A Non-violent Choice

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A Non Violent Choice for the Rights of all Living Beings

-Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.

George Bernard Shaw

-It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)


-Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)


-People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

-Poor animals! How jealously they guard their pathetic bodies ... that which to us is merely an evening's meal, but to them is life itself.
T.Casey Brennan (1948- )

6th European Vegetarian Congress

Bussolengo, Italy, September 21 - 26, 1997

Adolfo Sansolini
L.A.V. (Anti-Vivisection Society) General Director, and member of Vatican Radio

From my many years' experience as a vegetarian working for animal rights, I think it has now been established that the vegetarian choice is a vote for sensitivity, respect and non-violence towards our fellow humans and towards animals. The problem though is getting others to see that this decision is necessary - all too often they do not respect other human beings, let alone animals. Many committed people who dedicate their lives to children, the elderly, the homeless and so on, do not consider whether meateating is compatible with the work they do. A famous American singer known for her antimilitarist campaigning astonished me when I interviewed her, as she answered my question whether she was a vegetarian by saying she was "too busy with human beings".

It is unfortunately true that even the most sensitive do not find it easy to grasp that non-violent struggle begins with the dinner plate. Showing people this is the first step towards a victory of conscience. Vegetarianism must be a choice and not an imposition, because the path to freedom can only be freely chosen, and along the way barriers and superstitions are removed, things that yesterday seemed unassailable. And we cannot at the same time justify remaining pockets of oppression, slavery, and exploitation of anyone at all. The problem is how to get people to see - and they should be seen not as enemies but as people who have walked a very different road from our own and who have not managed to acquire certain ideas, often through a lack of information - how to get people to understand that a slice of meat is not a healthy food, a source of employment or something that helps our children grow better, but a product of exploitation that we pay for in ill health and famine, and in the exploitation of both human and non-human animals. We should therefore aim to inform and train other people, and talk in a way that may strike them as revolutionary. Vegetarianism is actually revolutionary compared to old traditions and beliefs. We must demonstrate that our lives, and our societies, can change, and that this brings benefits for all. This Congress itself shows that something is moving: we must live out our testimony on a daily basis in such a way that our lives affect the outside world, a political choice calling for change. There has been talk here of the boycott against Nestl‚, but there are other boycotts at the moment against companies selling toys or other items for children in violation of Third World working conditions, companies who exploit child labour. Every edition of our association's magazine provides readers with information about companies offering fur coats or holidays involving bull-fights or shooting parties. There are also campaigns for example against the exploitation of circus animals, in which we ask children to draw the environment the animals would be truly happy in. These are all seeds born of our commitment, which can germinate only if we plant them in the soil of others' minds, if we bring them to others' attention. We must approach others in a spirit of freedom, guaranteeing them the freedom of choice which is the best testimony for the reasons why we go vegetarian.

Some go vegetarian for health reasons, some out of concern for Third World exploitation, and others, like myself, to avoid killing animals. It is a simple but revolutionary proposition. I believe all these seeds are growing, even though the battle is not yet won and we have not yet beaten the logic of exploitation, and our work day after day has a significant impact, advocating as it does a revolutionary choice in the way we live our lives, a choice which is not so much about giving up as gaining greater peace of mind, improved health, and a more loving and respectful attitude towards animals. Our states and our political representatives must take charge. We must encourage a sense of respect and sensitivity for animal rights. The demonstration coming up on 4 October in Rome will ask for the Italian Constitution to be amended to include animal rights. This is a revolutionary proposal to reverse the tendency to see animals as mere things, a way to remove the blood from our diets and replace it with tomato sauce, so helping to build a non-violent society

For more information visit the Vegetarian Society

www.vegsoc.org/

The Vegan Society

www.vegansociety.com/html/

[Activist4Animals]

In the UK alone, 800 million animals are slaughtered for food each year.

These animals are as feeling as any household pet and, in many cases, far more intelligent.

Yet they are still forced to live tortuous, short lives; denied access to their young, deprived of basic freedoms, fed on unnatural diets and chemicals, kept in cramped conditions where they frequently develop physical and psychological abnormalities.

Then they're transported from factory farm, to livestock market, then to the horrors of the slaughterhouse.

Some have to endure the long, stressful haul to markets abroad, often in extremes of weather without adequate provisions such as food, water, air and light, to places where conditions are even worse.

They are then killed.


