they go hand in hand...

feminism and veganism...

feminism - "The goal of feminism is to dismantle the hierarchical system that values certain groups over others: men over women, whites over blacks, straights over gays and so on. This false hierarchy permits the exploitation of those at the bottom by the powerful at the top. But mainstream feminism is failing to include non-human animals in the equation – and this needs to change..." from 'feminism must stop ignoring animals' by ruby hamad...

veganism - is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude - as far as is possible and practicable - all forms of animal exploitation and cruelty for any reason, including medicine, food, clothing, entertainment or for any other purpose... in dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals. In short, veganism is a philosophical position and not a diet... from 'your vegan fallacy is...', a wonderful new resource that has many articles on the misconceptions surrounding veganism...

this is the latest vegan street meme - why not check out the vegan street blog, 
formerly known as vegan feminist agitator

do you call yourself a feminist? do you believe in equality for all? do you believe in reproductive rights? do you believe our bodies belong to us? have you made the connection yet? then surely you believe in every sentient beings right to live their lives free from harm, free from enslavement, free from exploitation... if so your next logical step has to be veganism, it is a moral imperative, the ethical baseline that really will change this world...

want some 'brain food' - check out the blog 'there's an elephant in the room' - just brilliant...

the real matrix...

i've been meaning to post this video for a while now... presented by james wildman of the animal rights foundation of florida 'the real matrix - 101 reasons to go vegan' is 1 hour and 8 minutes of thought-provoking time well spent...

sit down, take a load off, and become absorbed in james' informative, entertaining, fascinating and compelling talk covering tradition, culture, inherited choices and health...

if 1 hour and 8 minutes is too long for you, perhaps melanie joy's talk fits your time scale better - 20 minutes in which she talks about inherited choices...

personally, i recommend both - similar messages, different styles of presentation, both articulate, passionate speakers - i could have watched each speaker for far longer than both videos ran...

 

"if we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others… why wouldn't we?" ... edgar's mission

raising awareness through art...

when jo frederiks paints, she does it with passion and purpose... she has a compelling message to share, evident in this video of her recent exhibition - 'the animal holocaust' - opened by phillp wollen... the art is stunning, breathtaking, heartbreaking, and the words powerful...

while looking for information about jo, who grew up on a remote queensland 'cattle station', became a passionate animal rights activist and a vegan advocate, i came across an interesting article by 'age' columnist sam de brito - 'confessions of a vegan' - in which he shares his vegan awakening (along with some of jo's artwork)...

"Once the light goes on and you realise the food you so blithely eat actually causes massive, life-long, completely avoidable suffering to billions of animals, it’s not an easy epiphany to un-think.

A supermarket never looks the same, butcher shops become very dark places. The perversity of using smiling anthropomorphised animals to advertise packages of their own body parts grows almost chilling."

i find it encouraging, inspiring, uplifting to read of more and more people making the connection, acknowledging the atrocities humans perpetrate against other sentient beings, moving forward, embracing vegan philosophy and sharing what it means to be vegan in mainstream media... veganism is a truth whose time has definitely come...

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought." ― Isaac Bashevis Singer

the truth is out there...

there's a 'joke' that nonvegans trot out time and time again which goes along the lines of "how do you know when someone's a vegan? don't worry, they'll soon tell you!" believe me, every vegan has heard it, and every vegan is sick and tired of it - considering we live in a society built on speciesism and the idea of human superiority and we are confronted day in and day out with atrocities committed against nonhuman beings enslaved by humans it's no wonder... ads no matter where you turn encourage the buying, wearing, and consumption of body parts, and nonvegans are only too happy to share their 'culinary delights' with all and sundry... the 'entertainment' industry beckons us to witness the broken spirits of those beaten into submission to 'perform'... zoos confine and display nonhumans as 'exhibits' and call it 'educational'... hmmm...

consequently i couldn't resist buying a t-shirt online a few weeks ago from the vegan street store, a "retro design (that) pokes fun at the prevailing attitudes a lot of people hold toward vegans".- my 'splurge' (which i don't get to do very often because i rarely have 'extra cash' to play with)... well my t-shirt arrived just the other day and this is what it says...

realistically, how can i not tell you i'm vegan? as the author of the blog 'there's an elephant in the room' so eloquently puts it...

