Kindness Not Cruelty is an organization dedicated to outreach and education about all topics pertaining to animal rights, vegetarianism & living an healthy life full of compassion. Their site is so informative and inspiring, I urge you to take a look at their website. There are tons of links to various topics such as health, fashion, food, companion animals, wildlife and an events page.
Right now they are compiling a slideshow featuring car advertisements. Are you an animal-friendly business owner with your business name on your car? Send your photo off to Kindness Not Cruelty to have your car displayed in the slideshow.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Those selfish vegans...
... always thinking about themselves, and all the animals, and the planet, and their own health and well-being. So selfish!
Did anyone read the Toronto Sun today? Not a newspaper where I would expect to see the word "vegan" come up. A colleague plopped the "Dear Abby" or "Dear Ann" or whatever it is in front of my face... you know that section where everyone complains about what's going on in their lives and asks for the all-knowing Abby to solve their problems. How people can expect any of their problems to be answered in a space that takes up one little corner of the back of the newspaper, by a total stranger no less, is beyond me. But I digress.
The scenario, explained in 2 or 3 sentences was this: Daughter & Daughter's Boyfriend are getting married. They are both vegans. They want a vegan wedding (well duh! of course they do!!). Dad is so unhappy about this, he is almost refusing to go to the wedding, saying that the daughter and her fiance are "selfish" and Mom is stuck in the middle and doesn't know what to do.
Ann/Abby/Whatever her name is suggested that the day was about his daughter and not about him (YA!) and that if he was worried about it, he should eat before he goes to the wedding. WHAT?!?
Am I insane, or can some people not go ONE MEAL without having meat??!
This would have been my reply:
"How DARE you call your daughter selfish?! Your daughter is celebrating what she may consider the most important day of her life, or at the very least it will be a day that she will cherish for her entire life. She and her fiance have decided to celebrate their joy of getting married by having a wedding and offering a meal to their family and friends. The meal, in alignment with their core values, will not contain any animal products. I would venture to say that your daughter has omitted animal products from her life because she is a compassionate person and wants to live a compassionate lifestyle without harming other animals. Rather than go one meal without meat, you would rather miss your daughter's celebration of love with your new son-in-law?? You are pathetic! You call your daughter selfish, and yet you have no regard for the thousands of animals that will undoubtedly be put to slaughter so that you can have your precious meat at every meal. You sir, obviously care more about your own stomach than you do about your daughters beliefs, and you have the nerve to call her selfish? Shame on you! Shame on you for not thinking about anyone other than yourself. Shame on you for putting your taste buds ahead of all the torture and massacre of innocent animals, who die so that you can have your meat. You are a pathetic excuse for a human being."
I'm guessing that the columnist wanted to say something similar, but she was told to keep her answer under 30 words.
I would reference the column, but after scouring the Sun's web page for a bit, I couldn't find it. It's just as well, it's not exactly a newspaper that I want to support with adding a link on my blog.
Did anyone read the Toronto Sun today? Not a newspaper where I would expect to see the word "vegan" come up. A colleague plopped the "Dear Abby" or "Dear Ann" or whatever it is in front of my face... you know that section where everyone complains about what's going on in their lives and asks for the all-knowing Abby to solve their problems. How people can expect any of their problems to be answered in a space that takes up one little corner of the back of the newspaper, by a total stranger no less, is beyond me. But I digress.
The scenario, explained in 2 or 3 sentences was this: Daughter & Daughter's Boyfriend are getting married. They are both vegans. They want a vegan wedding (well duh! of course they do!!). Dad is so unhappy about this, he is almost refusing to go to the wedding, saying that the daughter and her fiance are "selfish" and Mom is stuck in the middle and doesn't know what to do.
Ann/Abby/Whatever her name is suggested that the day was about his daughter and not about him (YA!) and that if he was worried about it, he should eat before he goes to the wedding. WHAT?!?
Am I insane, or can some people not go ONE MEAL without having meat??!