Meat and fish production is damaging the Earth beyond repair. Here's how:

Methane-emitting livestock contribute massively to the 'Greenhouse Effect' and global warming.
Ammonia from animal waste and agricultural fertilisers contribute to acid rain which kills aquatic and plant life.
Livestock farming makes inefficient use of limited resources. Millions of people go hungry and thirsty in the developing world while grain and water is squandered on rearing animals to be slaughtered for food in the developed world.
Millions of hectares of life sustaining rain forest are destroyed each year to create grazing pasture. This kills off and puts at risk animal species and indigenous human populations.
Over-fishing of the Earth's oceans has decimated fish populations to the point of near extinction of many species. Dolphins and whales are indiscriminately killed by drift nets while massive amounts of dead fish are thrown back into the sea or used as pig and sheep feed.
Intensive grazing causes soil erosion and nutrient depletion.

An acre of land can produce 10,000 pounds of green beans, 30,000 pounds of carrots, 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, but only 250 pounds of beef.
The wider adoption of vegetarianism would lead to better use of resources and better protection of the environment.

It is estimated that over half a million dolphins and porpoises die each year because of drift netting.

[glow=red,2,300]Did You Know? [/glow]

About 80 per cent of all agricultural land in the UK is used to rear livestock and almost 50 per cent of all cereal crops grown in Britain are used as animal feed.


Research has shown that a well-balanced, low-fat, high-fibre vegetarian diet is a very healthy option and vegetarians certainly need not go short of any nutrients, vitamins or minerals.

In recent years people have been forced to think much more about the health implications of the food on their plates. This is in light of recent health scares such as E-coli and, of course, BSE ('Mad Cow Disease') and nvCJD (the deadly human form), which resulted in the widespread banning of British beef, with billions of pounds of public money wasted and millions of innocent animals slaughtered.

Research has also shown that a vegetarian diet could help reduce risks from certain cancers by up to 40 per cent; decrease the possibility of dying from heart disease by 30 per cent; restrict the chance of suffering from kidney and gall stones, diet-related diabetes and even high blood pressure. lt could also lower cholesterol levels and reduce health problems related to obesity. Over 90 per cent of all food poisoning cases each year in the UK are related to the consumption of animal products.

[Activist4Animals]

The fundamental reason to become vegan or vegetarian is respect for the animals. People who follow a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle believe these animals are sensitive beings with intrinsic value and not just unfeeling objects. Vegans do not eat anything that is from animal origin including meat, eggs and dairy products. They don't wear animal skin or wool and they do not use products which are experimented on animals. They do not buy animals as pets, they do not visit zoos and Aquariums, they don't patronize circus or any show that employs or features animals as entertainment. In short, they avoid all products or activities that involve the death and suffering of animals. Every year, billions of sentient beings are transformed into a food product, after a very short life of pain and suffering. Vegans and vegetarians cannot stop these atrocities in their entirety, but they refuse to participate or further the cause.
The refusal to condone these brutal transformations is born from the knowledge that animals must be guaranteed fundamental rights - the same rights that the civilized world bestows on human beings. In fact, human beings and animals have many of the same characteristics including the ability to suffer. If humans suffer like animals do, how is it possible for mankind to justify the morals and laws that defend human fundamental rights and at the same time refuse to take into consideration animal suffering? The laws of mankind are unjust because they give humans certain fundamental rights while denying those same rights to animals.

Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them - without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.
Carl Sagan e Ann Druyan - Scientists - From Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1992


The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of theos sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grownhorse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week, or even of a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? or Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? -


Jeremy Bentham - Philosopher

In order to nourish all

If everyone became a vegan, there would be more than sufficient food resources to nourish the entire world population. The reason is simple. The mass production of animals consumes enormous amounts of vegetables that the animals convert into meat, dairy products and eggs. But this transformation involves a great loss of protein and energy which is contained in vegetables: the majority simply serves to support the metabolism of the animals and it is not converted to edible tissues. Bycontrast, if the vegetables were grown directly for human consumption, they would feed a much greater number of people. Here is an example. If we assign an hectare of earth to the breeding of cattle, in a year we only get 66 Kg of protein; instead, if we cultivate soybeans, we get a harvest of 1848 Kg of protein: This is 28 times more protein!

The scientific facts are that a vegetarian and vegan diet can nourish a greater number of people than an omnivore diet. Based on statistics by Professor Peter Ulvi of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, here is a breakdown of how many human beings can be nourished by a vegan diet versus an omnivore diet:
Vegan diet: 6.3 billion people
Omnivore diet which includes 25% animal products: 3.2 billion people.

