No, honey is not vegan.

There. I said it.

You're vegan, which means that you're judging me.

This one isn't quite a statement, as much as it is an observation. It's a culmination of so many different questions, that it's hard to pinpoint it to any one of them, which is why I've tagged this one with so many of the questions. To be honest, I've been uncomfortable with addressing this issue for a while now, but I figured that I'd better, or else I'm letting the issue get the better of me.

Before I move forward, it may help to give a bit of background on my own journey to veganism. I was born and raised as a vegetarain. My mother would take the family to various vegan potlucks. I knew what veganism is from a very early age. I may not have known their full reasons for it, because as a kid, people mostly feed you platitudes like, "I'm vegan because animals are my friends." To a 10 year old, this is not only condescending, but also unhelpful.

My own reason for being vegetarian didn't come to light until I'd questioned my mother about it, who later on thought it over, and came back to me with, "We don't like to kill animals. It's not right." "Oh, so that's why dairy is OK, right?" "Yeah, exactly."

It was the best I had at the time, and I went about my life blithely unaware of the intricacies of it. Finally, I heard Bob and Jenna Torres, of Vegan Freak fame, go through and explain it in terms that made sense to me. It clicked in my head, but not completely. It had to sort of percolate in there, and I had to make the leap when I was good and ready for it. When I did, there was no turning back. It's been one of the easiest decisions I've ever made.

Notice what I said there. Easiest decision that I have ever made. Not my husband. Not my parents. Not someone screaming angry slogans at me in the streets. The decision that I made, after weighing the arguments in my own mind, and coming to my own conclusions.

At the end of the day, you're going to have to live your life on your own terms. If you're comfortable with what you're doing, then there's really not much I can do to change that. If you're not comfortable with what you're doing, you might want to examine why.

Either way, realise that I have extremely limited mental real estate. At the end of the day, I haven't got the time to judge you. You're doing a fine job of that on your own.

Would you make an exception because I cooked it just for you?

I'm a cook, and for me, food means more than just nourishment (although that is an important factor!), so I sincerely understand where this sentiment comes from. When I cook for someone, however, I always take into account their needs. My dear friends Blue (name changed) and Lilly both despise tomato. This means that when they come over to eat with me (or we eat out together), I ensure that there's no tomato to be had in their food. I have other friends who are watching their weight. When cooking for them, I either omit the fat, or severely restrict it, so that they can enjoy themselves too.

These two scenarios are based mainly on likes and dislikes, and things where the only person whose life is affected is the person making that decision. It means that if you truly did care about me, you'd ask me what my likes and dislikes and needs are. It's not about you (when you're cooking something for someone else), it's about the person who's going to be eating it. Just as I wouldn't serve peanut butter sandwiches to someone with a gluten and nut allergy, I'd ask that you don't serve animal products to a vegan.

Unfortunately, the animals that you killed to make me that "special something" didn't have a choice in the matter. That's the worst part of it all.

What Does it Mean to Do "Enough"?

Hey Everyone,

P_M here again, this time with a specific user in mind, so if someone with the s/n "anastasia" is reading this then thank you for your review of my last post and this is for you.

The question I'm answering today is a bit specific. I personally cannot tell you, the individual reader I've never met, what it means for you to do "enough" for the the sake of the billions of non-humans that face death and exploitation everyday on this planet. I can't tell you what to do or how to do it, because lets face it, if I did I'd be a stuck up power mad authoritarian jerk or just a person with way too high an opinion of herself and an overestimation of her influence. That said ,what I can do is give you some questions to ask yourself next time you feel hopeless or powerless.

Next time you watch an Animal Rights video and get that feeling like you aren't doing enough, ask yourself these questions, and remember... "enough" is standard based on love. Think about it. If someone you love almost if not more than yourself gets sick, enough becomes no less than everything you can possibly do to comfort and assist them, right? But if one those distant relatives whose names you'd forget if they weren't on your Christmas card list gets sick, enough might be a prayer and cheap get-well card. If you want to get technical about it "enough" also has a bit to do with the severity of the situation, our moral responsibilities to other beings and other factors but, as I happen to be a bit sentimental right now, I'll say that love has a bit to do with how a person looks at those other factors. (you may feel free to agree or roll your eyes at me, but since you're still reading this I can only assume that on some level you care what I think)

Any way, These are the questions that you should ask yourself to help you assess whether or not your doing enough for the cause of Animal Rights.

1. Am I vegan? - step one to taking down animal oppression is always a bit obvious (STOP SUPPORTING IT). this is the one I'd insist on. No, vegetarian isn't gonna cover it. No, don't even step to me with "cage free" "humanely raised" "read fairy-tales to and cuddled before killed" products. Going vegan is the "prayer and cheap get-well card" equivalent from my example, using the example of a sick person, anything less ranges from ignoring them to slapping them.