"How do you know when someone is vegan? Well I’m guilty as charged. I will soon tell you. But the real reason is probably not the one that the ‘joking’ nonvegan finds so amusing.

When we meet others. even in the most casual of circumstances, we share information about ourselves, glean information about those whom we meet. Through this sharing, we find common interests, experiences and outlooks and we subconsciously assess the nature of any future relationship we may have with them or reaffirm our existing bonds. If I were to list the things that I consider are important about me and my experience in life I will tell you that I’m vegan because it’s the main thing there is to know about me.  It sums up my values and all the lessons life has taught me. Veganism has become synonymous with who I am as a person and to tell you that I am vegan is baring my soul..." read more in the post knock knock

for those who already know me, all i can hope is that my passionate belief in a non-speciesist world and consequent conversation will encourage you to think about the atrocities committed against others for your food, clothing and entertainment...

 "There is absolutely no way for humans to obtain the body parts and secretions of others without causing unspeakable suffering, exploiting their reproductive systems, mutilating and confining them, killing their children and taking from them every single thing that we would define as the things that make our own human lives worth living." ... from the post painful truth or comforting lies - it's up to us...

i grew up on the same lies that everyone else did, i blindly followed the status quo and ate and wore what society sanctioned - until finally i questioned and discovered the answers i needed to open my eyes, mind and heart and realise we are all sentient beings, we all share the quality of self-awareness... please, start asking questions - the answers are easy to find in this age of information... the truth is out there...

food for thought...

colleen patrick-goudreau is a writer, educator, ethics commentator and articulate, humorous speaker - she is a proud vegan and a tireless advocate for change, and i thought it was worthwhile sharing this recent talk of hers from the conscious eating conference -  "From Excuse-itarian to Vegan"... 

wise words from a defiant daughter...

a month since posting… hmmm, appears i have been ‘neglecting’ my blog somewhat so i thought it was time to at least add something new to read – although not something i have written… i've been reading many blogs and articles lately so thought i would share something that - as a vegan and womyn's liberationist - i found inspiring, refreshing and totally 'in tune' with my views...

ruby at edgar's mission

‘Intersecting oppressions: perspectives from a Muslim vegan feminist’ is by australian journalist ruby hamad, whose writing i have shared before because i just think she is brilliant…

she talks of her childhood growing up at “the tail end of a family of seven children in 1980s Australia…"

"Life was good… until puberty hit. That’s when the illusion of equality was shattered.

I first noticed it at about the age of eleven. Whereas before, my brother and I would loiter around the playground hanging off the monkey bars until it started to get dark, my mother began demanding I come directly home after school. The pleas for permission to play a game of touch football with the neighbourhood kids (mostly boys) were treated with open-mouthed expressions of horror.

You want to play with the boys?

By the time I was twelve, I too was being saddled with chores. The chore I hated most, the one that had me seething with unspoken rage, was the task of making the bed of my younger brother.

No longer my equal.

That’s when I knew.

I knew that the gap between how my brothers were treated and how my sisters and I were treated was only going to grow, and that the reason was our girl bodies. I knew that my days of freedom were numbered.”

** i have to say here that her experience was not much different from a girl growing up in a family that had christianity in the form of catholicism as its religion in the 1950s & 60s australia - my brother could do anything, get away with anything, never had to take responsibility for anything (and still doesn't!!) hey as far as everyone was concerned 'the sun shone out of his arse' (and pretty much still does!!!) - took me until my late teens to understand patriarchy and religion were inextricably linked, and male privilege was inherent in both...  anyway, back to ruby's story...

she goes on to speak of her “deep discomfort with the practice of eating meat.”