This would have been my reply:
"How DARE you call your daughter selfish?! Your daughter is celebrating what she may consider the most important day of her life, or at the very least it will be a day that she will cherish for her entire life. She and her fiance have decided to celebrate their joy of getting married by having a wedding and offering a meal to their family and friends. The meal, in alignment with their core values, will not contain any animal products. I would venture to say that your daughter has omitted animal products from her life because she is a compassionate person and wants to live a compassionate lifestyle without harming other animals. Rather than go one meal without meat, you would rather miss your daughter's celebration of love with your new son-in-law?? You are pathetic! You call your daughter selfish, and yet you have no regard for the thousands of animals that will undoubtedly be put to slaughter so that you can have your precious meat at every meal. You sir, obviously care more about your own stomach than you do about your daughters beliefs, and you have the nerve to call her selfish? Shame on you! Shame on you for not thinking about anyone other than yourself. Shame on you for putting your taste buds ahead of all the torture and massacre of innocent animals, who die so that you can have your meat. You are a pathetic excuse for a human being."
I'm guessing that the columnist wanted to say something similar, but she was told to keep her answer under 30 words.
I would reference the column, but after scouring the Sun's web page for a bit, I couldn't find it. It's just as well, it's not exactly a newspaper that I want to support with adding a link on my blog.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Google Ads
I am hereby removing google ads from my blog. I don't know why I put them on anyway, I've never made a single penny from it. An add just popped up for fur stating that fur is "eco-friendly" & "natural". Why does anyone fall for this? Animals are bred in captivity, tortured, abused, and slaughtered. Then we have to skin them (or sometimes, the animals are skinned first. yep, skinned ALIVE), put a bunch of chemicals in the skin so that it doesn't decompose. We also put chemicals in to change the colour of the fur, or the skin. I'm not going to go into the process, because I want to spend my energy in other places, but it is an absolute oxy-moron (emphasis on the moron) to call fur "eco-friendly". Plus, there is absolutely nothing natural about skinning another animal, and walking around with it's dead carcass draped across your shoulders.
Vegan Beauty Products
Recently a friend asked me about vegan make-up so since I don't wear make-up a lot...ok, never, I had to do a little research! I found the following products at a Shopper's Drug Mart, which means that they are probably widely available in several different stores. If you know of some other ones, please let me know and I'll add them to the list.
MAKE-UP
SMASHBOX (USA) - 100% vegan (except for some brushes with animal hair, but they swear the animals are not harmed)
www.smashbox.com
SKIN CREAM
ORGANIC SURGE (UK) - 100% vegan
www.organicsurge.com
J R WATKINS APOTHECARY (USA) - do not claim to be vegan, they just claim to be above 95% "natural" whatever that means! I think "natural" is one of those blanket terms that every one feels good about, but it doesn't actually tell you anything about the product. They do state that they do not test on animals.
www.jrwatkins.com
YES TO CARROTS (USA) - not vegan but the only non-vegan ingredients are honey & beeswax in some products. claim to be 100% cruelty-free (with a PETA stamp of approval). Lots of organic ingredients.
www.yes-to-carrots.com
HAIR
LACOUPE SALON (USA) - can't find much online, but the Orgnx line is definitely against animal testing. I think they use animal ingredients though. They do claim to plant a tree for every product sold (only in the orgnx line).
www.lacoupe.com / www.orgnx.ca
LIVE CLEAN - 100% vegan
www.live-clean.com
MAKE-UP
SMASHBOX (USA) - 100% vegan (except for some brushes with animal hair, but they swear the animals are not harmed)
www.smashbox.com
SKIN CREAM
ORGANIC SURGE (UK) - 100% vegan
www.organicsurge.com
J R WATKINS APOTHECARY (USA) - do not claim to be vegan, they just claim to be above 95% "natural" whatever that means! I think "natural" is one of those blanket terms that every one feels good about, but it doesn't actually tell you anything about the product. They do state that they do not test on animals.
www.jrwatkins.com
YES TO CARROTS (USA) - not vegan but the only non-vegan ingredients are honey & beeswax in some products. claim to be 100% cruelty-free (with a PETA stamp of approval). Lots of organic ingredients.
www.yes-to-carrots.com
HAIR
LACOUPE SALON (USA) - can't find much online, but the Orgnx line is definitely against animal testing. I think they use animal ingredients though. They do claim to plant a tree for every product sold (only in the orgnx line).
www.lacoupe.com / www.orgnx.ca
LIVE CLEAN - 100% vegan
www.live-clean.com
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Big Sky Ranch Animal Sanctuary
There is an amazing love filled story in the Globe and Mail today. You don't see that too often, so you should all head to www.globeandmail.com and give this inspiring story a read. After that, head to www.bigskyranch.ca and show them some love.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
What the world needs now are Compassionate Cooks...