2. What good am I doing already by just answering yes to the first question?
3. Knowing the answer to the previous question, do i feel the need to do more? - remember this one

(If you answered yes to the last question keep on reading, if it was no, congrats your doing enough for you)

4. What do I feel comfortable doing ( leafleting, feed-ins, screenings of AR films ect.)?
5. Am I doing it and doing it effectively to inform the public of what they are supporting (factory farming, animal agriculture, legalized murder/torture) and what they can do to help stop it ( go vegan)?
6.Am I making time to do non-activism related activities that I love and other things ( like eating and sleeping as i should and not abusing the animal that I can help the most (yourself)?
7. What good am I doing by answering "yes" to question 5?
8. repeat question 3 and note in ( ) that follows it
9. If you answered yes to question 5 and still feel that you must do more, (which, if you did what i asked in #8, and are still reading is the case) Is there anything else I can actually do? - get creative.
10. Can I do it without answering "no" to question 6?

If at any point in time you answer "no" to question 6, stop!!! You're doing too much. you're probably a wonderful person to feel such a need to help, but if you burn out...well...how much can you really help anyone?

Don't let anyone (yourself included) make you feel like a bad person or a lazy activist because your definition of enough involves less activism than someone-else's. And you're not obsessed or radical if "enough" for you means doing more than others either. Like I said, It's a standard measured in love, and any amount of love, or effort, is important and has meaning far greater than what we can see in the moment.

I hope this helps,
yours ( because doing this is part of my "enough"),
Plant_Murderer

PS. anastasia, don't give up the art if you love it. It'll keep you sane. Thanks again (for the idea for this post)

Commitment and Me, or How Important is it to stay focused?

Hey All,
P_M back after what feels like a long struggle with commitment, namely my commitment to Animal Rights, and in part to my status as a proud, and joyful vegan. ( the vegan part never faltered, the "proud and joyful" part got side tracked).

At the tail end of this struggle, I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of how to focus on activism and veganism and not block out other interests, or to let my other interests stop me from being the best activist I can be, but here's what i've learned so far.


There has to be a balance.

veganism encompasses so many parts of who I want to be, that I sometimes obsess over it and while making Animal Rights the center of my world felt good for a bit, it also made me resent the podcasts and chat rooms i'd loved before. After a while, it was like that fifth container of Toffuti soy ice cream, too much of a great thing.
Likewise, not having enough animal rights in my life made me feel like I was losing a part myself.

I dont know what balance will mean for you but figure it out and keep it in mind. It'll keep you from burning out and ward off friends who try to say that you're a fanatic or a zealot.

Its important to stay focused, but if you drive yourself to distraction trying to be all vegan or activist and dont leave room for every other part of who you are, you wont be focused you'll be insane.

yours as long wanted and allowed,
Plant_Murderer

I eat moss. Apples and moss.

Lentils for special occasions.



VEGANS EAT FOOD. Yes, I screamed that. And when I say 'food', I do not mean sticks, I do not mean plain raw tofu, I do not mean dry iceberg lettuce with sprouts. I mean foooooooooooood.



Let's start with some breakfast food you might should you find yourself an herbivore. There are delicious and nutritious vegan alternatives to non-vegan breakfast foods you may be used to. Many cereals (even a lot of the sugary, popular ones) are “accidentally vegan” and you can just pour soy, rice, almond, or one of the other many vegan milks out there on top of it. Scour your local health-food store for brands of vegan waffles, because they do exist, or find a recipe and make your own. Same for pancakes – a surprising amount of regular mixes are vegan and you can simply use non-dairy milk/butter with them. Make toast and spread it with jelly, peanut butter, or vegan butter/margarine. Make a smoothie with fruit and soy yogurt. Spread a bagel with vegan cream cheese or peanut butter. Have a bowl of oatmeal (most brands are vegan) with dried fruit and peanut or cashew butter in it. Have some granola like the hippie you are. Scramble tofu with spices and veggies. Take that scrambled tofu and throw it in a tortilla with potatoes and vegan sausage for a breakfast burrito. Top a rice cake with nut butter and fruit. Fruit by itself is always a good, light, healthy breakfast. Make muffins the night before and heat a few up in the morning. Break out of the breakfast mold and just heat up leftovers from the night before – I love having miso soup for breakfast. If you’re in a hurry, take a banana and a bag of dry vegan cereal with you – take a bite of the banana and then dip it in the cereal, it’ll stick. You can also find individual juicebox-style soymilk cartons to take with you. One meal down, and did I use the word 'sprouts' at all?



Lunch and dinner I'll lump in the same category. There's much than salad, that’s for sure. Not that salad isn’t great and healthy. But salad is just one of the many, many things that vegans eat for dinner. A vegan cookbook, or even a veganized recipe from a non-vegan cookbook, is a great place to start. But you don’t necessarily need a cookbook every night. Like with breakfast, in most cases you can simply replace what you used to eat with its vegan equivalent, and there are also a lot of delicious vegan dishes that don’t rely on these substitutes. Use mock beef crumbles in pasta sauce instead of beef, or just leave them out and use nice fresh tomatoes and herbs. Make quesadillas or burritos with roasted vegetables and beans. Have a bowl of soup made with veggie broth instead of chicken or beef broth. Top a baked potato with vegan sour cream, vegan butter, broccoli, mock bacon bits, nutritional yeast, or whatever other toppings you can think of. Stir-fry veggies with rice or noodles and teriyaki sauce. Make veggie and seitan kabobs. Use beans in chili instead of meat. Explore different ethnic foods you may not have tried, like Indian, Mediterranean, Thai, or Japanese food. Peanut butter and jelly is a classic. Mashed potatoes can be made with vegan butter and non-dairy milk. Replace chicken with seitan in casseroles. Use silken tofu instead of eggs in quiche recipes. If you want comfort food, try macaroni and vegan cheese. Roast potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, pepper, and salt. Marinate tempeh in barbeque sauce. Have a sandwich with vegan lunchmeat slices. Grill portobello mushrooms and serve on buns with fries. I'm done thinking. No twigs.