"It all started with a chicken. I am often saddened at the inability of many adults to recall just how much children view animals as equals. At the age of five, I was thrilled to wander in to the backyard one day and find a chicken scratching away in the garden. She seemed to come out of nowhere and I didn’t think to ask what she was doing there because there she was and that was good enough for me.. I quickly informed her she was my new best friend and immediately set about chasing her all over the yard. So it struck my five year old self as nothing short of tragic to see myself go, a few short days later, from trying to settle on a name for her to witnessing my father hold her fragile body in his big hands and, invoking the name of God, slice her little head clean off her neck. Yes, it’s true. Headless chickens really do run around like…headless chickens.

I was too shocked to scream. Instead, I fled to the garage, which had been her short-lived home, and lay there trembling for hours, curled amongst the straw and her stray feathers. My parents thought my devastation was sweet but entirely unnecessary. It never crossed their minds that I was grieving the loss of my best friend.

That was my first brush with what Carol Adams calls the patriarchal model of meat consumption. I didn’t know it then, but eating meat is, in its very nature, an expression of male power and control over the bodies of others. There is no denying this now. We are all, vegetarian and meat-eater alike, aware of how closely aligned eating meat is with the stereotypical notion of ‘masculinity’. I remember the Australian advertising campaigns of the 1980s urging housewives to ‘Feed the man meat!’

The reason meat made me uncomfortable as a child was because it was a reminder of my own powerlessness.  Much like women, animals suffer because they are treated as commodities. Relegated to the status of objects, their own desires are irrelevant. They simply exist to be used and abused. This is not specific to one culture or religion, it is a global, structural problem that stems from the belief that the powerful have the right to dominate the weak.

Feminists who eat meat may be fighting for their own liberation, but as long as they participate in animal exploitation—Feed the man meat!—they are propping up the very system they are fighting against.

My early rejection of patriarchal authority and my repeated attempts at living a meat-free life were indeed related. I was rejecting control over both my body and the bodies of animals who I have always identified with.”

there's so much more that she has to say, and you can read the entire article at the scavenger – which itself is an edited exerpt from a new book “Defiant Daughters: 21 Women on Art, Activism,Animals, and The Sexual Politics of Meat” in which ruby has written a chapter entitled “Halal”, but my favourite statement from the article is this one...

“I am a feminist and a vegan because I am opposed to all oppression, to all violence, to all discrimination. I am opposed to the so-called ‘natural order’ that regards perceived inferiority as permission to deny basic rights.”

i hear you sister… that’s exactly how I feel too…to know there are younger womyn like ruby who have made the connection and really ‘get it’ is uplifting - that's the sisterhood i align myself with, not the 'watered-down' version of feminism that has lost its connection to nature…

there's always one...

you’re at a work function, there’s catering, there’s a big spread for the carnists - then there’s the vegan not-so-varied spread the caterers threw together for those who don’t eat other earthlings… have you ever noticed there’s always some non-vegan who decides they will just tuck into the vegan fare without regard to the vegans missing out?

we had an in-service staff training day last week and it was the obligatory spread for the carnists – morning tea for them consisted of sweet muffins, pastries, scones (you get the picture) - and what did the caterers do for the vegans? a small plate of dry, crumbly, savoury muffins - at least lots of fruit is always provided for all!!!

knowing that would likely happen though i got up at 5.30am to make a dozen vegan muffins to make sure we had something yummy to eat (6 berry, 6 chocolate - and no, not pics of mine - who thinks to take photos that early in the morning while psyching yourself up for work?) - exactly enough for us vegans (and one colleague with all sorts of allergies and special dietary needs who often brings in vegan-friendly stuff he or his partner have made that i can share) - so that meant we had one each for morning tea and one each for afternoon tea…

but of course, there was a lot of cajoling by many - 'are you sure there's none to spare?'  or 'can't i just try a little bit' - did i already mention they had quite a bit of food? - that meant someone had to 'stand guard' over them until those they were made for – the vegans - actually got theirs – oh, did i mention i paid for everything to make them? i'm not begrudging that at all - so long as the vegans were benefitting - but it adds a bit more perspective to something that happened in the afternoon...

