegan food, I'm not sure if I can remember it all, but I'll try. Sorry, I was too busy stuffing my face to take pictures.

Love & Haight Deli in SF - I had a delicious 'chicken' steak deli sandwich. I can't remember the last time I had a decent deli sandwich. Yum. My only regret was that I didn't think to add avocado.

Cafe Gratitude in SF - our meal was slightly marred by our very cranky and over-tired four-year-old, but this was still a fun experience. Definitely not mainstream, but worth trying at least once.

Rainbow Grocery in SF - I went here for the sole purpose of purchasing mass amounts of Daiya vegan cheese. I ended up buying five pounds, and immediately upon leaving the store, regretted not buying ten. They only carry the Italian-style shreds (not the orange kind), but that's better than nothing (which is what I have up here in this rural wasteland I call home). When I told the cheese counter lady that I came from out of town to get the Daiya, she said she sees a lot of that, and wanted to know where I was from. She then declared that I won the long-distance award. I consider it a badge of honor.

Five pounds of Daiya cheese.

Pure Luck Cafe in LA - WOW. This place was incredible... they make an amazing marinaded mock-meat from jackfruit, of all things. I had it in a burrito, but they put it in all kinds of other things as well. The fried pickles, sweet potato fries, and Caesar salad were all also great.

Tierra Cafe in LA - decent vegan taquitos, crappy service.

Native Foods in Costa Mesa - I think this was the highlight for me. I loved the atmosphere (it's the only restaurant in North America that's in a yurt, who knew?), and the food was excellent (although I think the desserts could be better). I had pizza and salad, and also sampled Carlos' mac and cheese - everything was really, really tasty. So much so that I had to buy the cookbook.

Golden Mean Vegan Cafe in Santa Monica - this was enjoyable, but not the best I've ever had. I was excited to see a panini on the menu, and specifically asked if it included Daiya cheese (yes, I'm a little nuts over the stuff), to which the server responded yes; however, when I received my sandwich, there was no cheese to be seen. I still enjoyed it, but it wasn't the best thing I've ever had. I also thought that their cookies were kind of dry and just so-so. Of the four things ordered by my group, I definitely thought that 'the works' burger looked the best.

Cruzer Pizza in LA - it's neck and neck between Cruzer Pizza and Native Foods for top honors on this trip. We got takeout pizza with Daiya cheese (again! I know...) and it was totally awesome. I don't know what else to say about pizza... the crust was good? It was just an all-around spectacular pizza, vegan or otherwise.

Okay, that's the end of the raves. On to the rants. (Is anyone still with me?)

On the plane on the way home, I found myself reading the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine. Yes, I was hard up for reading material. Anyways, the theme of this particular issue was how geeks are going to save us from our current environmental mess. For a split second, I was so thrilled to turn the page and see a giant headline stating that 20% of all methane emissions come from the agriculture industry. It's so gratifying to see this fact finally getting the public exposure it deserves. However, all too often, like in this case, the emphasis is all wrong. The solution that this particular magazine put forward was the work of some scientists to create genetically modified cattle who produce less methane.

Is it just me, or is this seriously messed up? It seems to me that absolutely the last thing we need right now is more genetically modified food. It truly amazes me to see how attached people are to the idea of eating flesh; so much so that they would rather mess with nature in bizarre and possibly dangerous ways to create animals who burp a little less, thereby making a small dent in the problem, rather than reduce (or eliminate) meat and dairy from their diets, which would make a much larger impact, as well as improve their health and the lives of animals in the process. It's such a no-brainer to me, I really can't wrap my brain around it.

On to rant number two...

I was listening to a (mainstream; non vegan) podcast this morning and was again momentarily happy to hear the host saying that it's becoming increasingly difficult to defend eating meat due to the increasing evidence of the environmental and health risks associated with this behavior. But then, of course, he has to go on to make some lame comment about how good it tastes.

So rant 2(a) is - why, oh why, is it okay to justify torturing and killing sentient beings for the sake of our tastebuds? Would these same people say that it's okay to rape an animal because they are horny? Seriously people, these are living, feeling creatures. The bottom line is that we don't have any dietary requirement for animal flesh or secretions; therefore, making animals suffer and die to become human food is just plain wrong.

After that, the podcaster said something like "but as it turns out, it's not such a great time to be a vegetarian either, because a recent study just listed leafy greens as the most likely food item to be contaminated by e-coli."