Snacks are of course important. Let's see...popcorn with nutritional yeast (Act II Butter Lover’s is ironically vegan, or make your own), grapes, bananas, pretzels, granola/energy bars, fruit leathers, melon, a bagel half with peanut butter, soy yogurt, frozen juice bars, trail mix, peaches, applesauce, crackers, oranges, pita/veggies and hummus, cherries, chips and salsa, peanuts, cashews, almonds, or other nuts, dried fruit, oven fries, apples and peanut butter, sandwiches, cereal, rice cakes, plums, muffins, vegan ice cream sandwiches, graham crackers, vegan nachos, salad, or rice crisps.



Vegans! eat! food!

You're so brave/strong/etc.

I really do not understand why this even comes up. So many times have I told people about my veganism, or heard stories of others doing the same, only for the person to say "You're so strong!" or something along those lines. I understand that this person is just wrapping their head around the idea of veganism, the idea of giving up some convenience for some principles, and that if you've never really been vegan it does seem like a gargantuan choice with lots of struggle, but, really....

it's not.

Are you strong for not enslaving another human being even though it would be easier for you to have someone else do all your work?

Does it take courage and grit for you to not use gender epithets (e.g. slut, skank) even though other people around you may do so?

I don't wake up in the morning biting my lip, thinking about all the challenges I've brought upon myself for being vegan, glad I've got moral steel instead of mere moral fiber.

I just wake up. I wake up and live my life in line with my ethics, square against the things I think are wrong and cruel and shameful, celebrating the things I think are good and true and beneficial for the world. That's all I do. That's what veganism means to me, and it's not hard at all.
It seems hard to non-vegans simply because it doesn't seem ethically necessary to them. It seems difficult to me to, say, never wear the color green because one thinks it's unethical. I can't wrap my head around why wearing green would be morally wrong, so, to me, it seems unnecessary, overly hard, and I think a person committed to not wearing green would indeed need some fortitude. Same thing with being vegan! An omnivore can never truly step into a vegan's pleather shoes (without ceasing to be an omnivore), so the task of consuming absolutely ZERO animal products might seem daunting, but for us it's the exact opposite. It's just what we do. Hell, it would take strength for me to not be vegan! It might be more convenient, sure, but silencing my conscience would take pounds, tons, endless amounts of strength, far far more than being vegan ever would.

"The Animal Was Already Dead (By the Time It [S/he] Reached My Plate)"

I'll respond to this in two ways.

Response 1:

This statement might be true if you scraped roadkill off the highway and ate it. (Although even then, there is a valid argument that you should leave the heap of rotting flesh to the scavengers who are truly dependent on it.)

The meat on your plate (and, indirectly, the eggs and dairy products on your plate) came from animals who were created and killed only for one reason: You, and others like you, were going to buy the flesh, bodily fluids, and eggs from the animals. In other words, you are financing - in effect, dictating - that those animals be killed. They are killed because of your demand.

If you stopped eating meat, fewer animals would be killed. If many people stopped eating meat, the number of animals killed would drop precipitously.

The choice is in your hands: You decide whether animals are going to be bred and killed for your pleasure.

Response 2:

You're not that stupid. You know this rationalization is bogus. Imagine an alien shooting and killing you, chopping up your body parts, and feeding it to another alien who says "The human was already dead."

You may not be an expert on animal agriculture, but you know that animals are killed because the meat industry can bank on people like you buying the killed animals' flesh.

So I have to ask, why bring up such a flimsy, illogical, unsupportable defense? I think it's ultimately because you have a conscience. You know at some level that killing - and inflicting torture - for pleasure is wrong. Instead of confronting that harsh realization, you make up woefully unconvincing excuses. It's an avoidance mechanism.

With full respect and best intentions, let me make this proposal: Don't fight your conscience. Superficially, maybe you get some satisfaction from making up excuses for doing something that you know is wrong. Maybe they're even clever sometimes. But you're not fooling yourself or anyone else - or the victims. Moreover, it's never really satisfying when you engage in activities that you know deep down are morally troubling. There is still turmoil inside, and one way or another, it will manifest itself, and it could be ugly and could get in the way of your leading a fulfilling life.

Give in to your conscience. Thank God and/or biology that you have one. It is perhaps humanity's best feature, and saving grace. Follow your conscience, honestly, even though it may be difficult at times, and you're likely to have a truly satisfying life, and help others - humans and non-humans - do the same.