nearly everyone understood the refusal (although it can get really draining explaining yourself all the time!!) - many asked me for the recipe on sight alone though (because they looked delicious, and of course everyone knows someone who is either vegan or has some sort of animal-product intolerance) but i had a ‘stand off’ at afternoon tea time… yes, that one particular belligerent, selfish, greedy fucker who was determined he was going to have the last one regardless – i was equally determined he wasn’t and i certainly wasn't going to be intimidated by his belligerence… after a few attempts at 'civil explanation' with his response 'i don't care' and insistence that he was entitled because it was there, i got to the point where i started to sound like a broken record - ‘you’re not fucking vegan, you're not having it' to his 'i'm vegan for the moment if i say so' - a real spoilt selfish smart arse... i really had to contain my urge to pick up the container they were in and smash it across his face – another colleague had a go at him pointing out the obvious:  he was able to eat anything else there, the vegans couldn’t…

i was really pissed off (still am when i think about it!) - guess if you're totally self absorbed and believe in your own entitlement to everything, courtesy and respect for colleagues don't enter the picture... sometimes we've all just had enough, reached our tolerance threshold - i certainly had that day, i was well over pain-in-the-arse selfish uppity humans - especially ones i have to work with (but luckily not often!)...

this sort of shit happens all the time though - i’ve spoken to a number of vegans (and vegetarians) and all have had the same sort of experiences at functions – that’s when vegans even get catered for at all!!

while on 'catering' - whatever happened to the plain old garden variety salad, the type that went perfectly on a sandwich - you know, tomato, lettuce, onion, cucumber, beetroot, perhaps some coriander, maybe some vegan mayonnaise – when did sloppy marinated eggplant, capsicum, etc. become the 'gourmet' ingredients for a wrap that had to sit for who knows how long? don't get me wrong, i love these foodstuffs - as part of a vegan platter... as well as the wraps last week we got wholegrain sandwiches with something that looked like mashed steamed veg on spinach – now that really was a slop sandwich!! where do these so-called caterers get their 'inspiration' for vegan food from? there are so many recipe sites, vegan cook books, information in general so how can they make such crap?

methinks next time i’ll just take my own salad roll for lunch!!

as for being vegan, i long for the day the majority live a compassionate lifestyle and all catering is vegan (and edible!!)...

a good place to find out information on the vegan philosophy, lifestyle and food is at the world vegan day gatherings... and as november is world vegan month activities are happening worldwide, with melbourne's world vegan day celebration to be held on 11 november at princes park in carlton...

but before that celebration, there is soi dog australia's trade of shame demonstration against the brutal dog smuggling trade in asia at federation square on 3 november... perhaps i'll see you there...

"As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together." ... Isaac Bashevis Singer

my vegan transition...

my progression from vegetarianism to full-on veganism was a long time in the happening, but as a result of reading a lot of heart-wrenching articles and viewing a plethora of horrific graphics on animal welfare over the past few months i was forced to stop procrastinating - reality could no longer be denied - i couldn't fool myself anymore with the blinkered belief that the organic milk, cheese and free range egg industries meant humanely treated animals compared to the cruelty perpetrated by battery farms, feed lots and the overstocked and under-regulated farming industry in general - nor could i disregard the fact that even if there was some semblance of humane treatment (a rarity, mostly a fallacy!!), in the end the animals are still slaughtered for human consumption.

it's been remarkably easy (for the most part) - i have't had a drastic change in my eating habits - a lot of my menu was already vegan  (you just can't go past a yummy chickpea and/or vegie curry - it just gets served minus the yoghurt dip these days!!) - and animal liberation has been  integral to my personal politics for decades...