Rant 2(b) - Whaaaaaat? How in the world does this mean that it's a bad time to be vegetarian? I know plenty of vegetarians who eat very few leafy greens, and plenty of omnivores who eat lots of leafy greens. Leafy greens are not the sole property of vegetarians. Geez. What an idiotic thing to say.

Okay, I'm done now. I have to go bathe my skunky dog.

An Excellent Read

This NY Times Article by Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the soon-to-be-published book, Eating Animals, is really good. It's so encouraging to see things like this gaining ground in the mainstream media. The article is kind of long; I've excerpted my favorite pieces below in case you don't feel like reading the whole thing (although I encourage you to make the time!) -

My wife and I have chosen to bring up our children as vegetarians. In another time or place, we might have made a different decision. But the realities of our present moment compelled us to make that choice. According to an analysis of U.S.D.A. data by the advocacy group Farm Forward, factory farms now produce more than 99 percent of the animals eaten in this country. And despite labels that suggest otherwise, genuine alternatives ... are very difficult for even an educated eater to find. I don’t have the ability to do so with regularity and confidence. (“Free range,” “cage free,” “natural” and “organic” are nearly meaningless when it comes to animal welfare.)

According to reports by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and others, factory farming has made animal agriculture the No. 1 contributor to global warming (it is significantly more destructive than transportation alone), and one of the Top 2 or 3 causes of all of the most serious environmental problems, both global and local: air and water pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity. . . . Eating factory-farmed animals — which is to say virtually every piece of meat sold in supermarkets and prepared in restaurants — is almost certainly the single worst thing that humans do to the environment.

Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat. Turkeys have been so genetically modified they are incapable of natural reproduction. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter.

This isn’t animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Yet taste, the crudest of our senses, has been exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses. Why? Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to confining, killing and eating it? It’s easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.

Children confront us with our paradoxes and dishonesty, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood — which is a good shame — is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers. My children not only inspired me to reconsider what kind of eating animal I would be, but also shamed me into reconsideration.

[ emphasis added by moi ] :-)

The County Fair

I've long since sworn off of zoos and circuses with animal acts, and yet, when the fair comes to town, I feel compelled to take Carlos. I have mixed feelings about the fair. One one hand, it seems like such an all-American classic summertime activity - a fun way to spend an afternoon as a family - but on the other hand, there's this...


... beautiful animals, well cared for by (one would assume) reasonably caring and well-meaning adults and children - displayed with pride, and for may people, I daresay love. And yet subjected to indignities and cruelties like painful horn removal, I'm sure without anesthetic.


Ouch. And worse yet, so many of these animals will soon go to auction and slaughter. I will never be able to understand the dissonance inherent in this situation. These 4-H/FFA kids spend huge amounts of time taking really good care of their animals, learning lessons about selflessness and responsibility, growing attached to their charges and experiencing the joy of inter-species relationships, only to be forced to learn the 'ultimate lesson' that none of this matters - that it's okay to betray a friend - that it's necessary to inflict pain and suffering on others in order to become a mature, responsible adult. It's incredibly sad, and I just don't get it.

Marji at Animal Place posted a great article on this subject the other day if you'd like to read more.

I beg to differ.

The whole atmosphere of the fair is disconcerting to me. I feel like even my choice of attire is a loaded issue - if I wear my usual animal rights themed t-shirts, would I get weird looks? or perhaps even rude comments? Even my 'love animals / don't eat them' bumper sticker makes me wonder if my car might get keyed in the parking lot. Weird thoughts to be having at a festive place like the fair, right?

So what do you think, fellow animal activists - do you go to the fair when it comes to your town? I'm especially interested to hear from folks with kids. Am I exposing Carlos to a harmless afternoon of fun, or am I subtly showing him that it's okay to exploit animals?

More Linkety Links

I found a great post today on the blog of my another of my favorite farm animal sanctuaries - this time Making Hay, a Farm Sanctuary blog.


An excerpt:

In a recent e-mail to me, an activist wrote: “Do chickens need to lay eggs? What does Farm Sanctuary do with the eggs that the chickens lay? What would happen to those eggs in the wild if people weren’t consuming them?” [read the response]

Preach it, Marji! :-)

Hey - I'm not an 'it'!

Marji at Animal Place just posted a great little discussion of one of the ways our use of language affects how we see the world, and the creatures who inhabit that world.