"Since I can't prove to myself that they feel pain, I should treat them as if they don't feel pain."

This is a selfish, oppressor-centric viewpoint. The more moral stance is:

"If there is more than a remote chance that they feel pain, I should treat them as if they feel pain."

As pointed out in the comments in the previous post, the argument shown in this post's title is sometimes used by people who want to exploit bees for their honey.

Since bees are sentient, avoid danger, possess memories, make choices, learn about their environment, communicate with each other in fairly sophisticated ways, and appear to have interests that they pursue, there is more than a remote chance that they feel pain. They may also derive pleasure from gathering nectar, or from discovering a meadow of newly-opened blooms and leading their hive members to it. They may have a will to live; they certainly take measures to escape from harm.

When considering whether our non-essential, easily avoidable actions may cause pain to other beings, the benefit of the doubt should go to the most vulnerable, the ones who have the most to lose, the ones who would be forced to make deep sacrifices because of our demands.

Consider that:

- Most marine biologists now agree that fish feel pain; 50 years ago that was not the case. (Recent studies also show that fish have individual personalities, use tools, play games, and have long-term memories.)

- Two or three generations ago, a majority of scientists thought that non-humans were incapable of emotion; that position has been completely overturned.

- In the 19th century, when the animal experimentation industry started, researchers claimed that animals were automatons; the animals' screams in response to being tortured were merely mechanical sounds.

- Only in the last 10-15 years have scientists in any number concluded that chickens, with far smaller and simpler brains than humans, not only have impressive cognitive skills and a sense of the past and future, but a rich emotional life.

- Recent scientific research supports suspicions that lobsters, crabs, and other crustaceans feel pain.

We have consistently underestimated animals' sentience and, particularly, their capacity for suffering and experiencing emotional states.

Some humility would be in order.

(Actually, I suspect that our intuition about animal sentience has been fairly on target throughout the ages; it's our science and reasoning on this matter that has been deficient, or blatantly self-serving.)

Suppose we assume that bees feel pain and we're wrong. What is the cost? Honey in our tea and on our toast. An indulgence. A pleasantry. Agave nectar and other sweeteners are excellent substitutes. In other words, the cost is trivial.

Suppose, on the other hand, we assume that bees don't feel pain (perhaps because the notion suits us) and we're wrong. What's the cost? Widespread infliction of pain on helpless beings, for no good reason. And possibly an irrecoverable deficit in our moral obligations to fellow sentients.

But our relationships with animals, and with other beings who are less powerful than us, are more than utilitarian equations. By developing compassion and empathy for individuals across a vast spectrum of species, we foster peace - both inner and outer. We cultivate harmony and goodwill. We rejoice in our kinship with the sentient creatures with whom we share the earth. We become allies, partners, and friends with animals, not oppressors and dominators. Our hearts are gladdened not by extracting resources from them, but by seeing them thrive, and helping them fulfill their goals. Their satisfaction is our happiness. We have no desire to exploit them or steal from them, or to look for excuses for doing so.

Living in peace with our nonhuman neighbors provides benefits that are profound, mutual, and non-violent. Enslaving nonhumans for their flesh, reproductive capabilities, or bodily functions provides superficial, fleeting benefits that are extracted at the expense of the enslaved, and that produce inner turmoil and less-than-honest self-dialog in the enslavers.

The assertion that victims of our exploitation do not feel pain is a defense mechanism. It is a self-protective, weak rationalization to control and plunder for pleasure. Spreading our compassion as widely as possible, following the golden rule to the best of our ability - basically, living according to our deepest morals - rids us of exploitative desires and the need to conjure up justifications for morally questionable behaviors.

Thoughts on Honey

Farming bees for honey is essentially an act of domination. You can have bees, just as people running farm sanctuaries can take care of chickens, but things get... hm... 'sketchy' once you begin to take the things that they make. And bees make honey for themselves - namely, for their pupae. If you're taking that honey, they may not have enough to sustain the hive - that's one reason for CCS. Another is the idea that, because commercial bee farmers often take all the honey and give back only sugar water, the bees have been physically and psychologically susceptible to diseases because of that deficiency.

Taking honey from bees is an act of violence... It is an act that says, 'because I can, and because I 'own' you, I will do this.' It is might makes right all over again. Is veganism not against that? Is veganism not against all exploitation of animals - be they cows, mollusks or even bees? Why call yourself vegan if you do not subscribe to its implicit ethics - that animals are not ours to exploit? That animals are not ours to brutalise? That animals are not ours to steal from, however 'nicely' we may do it?

If I am correct, and eating/taking honey is an act of violence against bees just as is taking an egg from a chicken - for, by taking the egg from the chicken, you doom her to a short life of osteoporosis and nutritional deficiencies - then eating/taking honey is morally unacceptable.

It is acceptable, however, to begin colonies on your land to support your land without taking the honey. In this way you become symbiotes. In this way you become, not necessarily friends - which cannot happen when two live in such different worlds - but allies nevertheless. Just as it would be acceptable to put up birdhouses, it is acceptable to take care of bees - because you do not steal from them...