A study by the FAO indicates that the following environmental problems are created by the processes of breeding and animal production:

Reduced biodiversity and severe damages to the ecosystem
Land erosion and reduction in the quantity and quality of water tables
Increased Greenhouse effect and contamination of the water supply with nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides.
Acid rains and contamination of the land with heavy metals
Animal breeding and excrement creates artificial lagoons that can pollute the water supply. Pig and chicken excrement often ends up in thewater supply and contributes to the increase of pathogenic organisms that kill millions of fish and poison human beings. Also the industrial waste seriously damages the marine ecosystem.
Source: Vegan Outreach
From: Why Vegan, 2000

In order to protect the environment

If only a small amount of land is necessary to feed a vegan, then clearly his food choice makes a smaller environmental impact. Forests do not have to be pulled down in order to create new pastures and less fuel, pesticides and fertilizers are used in order to cultivate the fields (this includes the reduction of gas emissions that increase the greenhouse effect). According to this data, in the Amazonian forest, 88% of deforested lands are used for pasture, and since 1960 a quarter of the forests in Central America have been pulled down in order to create space for pastures. For every 16 Kg of cereals and soybeans given to the animals for feed, they produce only1 Kg of meat; the rest of the "product", composed mainly of excrement, ends up in rivers. And,a person who follows a vegan lifestyle saves on the average 0.5 hectaresof trees in a year.

The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous.

David Brubaker - Scientist - Johns Hopkins University
From: Environmental News Network, Sept. 20, 1999

[Activist4Animals]

Adopting a vegan lifestyle means that you refuse everything that is derived from the exploitation and suffering of animals. This includes meat, fish as well as dairy products, eggs, animal skin and wool in clothing. Overall, nearly all the total sales of the animal products (meat, dairy, eggs) come from animal breeding where the animals are locked up without any respect for their physiological and ethological requirements. The only goal in this process is to make the maximum productivity in the least amount of time, up until the moment they are killed in the "disassembly lines" of the slaughterhouse. Even more cruel is the long and debilitating transport: crammed in trucks, without room to move, drink or eat, they arrive at their final destination in a serious condition of stress, and therefore are so debilitated that they cannot even get up.

The cost of feeding on animal products is mass slaughter. How can people who are sensitive to the cruel treatment of animals in biomedical research turn a blind eye to the treatment of animals that suffer for food production? It is only natural that slaughter awakens a sense of loathing.
Umberto Veronesi - Oncologist, former Italian minister of health - from: L'Espresso, 30/11/2000

-The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.
Mahaparinirvana (Buddhist)

[Activist4Animals]

[glow=red,2,300]Fish? No thanks! [/glow]

Fish have a complex nervous system and just like the other animals, they feel pain.

Whether the fish are harvested from the sea or from fish farming, the results are the same: they are suffocated - an atrocious death and terrible suffering that no one takes into consideration.

Fish cannot scream their pain as land animals do, but they are aware of what is happening to them and they do suffer. This was the conclusion of a report in September 1996 entitled Farm Animal Welfare Council Report on the Welfare of Farmed Fish commissioned by the English Ministry of Agriculture on the relationship between the well-being of fish bred for food and the well-being of land animals also bred for food.

"... the scientific evidence concerning such effects makes it clear that the term stress is certainly relevant to fish and that the means by which stress effects are mediated are very similar to those in mammals. Evidence that the term pain is applicable to fish comes from anatomical, physiological and behavioural studies whose results are very similar to those of studies on birds and mammals. The fact that fish are cold blooded does not prevent them from having a pain system and, indeed, such a system is valuable in preserving life and maximising the biological fitness of individuals. The receptor cells, neuronal pathways and specialised transmitter substances in the pain system are very similar in fish to those in mammals."

[glow=red,2,300]No to eggs [/glow]

Egg production translates to the death of the hens and male chicks. Hens normally would live fifteen years outside of this prison, but in breeding cages their lives are short (about 2 years) and when their productivity slows down they are slaughtered. Don't be fooled, the consumption of eggs also stimulates meat production. Beyond the shortened lifespan of the dead hens, there is also intense exploitation of these animals. The male chicks, which are useless to the productive cycle, are thrown into a mincer to become feed. Even worse, they are simply suffocated or just left to die in great heaps.

[glow=red,2,300]No to dairy[/glow]

Many people are unaware that cows and calves are killed in the process of production of dairy products. These cows would normally live twenty years, but in the factory farming, they are slaughtered when their production diminishes, normally after only five to six years. The calf, torn from its the mother after birth, is destined for a short life and an early trip to the slaughterhouse to become veal. Alternatively, the calves are fattened up for two years, only to be slaughtered to become steer meat.