I discovered a new podcast that I am in love with. Ok, I lied. I hardly discovered it. Actually it was recommended to me by my favourite podcast team Animal Voices. Animal Voices did an interview with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau - you can listen to it here. This woman is a phenomenal, inspirational beacon of positivity. She beams light into every dark corner of the animal movement. For every person that complains that cutting animals out of their diet is too hard, she has an idea on how to make it easy. For every unthinkable horror that is happening in a slaughterhouse, she has a positive message of hope. 
On top of all that, she is just a wealth of information. Her podcast Vegetarian Food For Thought is bursting at the seams with important and incredibly interesting information, not only for vegetarians, but for the entire human race. I just listened to "Diseases of Civilization (aka Lifestyle Diseases)" which was so full of facts and numbers, I am actually pretty surprised that it didn't bore me. Usually, people start rhyming off all kinds of numbers and my mind starts to shut down and travel to more fun thoughts... but Colleen has an energy in her that kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire podcast (and 3 more right after that one). I highly recommend this podcast to anyone who is even slightly interested in health, and we should all be more than "slightly" interested in our health. We are literally killing ourselves with the food we eat and yet very few of us are willing to change our habits so that we can lead healthier stronger happier lives. If messages like Colleen's were on the front page of the newspaper every day, or played on major airways for an hour each day, can you imagine what a difference that would make?! Instead of reading about murder, rape and terrorism every day, we could be reading about hope, inspiration and joy. What a beautiful thing that would be.
Check out the following links:
Compassionate Cooks - www.compassionatecooks.com
Vegetarian Food for Thought Podcast - www.compassionatecooks.com/podcast
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Blogs - www.compassionatecooks.com/blog &
joyfulvegan.wordpress.com
On top of all that, she is just a wealth of information. Her podcast Vegetarian Food For Thought is bursting at the seams with important and incredibly interesting information, not only for vegetarians, but for the entire human race. I just listened to "Diseases of Civilization (aka Lifestyle Diseases)" which was so full of facts and numbers, I am actually pretty surprised that it didn't bore me. Usually, people start rhyming off all kinds of numbers and my mind starts to shut down and travel to more fun thoughts... but Colleen has an energy in her that kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire podcast (and 3 more right after that one). I highly recommend this podcast to anyone who is even slightly interested in health, and we should all be more than "slightly" interested in our health. We are literally killing ourselves with the food we eat and yet very few of us are willing to change our habits so that we can lead healthier stronger happier lives. If messages like Colleen's were on the front page of the newspaper every day, or played on major airways for an hour each day, can you imagine what a difference that would make?! Instead of reading about murder, rape and terrorism every day, we could be reading about hope, inspiration and joy. What a beautiful thing that would be. Check out the following links:
Compassionate Cooks - www.compassionatecooks.com
Vegetarian Food for Thought Podcast - www.compassionatecooks.com/podcast
Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Blogs - www.compassionatecooks.com/blog &
joyfulvegan.wordpress.com
Monday, January 5, 2009
2009 Rant
I have a lot of random stuff to post, so I thought I'd do it all in one go... making a gloriously ranty blog as my first blog of '09.
Firstly, I want you guys to check out Dan Piraro's blog.
He's a comic genius and for some reason he gets a lot of hate mail. I don't know what's wrong with people. Seriously, if you don't like the guy's blog, why the hell do you read it?! and then you proceed to waste your energy sending the guy nasty comments..?! I'm sure Dan just has a hilarious time laughing at all the hate.