If they pollinate your fruit trees and plants, and if you eat those fruits and plants but do not take their honey, then you are truly symbiotic. You need each other, and you live in peace with each other, rather than either of you taking what was not made for you, but for someone else.

It boils down to this: you are an exploiter even if you exploit 'nicely' - so why not just not do it?

What About Plants? And the Topic of Sea Creatures

For starters, let me just say that the "What about plants?!?!" question strikes me an awful lot like, "What about the men?!?!" whenever somebody brings up a feminist topic. There doesn't seem to be a genuine interest in the ethical implications of it; it's just a way to distract the question-asker from their own underlying feelings of guilt and threatened privilege.

Now. Ask yourself: do you honest-to-gods believe that cutting up a head of lettuce and cutting up a live, unanesthetized dog is the same ethically?

If you do, let me just say that you don't need to be on the internet. You need to be on a video with the caption, "This is what drugs did to me."

Now, since you likely do not believe that at all, let me ask you: why? Well 'cause, guess what, likelihood is that you don't really think that plants feel pain, just as you wouldn't think that bacteria (also alive by a scientific definition) feel pain. That's an important consideration. Just because something is alive does not mean it feels pain. While I have been told by several now-graduated students of marine biology that, in fact, most sea critters do feel pain because they possess, rather than a central nervous system, a "nerve net", plants have no nerves whatsoever. You can't use oysters as your scapegoat (hah) in this situation.

If there is nothing there to feel pain, if there is nothing there to feel at all, why worry about it? One only needs rights if one possesses emotions; rights only apply to those who will suffer if they do not have them.

Life, liberty, and bodily integrity. These are the three basic, essential rights of my moral code to any being with a self.

"Self" need not be humanlike to be important. Yes, sure, we know that we have selves, and we can recognise them in other mammals, avians, reptiles, amphibians and cetaceans where we cannot so easily recognise them in sea creatures. That doesn't matter; just because someone is different from you doesn't mean that they're unworthy of those essential rights.

However, again, there has to be something there.

Most people who honestly think that there might be a chance that plants feel pain point to the book The Secret Lives of Plants, which contained the results of a "study" (I use this word loosely) on plants that supposedly showed that they feel things and/or think. I'll note here that the author has actually not allowed anyone else to replicate his experiments through the withholding of information about his method, therefore it is extremely unlikely that it was true in the first place.

Another "study" was done on a plant using a polygraph test that supposedly showed "reactions" in the plant with random events. Now, if you know jack shit about polygraph tests, the results might in fact seem plausible. However, I do know something about polygraph tests. They are the so-called "lie detector test" machines, and they rely on the measurements of three physical characteristics that plants do not have: heart rate, skin perspiration, and... damn, I forget the last, but I believe it was muscle tension.

How the hell would you be able to tell anything from a test that depends on criteria that your subject doesn't even have?

But really, let's get back to why we're really being asked this question, which goes back to my first point: this is a distraction. It doesn't really matter if plants feel pain - the ones we're discussing are animals.

First, if you were really serious about plants feeling pain (which you're not), then you wouldn't eat animals because animals need plants to grow and you'd be eating several dozen to hundreds of times the plants that you would need to go directly into your body to sustain you - calorie expenditure, after all - in fact, you would be morally obligated to become a fruitarian so as to never cause plants pain again, which is also vegan.

Second, even though you can't fix everything doesn't mean you can't stop the pain you directly or indirectly cause others through your intentional actions. Or, put another way: just because you can't be perfect doesn't mean you're excused from trying to be better than you are. Life is, as they say, a series of trials and tests. You either grow as a person or you go back to the starting block because you keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

It is, however, the second that leads people to ask this question. So to all of you who have this question to ask, I say:

Stop fucking making excuses and go vegan.

Because the animals don't care about your excuses.

"The Indians Killed Buffalo and Used the Whole Animal. When I Eat Meat, I'm Honoring Indians."

The Plains Indians of the 19th century didn't have the same choices as us.

The greater lesson of the Indians referred to in the title quote is not that they killed buffalo, but that given their constraints, they obtained their food and clothing in the most sustainable, least invasive way. To follow those principles today means to go vegan.

The Indians didn't kill buffalo gratuitously. To kill animals strictly for pleasure, as is nearly always the case when we eat meat, dairy, or eggs in the "developed" world and have some awareness of alternatives, may in fact be quite disrespectful to the memory of the Indians. The same should be said for severely confining animals, mutilating them, and distorting their bodies to be obese and top-heavy or to overproduce milk and eggs - all standard practices in modern animal agriculture.

The buffalo of lore ran free. But even if you consume no animal products other than those from free-ranging animals you kill yourself (which rules out virtually everyone in the Western world), from an environmental standpoint alone you're still irresponsible. If everyone hunted, we'd kill off all the wildlife and create an ecological disaster in no time.

Here's another way that eating meat (especially beef) and dairy dishonors Indians. In the 1880s, ranchers took over much of the land on which the Indians lived. Often the takeover was violent and deceitful. The Indians were killed en masse and relegated to reservations. The ranchers imported huge humbers of cattle, who chewed everything in sight and displaced native flora and fauna and greatly reduced biological diversity. In some cases, thriving ecosystems were turned into dry, dusty deserts. To support the beef or dairy industries is to add insult to the Indians' and the land's injuries.