Cows are inseminated artificially because if they don't give birth every year to a calf, which would be pre-destined for the slaughterhouse after one year, then the cows would be unable to produce milk daily. Moreover, cows are bred to increase their milk production, even when this induces genetic defects in the animals which cause great suffering. The calves are isolated in a box, their legs chained and subjected a diet devoid of iron which renders them weak and anemic. Why this abnormal and inhumane treatment? So consumers can indulge themselves in what they consider meat that "tastes better". This is why vegans do not eat dairy or dairy products.

Vegans don't care if cheese does or does not contain animal rennet - which is obtained from the stomach of the slaughtered animals. Cheeses, even if biological, are always obtained from the suffering of many animals.

[Activist4Animals]

"As we have seen, the veal industry is an offshoot of dairying. Producers must ensure that their dairy cows become pregnant every year in order to keep them in milk. Their offspring are taken from them at birth, an experience that is as painful for the mother as it is terrifying for the calf. The mother often makes her feelings plain by constant calling and bellowing for days after her infant is taken. Some female calves will be reared on milk substitutes to become replacements of dairy cows when then read the age, at around two years, when they can produce milk. Other calves will be sold at between one to two weeks of age to be reared as beef in fattening pens or feedlots. The remainder will be sold to veal producers, who also rely on the dairy industry for the milk diet that is fed to calves to keep them anemic."
Peter Singer - Philosopher - From "Animal Liberation"
[glow=red,2,300]Reality Check! [/glow]

www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat

Meet Your Meat

www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=chew_on_this

Chew On This

www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=agri_short

Horror at AgriProcessors

Or choose from many...

www.petatv.com/veg.html

[Activist4Animals]

A Global Stampede to the Meat Counter

Vegetarianism may be becoming more popular in countries such as the UK, but a recent press briefing from the prestigious Worldwatch Institute shows that worldwide meat consumption is growing at an alarming rate. An incredible 211 million tons of meat were produced worldwide in 1997, an almost fivefold increase since 1950, equivalent to 36 kg (or nearly 80 lbs) of meat per person, more than double the 1950 level. The boom in meat consumption has been accompanied by increased intake of all animal products, with per capita consumption of milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, eggs and fish each reaching record levels. Today, the Earth's 5.85 billion humans share the planet with 1.3 billion cattle, nearly 1 billion pigs, 1.8 billion sheep and goats, and 13.4 billion chickens.

Not surprisingly, meat eating is concentrated in a relatively few countries. Thus, the US, China, Brazil and the 15 countries of the European Union between them consume over 60% of the world's beef, more than 70% of the world's poultry and over 80% of the world's pork. Of the world's ten most populous nations, five (China, the US, Brazil, Russia and Japan) each consume large amounts of meat (ranging from 40 kg per person in Japan to 123 kg per person in the US), whereas the remaining five (India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria) all consume less than 5 kg per person per year. Overall, per capita meat consumption is three times as high in developed countries as in developing countries. Nevertheless, increasing affluence in the poorer nations (notably in China and other rapidly industrialising countries) has seen a doubling in per capita consumption of beef, pork and chicken over the past decade.

As well as representing a massive and wholly unnecessary loss of life as billions of animals are slaughtered for food every year, the trends spell pending disaster for the Earth's ecosystems and the world's poor. As overgrazing pushes the world's rangelands to the limit and beyond more animals are grain-fed. Already, 36% of the world's grain harvest (670 million tons) is fed to livestock. Just ten per cent of this, fed directly to humans, would be enough to sustain 225 million people. In a hungry world feeding grain to animals, from which only a fraction is returned as meat, milk or eggs, represents a scandalous waste of resources. Meat production also has a massive impact on water resources both in terms of usage (producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about 100 times as much water as 1 kg of grain protein) and the threat of pollution from the huge quantities of waste generated by intensive livestock enterprises (a 50,000 acre pig farm under construction in the US will generate more waste than the city of Los Angeles). The world's livestock also produce one quarter of all human-induced methane, a potent greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. All this for a food which has been implicated in major diseases such as heart disease and several cancers. Recognising this, the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine recently advised the Chinese government to limit the country's meat consumption in an effort to stem the massive health care costs arising from the treatment of previously rare chronic diseases. Whether this will be sufficient to turn the tide of rapidly increasing meat consumption in the world's most populous nation remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that a reduction in the consumption of animal protein worldwide would be of immense benefit to humans as well as animals.

Paul Appleby