I made a sandwich for dinner tonight and started thinking about my ultimate favourite sandwich spreads. #1 Avocado, #2 Hummus, #3 Veganaise. I'm a bit of a veganaise addict these days. Usually I never buy it, but I made a fantastic spinach dip over the holidays and so I have Veganaise left over in the fridge. I loosely based the recipe on something I found online somewhere, but it was so delicious and excruciatingly bad for you. I made it 3 times in a row, that's how addictive it is. By the 3rd time though, I thought I was going to puke at the sight of it. I probably won't make it again for a really long time. But if you want something incredibly delicious and fattening, here you go:
- green onions, chopped
- one container of vegan sour cream
- one cup of veganaise
- one package of vegan soup mix (i used lipton spring vegetable, but i had to strain out the noodles - I couldn't find another vegetable soup mix that was vegan)
- one package of frozen spinach dip
thaw and drain the spinach, then mix everything together. this goes well in a pumpernickel bowl (take pumpernickel bread and scoop out all the bread. rip it up into pieces to dip into the spinach dip). Super easy, super fast and feeds masses. Or if you're like me, you eat is all by yourself and regret it later.
I have to post this photo sent to me by Bonnie. She's such a cutie.
check out Bonnie's beautiful photo's here.
(Don't you love Bonnie's T-shirt? Get your own!!)
We have cable again. I liked the break from the box. Ahh well.
I have an incredibly long commute now. We moved into an energy efficient home and I doubled my commute. I might look into offsetting my carbon footprint for that... a deer ran in front of me the other day. I felt so sad seeing that deer... I felt so guilty that we have just taken all of the land where she used to roam and turned it into a scary loud road that I drive on every day. Me and a billion other cars and trucks.
On that note though, I've promised myself that I am going to ring in the new year with positivity! Lots of positive thoughts. Focus on the good, not the bad. There are so many good things happening, I don't have time to think about the bad. 2009 is going to be a year full of incredibly exciting happenings...! I can't wait!
Firstly, I want you guys to check out Dan Piraro's blog.
He's a comic genius and for some reason he gets a lot of hate mail. I don't know what's wrong with people. Seriously, if you don't like the guy's blog, why the hell do you read it?! and then you proceed to waste your energy sending the guy nasty comments..?! I'm sure Dan just has a hilarious time laughing at all the hate.
I made a sandwich for dinner tonight and started thinking about my ultimate favourite sandwich spreads. #1 Avocado, #2 Hummus, #3 Veganaise. I'm a bit of a veganaise addict these days. Usually I never buy it, but I made a fantastic spinach dip over the holidays and so I have Veganaise left over in the fridge. I loosely based the recipe on something I found online somewhere, but it was so delicious and excruciatingly bad for you. I made it 3 times in a row, that's how addictive it is. By the 3rd time though, I thought I was going to puke at the sight of it. I probably won't make it again for a really long time. But if you want something incredibly delicious and fattening, here you go:
- green onions, chopped
- one container of vegan sour cream
- one cup of veganaise
- one package of vegan soup mix (i used lipton spring vegetable, but i had to strain out the noodles - I couldn't find another vegetable soup mix that was vegan)
- one package of frozen spinach dip
thaw and drain the spinach, then mix everything together. this goes well in a pumpernickel bowl (take pumpernickel bread and scoop out all the bread. rip it up into pieces to dip into the spinach dip). Super easy, super fast and feeds masses. Or if you're like me, you eat is all by yourself and regret it later.
I have to post this photo sent to me by Bonnie. She's such a cutie.
check out Bonnie's beautiful photo's here.
(Don't you love Bonnie's T-shirt? Get your own!!)
We have cable again. I liked the break from the box. Ahh well.
I have an incredibly long commute now. We moved into an energy efficient home and I doubled my commute. I might look into offsetting my carbon footprint for that... a deer ran in front of me the other day. I felt so sad seeing that deer... I felt so guilty that we have just taken all of the land where she used to roam and turned it into a scary loud road that I drive on every day. Me and a billion other cars and trucks.
On that note though, I've promised myself that I am going to ring in the new year with positivity! Lots of positive thoughts. Focus on the good, not the bad. There are so many good things happening, I don't have time to think about the bad. 2009 is going to be a year full of incredibly exciting happenings...! I can't wait!
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