One more thing I should add is that I'm quite sure that some of the people who claim to be honoring Indians when they eat meat don't seem to be that knowledeable about Indians, or care much about them, or mention them in other circumstances. In other words, the whole Indian thing is often just another seat-of-the-pants excuse. It's much more satisfying, and honorable, and honest, to be as kind and respectful as possible to all sentient beings, and to strive to leave as small an environmental footprint as practical, and in almost all cases in this neck of the woods, that means - among other things - transitioning to a peaceful plant-based diet. In that way you'll honor all life.

The Environmental Problem With Honey

The problem with honey is not that it's not raw. The problem with honey is not that it's not organic. The problem with honey is not that it's fair trade.

The problem with honey is not that we're doing it wrong. The problem with honey is that it's honey.

See, a lot of so-called raw "vegans" don't know this, but the problem is honey itself. The problem with Colony Collapse Disorder is just one in a long string of problems with the honey industry, starting with the idea that other creatures on Earth are ours to do with as we wish. (That's speciesism, dear, and real vegans are against that shit, sorry to pull the Real Vegan stuff with you - but it's not just a diet. It's ethics.) The next problem came when we started domesticating bees, historically a sign that things are gonna go real bad real soon. And once we started domesticating bees, like farmed salmon, we began crowding out - environmentally, food-wise or just in terms of space - the native bees. This is always a dangerous precedent: once you have a breed of "good ____ producers", you tend to use that exclusively, and so do all your neighbors, until finally you have very little diversity.

You can see where this is going, right? Listen to me: the reason that CCD is happening at all is because humans commercialised bees in the first place, and then continued doing it. To me, it's perfectly natural that CCD would occur, given that commercial beekeepers usually take all the honey, or most of it, and then feed the bees on sugar water over the winter. (They also tend to kill off most of the bees during this time, too. And we were saying that honey was vegan how... ?) See, if humans are take this supposedly "life-giving" honey, then the bees are not getting it, they're getting an inferior substance to the stuff that they have been "designed" to produce for themselves throughout millions and millions of years. I honestly wonder how we could have done a better job of precipitating CCD.

So yeah, dudes. It's your fault that we have CCD. Stop eating honey, because eating "raw, organic, fair trade" honey is NOT going to make the problem go away - it'll only make it worse!

And a note for the health nuts (and by "nuts" I mean actually insane, because their logical faculties clearly have been bamboozled by the nutzoid but highly charismatic David Wolfe):

Yes, honey is full of digestive enzymes. They're bee enzymes, not human enzymes. Cow enzymes would probably be as useful to us as bee enzymes, you know. (Yeah, I'm not actually promoting eating cow vomit, I'm just pointing out that little logical fallacy, there.)

So, short answer: when you eat honey, you destroy the environment as well as bees' lives and humans' claim to being a species that can make moral decisions.

Are Feathers And Shells Vegan?

Hey All,
This is PM here to give my answer to a question many of you will be asking as summer draws closer. You want to know if using / buying / collecting shells / feathers is vegan. Short answer: NO!!!!!

Here's the part when some one says "But PM, why not? It doesn't hurt the birds or the sea creatures. They weren't gonna use them. Can't I take what is essentially their trash and recycle it?"
To understand why it's not vegan to use shells and feathers maybe it would be prudent to have a small science lesson.

Shells - Lets expand our definition of shells, because lets face it from sea shells to tortoise shells there are alot of varieties we could talk about. To quote wikipedia "A shell is a hard, rigid outer layer developed by a wide variety of different animal species, including mollusks, crustaceans, turtles and tortoises, armadillos, and microscopic organisms.Shells are used for protection, locomotion, defence, structure or in ways that relate to feeding."

Please note the "mysterious" absence of uses like decoration, or to entertain bored humans. Like most things in nature shells have a role to play, some animals use abandoned shells for shelter, and even if the shells aren't used over time they are weathered down and reworked into other parts of the natural world that created them. similarly...

Feathers- Feathers insulate birds from water and cold temperatures. The individual feathers in the wings and tail play important roles in controlling flight.
As to what the feathers just laying around are for, well to put it simply: They're for the birds. Birds will often use found feathers in making nests.
now the tricky part about feathers is that found feathers aren't the only sort you're likely to come across.

Don't forget down: the following info on down comes from Veganpeace.com : Most down is plucked out of live geese. The geese are put through extreme agony when pluckers tear out several ounces of their feathers. about 5 weeks after having been plucked, the geese will have grown new feathers and are sent through a machine which will pluck their longest feathers. After this they will go to the slaughterhouse.


The Point: The animals don't make their feathers and shells for us to use. Using them is making the statement that it is ok to use animals and their creations. It supports the idea that they are commodities. Besides... I could be wrong but doesn't the whole concept of Veganism center on not using animal products if it is in our power to chose an alternative? There is no life or death choice involved in this case. Because, where shells and feathers are concerned, it is always in our power to seek an alternative, it's never vegan to use them.