but yes, there are some things i miss, like the animal-rennet-free cheeses i enjoyed - and no, soy cheese just doesn't 'cut it' - you would think soy cheese was just that wouldn't you? alas you still have to read the labels because a lot of the soy cheeses contain casein or calcium caseinate, a milk protein used to give the 'cheese' texture!!! i tried the non-dairy 'tofutti' the other day - i could only get the american-style soy slices but that was rather disgusting - maybe the bright orangey colour turned me off a bit when it was melted - maybe the mozzerella slices might be better if i can find them!!! but then it does come from america, home of cheese in a can!!!!! 

surprisingly i found that i quite enjoy a good soy latte - but that depends on the 'barista's' competence - if they make horrible coffee it doesn't matter what 'milk' they use, they're just crap coffee makers!!! and it needs to be hot (when did lukewarm coffee become 'the norm'???) some say it depends on the brand of soy used, but i've had the same brand from different outlets and they've all tasted different - some good, some bad!!! i don't mind the nutty flavour but no, i couldn't just have a glass - i can only have it as a latte!!!! rice milk is not too bad as a replacement in a cup of tea or instant coffee (not as strong as soy!!) and it's quite okay with cereal (oooh, maybe i'm putting more sugar on the cereal though!!!!) - and i've just tried a vanilla soy milk which is quite yummy!!

i'm going to try out a cake recipe this weekend that a work colleague gave me... a very simple recipe - 1 cup flour, 1 cup coconut, 1 cup raw sugar, 1 cup milk (soy, rice - whatever you prefer - you could probably replace some of the liquid with orange, lemon or lime juice for a tangy flavour) and that's it... he adds a whole grated nutmeg nut to his - guess you could also use cinnamon, or mixed spice... hope it turns out as yummy as michael g's!!!!!

unfortunately peoples attitudes are one of the hardest things to deal with - cynicism, sarcasm, being looked on as an absolute weirdo, the belief by some that it's 'just a phase', others who believe it's 'just a diet' - yes, some people do follow vegetarian or vegan dietary practices purely for health reasons, but that doesn't make them vegetarian or vegan, it just means they eat vegetarian or vegan food!!! i am well over hearing the phrase "I used to be vegetarian/vegan but..." i've heard it many times over the years but i'm not sure how people expect me to react to it - am i meant to feel understanding of, or comraderie with, a perceived 'shared experience'? sorry, i don't - all i can say to a comment like that is "if you weren't 'doing it for the animals' you weren't vegetarian or vegan - they're lifestyle choices, not just eating regimes!!!"


these same attitudes have existed much of my vegetarian life so nothing has changed on that front - however people do find vegetarianism easier to comprehend than veganism... perhaps that has something to do with veganism being a philosophy, a way of life, a political stand, a belief in animal liberation...

if you have a vegan friend that you want to share a bottle of wine with, why not try a bottle of  ishtar from balthazar of the barossa vineyard...

i was looking for a bottle to share with a friend and just couldn't go past a wine named after "a Babylonian Goddess of Love and War – the chief goddess in the pantheon of Babylonian Gods and Goddesses"!!

with no mention on the bottle of the fining agents used, i emailed the winery - run by a womon named Anita Bowen - and received a very prompt reply, which read in part...




"... appreciate your enquiry, as I am very aware of dietary issues around wine, given my list of severe food allergies. NO, I don’t use any animal products (fish, milk or egg derived) as I don’t use any fining agents in making my wines. The only addition I make is a minimum amount of sulphur dioxide to prevent oxidization/spoilage..."

no longer sharing life and space with a partner who was a long term alcoholic has definitely changed the way i drink these days - i very rarely buy alcohol to have at home, but if i do it's usually when socialising with friends (that's also rarely these days!) - so it's nice to be able to say when i drink now, it's for the taste and pleasure - not just to 'get pissed,' and not because being pissed is the only way to share time with an alcoholic partner...