A quick excerpt (she's talking about her experience at a recent animal rights conference):

Which brings me to language. We, in the animal protection movement, still struggle with this issue. It pained me to hear otherwise enlightened animal activists refer to dogs, pigs, cats and other animals as "its" and "whats". They are not objects. We should call them "he", "she", "who" and never ever "it".

Amen! I am behind this sentiment 1,000%. How can we, as a society, begin to bring the issue of animals' sentience and inherent worth to the forefront, while still referring to these complex beings as 'its'?

Personally, I have been using 'he,' 'she,' and 'they' for years now when referring to animals, and to be honest, it sounds totally wrong to me now when I hear someone do otherwise.

I encourage you to read Marji's entire post here.

A fun weekend and a new family member!

Matt, Carlos, and I had a fun weekend - we went down to Animal Place for a little party and got to hang out with lots of great animals (oh yeah, and a few cool people too), then we met up with JP from CAPE, who introduced us to a very sweet little guy named Bruno... I'll start with the Animal Place Photos -

This was pretty cute - at first I thought that the turkey and the gray chicken (under the turkey's wing) were snuggling, but then I saw an egg pop out of the chicken's bottom so I think they were actually just jockeying for the primo egg-laying spot.

Food!

This feathery-headed guy was especially handsome.

Aren't these turkeys gorgeous?

Pretty birds.

A little rooster skirmish.

Oink.

I think the rabbit house was Carlos' favorite. I was pretty charmed as well by the bunnies.

You could tell that these two were majorly in love with each other.

The speaker for the event was Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of The Face on Your Plate, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon, Dogs Never Lie About Love, and When Elephants Weep. He was very personable, friendly, and charismatic. Carlos was excited to meet him because Jeffrey stars in one of Carlos' favorite movies, The Emotional World of Farm Animals.

After our lovely visit to Animal Place, we were off to our next engagement - a meeting with Bruno, an adorable one-eyed miniature poodle! After a short visit, and with much pleading and cajoling on my part and Carlos', Matt was convinced that Bruno should come home with us. Hooray!

Bruno is part of a program headed by Compassion Without Borders, a nonprofit working to provide spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, and medical care to companion animals in Mexico. CWB identifies the most friendly, adoptable small dogs from all of the street dogs they encounter, and partners with Animal Place (to provide quarantine here in the US) and the Center for Animal Protection and Education (to provide foster care and permanent placement) to find permanent homes for these dogs here in the US.

Because small dogs are in high demand, and are often in short supply at animal shelters, these groups bring small dogs to the US to give adopters an opportunity to save a rescued dog rather than go to a breeder (or worse yet, a pet shop) because they can't find a small dog at a shelter. Great idea, huh?

Bruno meets Otis.

Hazel steals Bruno's bed.

After some initial growling and position-establishing behavior, mostly from Otis, the dogs seem to be getting along surprisingly well. Hazel and Otis seem strangely compelled to wedge their 50+ pound bodies into Bruno's 20 pound sized dog bed, which is oddly entertaining. I'll try to get some better pictures of Bruno and post them soon.

Why my dogs are vegetarian

(via EtsyVeg)

"The US Deptartment of Agriculture uses the term '4-D' to indicate flesh that's considered unfit for human consumption. the 'D's' are: dead, dying, disabled, and diseased. In all but a few states, flesh from 4-D animals can be sold to pet food manufacturers ... (Jim) Mason and (Peter) Singer report an average of 15 million pounds of cancerous tissues a year (added to slaughterhouse reject piles - much of which is rendered into) 'by-products' on pet food labels."

~ Barbara Lynn Peden, Dogs and Cats Go Vegetarian

This is awesome - please watch.

This breaks my heart.

What a powerful new visual from Mark Middleton at AnimalVisuals.org -

March Jewelry for Charity Recap & April Kick-Off

Just a quick post to report that, with your help, I raised $415.00 for United Poultry Concerns during the month of March. I sincerely thank you for your help (in the form of purchases from either of my shops), as do the chickens, turkeys, and other birds that benefit from UPC's important work.

This month, I'm featuring one of my perennial favorites, Vegan Outreach. Although I haven't managed to make much time for personally going out and leafleting over the past month or two, this is a cause that is near to my heart, and it makes me happy to support VO in any way I can. So remember, 5% of anything you spend in either my bead shop or my jewelry shop this month goes directly to Vegan Outreach!

March's donation brings my total donations to $9,685.00 since I began this program in May 2007. Hopefully I'll break the $10,000.00 mark after this month - wow! As always, thank you so much for helping me help others. It brings great meaning to my work.