As always this is just my sensible opinion and not the universal one,
Yours as long as wanted,
Plant_Murder

The Plant_Murderer's Plea for Innosence

Hey, This is PM here ( well duh , right?), anyway this is the one that any of you with an overly developed sense of irony have been waiting for.

I, the plant murderer who for safety reasons must remain nameless, do hereby come before the court and plead innocent on all charges relating to the supposed murder of various members of the plant kingdom. In the absence of my lawyer, I cite the following reasons as to why this case should be thrown out and why, if the proceedings stand, I am innocent.

Exhibits A-PM : The definition of the term murder: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.
My Defense:
Despite my misnaming moniker ( non-fitting name) it is impossible to murder a plant because a plant is not a person. They don't feel, they dont have a sense of themselves, they don't feel pain. they are not people.

Besides, if we don't eat them the broccoli will take over the world.

Seriously: If plants had feelings then:
walking across your lawn would be genocide.
kids could opt out of flower dissections on moral grounds.
and there would be humanly harvested spinach on sale at Whole Foods.
+
all meat eaters would STILL be more guilty than most vegans.

when you eat meat you support the killing of all the tons of grain that got filtered through the animal prior to slaughter.

I rest my case. So Judge, what's the verdict?

Hoping there's good vegan food in prison,
Plant murderer

PS. The name is my way of being ironic and funny. the joke is that if you've been vegan for a while and told anyone then you've probably been hit with the plants have feelings line, and therefore been accused of being a Plant Murderer.
PPS. Read the other post on this topic, it's good and scientific and wasn't written by a 17 year-old trying to be funny.

Isn't Being Vegan Difficult?

Any current difficulties with being vegan -- such as having to decline cake at birthday parties, answering "Where do you get your protein" questions once a week, or knowing too much when you drive by cows grazing -- are society-imposed, not intrinsic.

It's profoundly more difficult to make excuses for inflicting avoidable violence on innocent beings, or to deny it, or to try and not think about the consequences of your actions, or to fend off your conscience. That wears on you, one way or another.

The difficulties in being vegan that one must endure for the time being are miniscule compared to the compassion generated, the suffering spared, the justice restored, and the peace of mind gained.

---

(Inspired by the previous post.)

Isn't Being Vegan Inconvenient?

Hey all,

This is PM here to tackle a question that I must confess is a bit of a problem for me when I'm asked in person.

I went vegan less than a year ago. When I went vegan, I was sixteen and didn't know how to cook or follow a recipe. A teenager to the core, I didn't know how to plan meals or how to anticipate my food needs when grocery shopping. When I first made the switch, my dad left me to save up lunch money for meals. That was inconvenient. Trying to go vegan without support from my family and subsisting on saved up lunch money for a food budget was inconvenient;but being vegan isn't about family enforced poverty. My mom sent me care packages and I eventually moved in with her, problem solved.

That's it. That's my big inconvenience story. I don't feel inconvenienced when restaurants become exercises in patience, or when I've read the whole ingredients list only to realize that it said it had dairy in it in bold print at the bottom. I don't feel inconvenienced when by best-friend gets in a fussy mood and calls me a rabbit-food eating hippy or when I have to bring my own lunch to school every day. Those small and acceptable consequences are the trade-offs that I hardly notice for looking at the pay-out.

As a vegan, and an activist I am doing more to help the world than I ever thought I was capable of. I'm learning to think for myself and what it means to believe in something and to value life enough to change who I am to protect it. I'm healthy. I'm not meek anymore ( ask the vegan freaks : meek vegans suffer). Looking at all of that I can only think that being an omnivore, or at least being who I was as an omnivore was more inconvenient than anything veganism has thrown my way.

Being vegan can be anything from in-expressibly amazing to insufferably alienating, but for me at least, it's not inconvenient. It's a big part of who I am and things like label reading and lunch taking are part of how things are. Does that make sense? Well that's how I see it, and i can't explain it better.

yours till Bush grows a brain,
(like that's going to happen),
Plant_Murderer

Who wants to marry an omnivore? or "Vegansexual?!?"

Hey All,

For the last time in 2007, this is P_M here to give my point of view on the whole "vegansexual" thing. For those who you who either don't know, or can't guess vegansexual is a term coined to represent vegans who only sleep with other vegans. Before I continue I should mention that it is a preference and therefore individual ( I don't speak for every vegan living or dead so don't think that anything i say holds true for all of us).

now that the disclaimer is out there, I will say that while I would not have sex with an omnivore. I will never refer to myself as "vegansexual" because I think the term is insipid and unneeded. there is no term for people who don't kiss smokers , or for Christians who don't date outside of their religion, so why should there be one for vegans who would rather not have physical relationships with omnivores.

At present, my dating policy is that I'll go out on a first date with anyone I find worthy, omnivore, vegan, vegetarian, republican, whatever. if the person is vegan then the relationship will progress normally, and if it's meant to be ( it's an old saying go with it) there will be wedding bells and little vegans corrupting the world. If the person is not vegan, things get interesting.