Further Evidence - If You Care About the Environment, Ditch the Meat and Dairy!!!

Written by Becky Striepe

Published on March 2nd, 2009 on ecolocalizer.com

A German study found that cows are major contributors to global warming, and it doesn't matter if they're raised on a conventional or an organic farm.

Foodwatch, an independent German research group, conducts studies on our diets’ impact on the environment. They are not an animal rights group; they’re a consumer rights group, and their findings led them to recommend that “agriculture must finally become part of climate change policy.”

The really shocking part of this Foodwatch study is that in many ways, organic meat is worse because it uses more land and resources. The problem is that no matter how you raise a cow, “they burp and fart to their hearts’ content.” Foodwatch is saying that we need to reduce our milk and meat production by 70% to mitigate the global warming implications.

Take Action in Your Kitchen

Seventy percent! For someone living on the Standard American Diet, that sounds pretty dramatic. So how can we cut back on the meat we eat? Check out these great vegetarian recipes. Veg Web has a huge database of tasty vegan recipes, too! to get you going.

Eating less dairy might seem tougher than reducing meat consumption for a lot of folks. Don’t worry that cutting dairy means you have to give up your favorite treats! Online shops like Atlanta’s Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe and Portland’s Food Fight Grocery offer tasty dairy alternatives. Follow Your Heart makes a mean vegan “cheese.” You can find tasty cream cheesesour cream alternatives. You don’t even have to give up chocolate! and

It might feel a bit trickier if you have kids, since you want to be careful with how much soy you’re feeding those little ones. Luckily, there are all sorts of soy-free dairy alternatives. Full disclosure here: I’m one of those hippie vegan types. For some reason, avocado really helped quell the cheese cravings when I gave up dairy. For a milk alternative, give almond milk a try! You can even find tasty ice creams that are totally soy free! Jennifer McCann’s site Vegan Lunch Box is full of kid-friendly vegan recipes.

Looking for more information on meat’s environmental impact? The Price of Meat has you covered. Stay tuned over there for their petition on livestock and climate policy.

February Jewelry For Charity Recap and March Kick-Off

I'm thrilled to report that February was my best sales month yet, which makes me extra happy because it means I get to send a whopping $630.00 to help the amazing creatures at Animal Place! Thanks to everyone who patronized my bead shop and my jewelry shop during the month of February - your purchases really do add up to help animals.


And continuing on a similar theme for the month of March, my featured charity is United Poultry Concerns, a wonderful group dedicated to promoting compassion towards domestic fowl. As you can probably tell if you've read my blog much before, chickens, turkeys, and ducks are some of my favorite animals. They have brought a lot of joy to our lives in the year since we've added them to our family.

It saddens me greatly to know that in the US alone, nine billion chickens are raised and killed for food each year - that's 90% of all land animals killed for food in this country. Nine billion! That's mind-boggling. These creatures are not inanimate objects - far from it! Each of our birds has her own personality, complete with likes and dislikes. They feel pain, and they know joy and sadness. If you eat chicken (or even eggs), you are essentially paying someone to imprison, torture, and kill these unique and lovely animals simply to please your own taste buds.

I have great respect for groups like UPC, whose members work tirelessly to educate people about the value of these birds' lives. I hope one day to be able to add on to my own little poultry haven so that I can rescue even more of these wonderful beings. In the meantime, please join me this month in supporting UPC by either donating directly or by making a purchase from my bead shop or my jewelry shop. As always, thank you for caring!

Say it Ain't So, Arnie!

(Is there an apostrophe in 'aint'???)

Anyhoo... just saw this reported on the Animal Place blog. I'm off to go call Arnold! Fellow Californians, please join me. This would be disastrous for animal rescue organizations, as well as an unnecessary burden on everyday people who are already having a hard enough time putting food on the table in these tough times. We already know that animal relinquishments to shelters are skyrocketing due to this darn economy; I can only imagine how much worse it might get if caring for our companion animals becomes even more costly.

CA: Don't tax vet bills

Governor Schwarzenegger wants to define taking your sick, diseased, distressed animal to a vet as a "luxury" item, imposing a 10.5% tax on veterinary medical services.

Since when is being a responsible guardian considered a "luxury"?

There are 15 million dogs and cats in California and dog and cat guardians spend nearly 2.75 billion dollars on veterinary services. Animal Place is no stranger to vet bills - we spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to provide optimal care to all the animals at the sanctuary. This isn't a luxury, these costs are a necessity for us and for the millions of people who choose to welcome animals into their homes.

We appreciate that times are tough, that we need to look at creative ways to stimulate our state's economy. But taxing necessary medical care for the 15 + million animals in the state is not only unfair, it's cruel. With unemployment rising, people should not have to make a difficult choice between what might be an affordable medical procedure for their companion and killing/relinquishing their animal because of the extra taxation.

You can help:

Please make a brief, polite phone call to Governor Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841 and urge him to remove the Fido Fine from the budget proposal. When you call, please select your language choice, then press 5 to leave your opinion on a current issue, then press 1 to select the issue of extending the sales tax to veterinary services, and then press 2 to oppose this proposal. After calling, please send a follow-up email to your state legislators and urge them to reject the Governor’s proposal.

Contact your representative; tell them to remove the Fido fine from the budget proposal. (You can find out who your legislator is here.)

I love Blossom.

Blossom is the coolest turkey ever. She is so sweet and sociable; she truly enjoys being around people, and is curious about the world around her. Today she was really enjoying hanging out with me in the warm sun. I got a bunch of good pictures of her, and I thought about spacing them all out into a bunch of separate 'Turkey Pic of the Day' posts, but I'm too lazy, so you're getting them all at once. Enjoy!

Turkeys in the News

I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of an HSUS spokesperson, images of vegan advertisements, and acknowledgment of Tofurky as a viable option in this clip on last night's NBC Nightly News. I think we're becoming more mainstream!

Pics from my Farm Sanctuary visit

Gene Bauer (co-founder of Farm Sanctuary)

Emily Deschanel (star of Bones and 15-year vegan - she ROCKS!)

Haters

We got a little bit of coverage in our little local paper yesterday over our recent adoption of Blossom and Tinkerbell. I realize that not everyone loves animals the way I do, but why do people have such nasty, snarky reactions to the idea of someone attempting to alleviate suffering in the world? You can click on 'comments' to read what some of the local ignorant rednecks had to say about our story. Grr.

Can You Help?

I received this via e-mail today and thought I'd pass it along...

Dear Friend of Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary,

We have an incredible opportunity to expand the sanctuary by 35 acres and to acquire a 4000 square foot home that will be converted into an Education Center and volunteer / intern housing and B&B for sanctuary visitor

This kind of capital improvement to the sanctuary is 10 years overdue -- but we now have the opportunity to purchase the property for $100,000.00.

Thanks to one VERY generous benefactor, we've already raised $70,000.00!!!

We need to raise the other $30,000.00 before the end of the week in order to make a cash offer on the property. Another family has placed an offer and, due to the Agricultural zoning, they will have to use the land to enslave and exploit animals.

Please help us stop it before it starts, while simultaneously expanding the sanctuary and our ability to care for and advocate for countless more victims of the egg, dairy, flesh producers and consumers.

Time is of the essence - if you are able to contribute to this, please let me know right away.

Thank You!

Michele Alley-Grubb

Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

Free Farm Sanctuary Book Download - Today Only

I just got an e-mail about this and thought I'd pass it on. To celebrate his book's paperback release, Gene Baur is offering a free e-book version of his book, Farm Sanctuary - Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food - but you have to act fast, it's only free today. You'll need to download the Sony eBook library software and set up an account, but it's super quick and easy. Here's a blurb about the book -

Leading animal rights activist Gene Baur examines the real cost of the meat on our plates -- for both humans and animals alike -- in this provocative and thorough examination of the modern farm industry. Many people picture cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens as friendly creatures who live happily within the confines of a peaceful family farm, arriving as food for humans only at the end of their sun-drenched lives. That's what Gene Baur had been told -- but when he first visited a stockyard he realized that this rosy depiction couldn't be more inaccurate. Amid the stench, noise, and filth, his attention was drawn in particular to one sheep who had been cast aside for dead. But as Baur walked by, the sheep raised her head and looked right at him. She was still alive, and the one thing Baur knew for sure that day was that he had to get her to safety. Hilda, as she was later named, was nursed back to health and soon became the first resident of Farm Sanctuary -- an organization dedicated to the rescue, care, and protection of farm animals.

Oink.

I made this pendant today...

It's recycled sterling silver with a little piggy in recycled 14k gold. Oh, and a 14k gold border as well. I think it turned out really cute, although I have been having trouble getting the finish to be perfectly mirror-shiny... I may keep this one for myself; I'm kind of attached to it. I'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow - I just snapped this one as I'm wearing it here in the studio.