If the person i'm going on this hypothetical first date with is a vegetarian, then i'll try to encourage them to go vegan and if they do, it's all good, if they don't then as things start to get serious i'll talk with them and level about my desire for a vegan household and if they are willing to comply (order non-vegan food at restaurants and keep it out of the house/ raise the kids vegan) then the relationship will progress if not...bye bye, it was nice while it lasted you cheese addicted little something or other.

if the person is an omnivore it works the same way, because I couldn't be with someone for a long time if they could kill or condone / support the killing of sentient beings. Life is too precious to me to spend it with people who throw it away for the sake of taste.

But what about love? someone reading has got to be thinking that right now. well, love could lead me to compromise ( allow him to keep non-vegan items in a small section of the refrigerator) , but love is an unpredictable variable. i like to think that love involves sharing values on some level, and that my expression of those shared values as veganism is something that the man i end up with will share. it takes more than love to build a lasting bond with another person. Besides...

Asking me if i could love a speciesist is like asking you if you could love a white supremacist or a sexist or a racist. Could you love and marry someone who you didn't think was ethical or morally sound in their actions towards others?

to wind this up, let me say that I know the term vegansexual is usually purely centered on sexual relations, but in this post I've opted to extend it to refer to long term relationships and marriage, because thats where I thought it most relevant to me ( I'm one of those classy chicks who need a ring before i let a guy go there), hope I haven't confused anyone with the term stretching.

thats all for now,
comment so I wont forget why I do this, ( or even so I'll know that you think I should do it better),
yours till I'm not anymore,
Plant_Murder

Where Do You Draw the Line?

What about plankton? What about bacteria?

I draw the line below cows. Below chickens. Below pigs, turkeys, sheep, goats, rabbits, and all the other animals on farms.

Below fish. I don't say that for shock value. The evidence - scientific and observational - is overwhelming that fish are sentient, feel pain, make decisions, and seek happiness. They appear to experience fear and anticipation, and in all likelihood they possess a wide range of emotions.

Don't worry about where the line is. You don't need to know exactly where the line is to stop killing animals who are clearly sentient, feel pain, have the capacity to experience joy and suffering, and have a will to live.

Where do you draw the line for assault? Rape? Murder? Any form of moral transgression has gray areas near its boundaries. But we don't defend assault, rape, and murder by saying "Where do you draw the line?" We don't commit grand larceny just because we can't precisely pin down where one draws the line for theft.

Try to be as kind, non-violent, and non-exploitative as possible and you won't be concerned about where the line is. Try to make the boundaries of your compassion as wide as you can.

I strongly suspect that "Where do you draw the line" is not so much a serious intellectual inquiry as it is a delaying tactic or a reflexive, defensive response. You're probably a decent person and to be reminded that you're participating in the wholly avoidable killing and torture of innocent animals hurts. It's normal to come to your own defense.

I would advise asking yourself honestly what it is that keeps you doing this and prevents you from moving toward a more compassionate and non-violent diet. Common factors are habit, ignorance, and fear.

Habit. You started eating meat, dairy, and eggs when you were a baby, and it's what you're used to. You practically have a "muscle memory" at this point: You go to the store and almost automatically pick up chicken breasts or ground beef and a carton of milk.

Ignorance. You don't know what you'd eat if you were a vegetarian. (The variety is almost endless - really.) You think we need to eat meat. (We don't and in fact, our bodies process it quite poorly.) You may think animals on farms are treated well (they're not). You may think cows need to be milked (they don't) and that we don't kill laying hens (we do, when they're quite young). You may think that farmed animals are killed swiftly and painlessly (it's actually quite brutal).

Fear.

• You may be afraid that a vegetarian - or to be more precise, vegan - diet will be strange and unsatisfying. (With the plethora of good-tasting meat, dairy, and egg substitutes on the market, you can transition to an animal-free diet without changing your routine or cuisine much at all. But I recommend expanding your horizons or you'll miss out on a world of tasty flavors. A vegan diet is very satisfying both in terms of variety and healthfulness of food and the fact that you no longer have to engage in denial or unconvincing rationalizations for killing and inflicting suffering on animals.)


• You may be afraid of not getting enough protein. (You'll get plenty of protein, as well as other nutrients that you may be short on now, and you may very well lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Unless your new diet consists of nothing but tortilla chips and Dr. Pepper.)


• You think you could never give up cheese. (Trust me. After six months of no cheese - and possibly much sooner - you'll see cheese as a big glob of unappealing, fatty, artery-clogging animal secretions, with added pus from mastitis infections. One reason is that cheese contains concentrations of casomorphins, which have a narcotic effect. Within a few months you clear your body of the cravings. But if you must, there are some good vegan cheese substitutes.)


• You may not see yourself as a "vegetarian" or "vegan." Perhaps you think that only pasty-face aging hippies or spoiled in-your-face radicals are veg*ans. (I say this with love and respect: Get over it. Be who you are, just a kinder version. Don't worry about what your friends think. You'll probably unintentionally make them feel guilty. Simply explain what you're doing with confidence but respectful understanding of their unease. They'll come around.)

There are a million sites on the Net, and plenty of groups and cookbooks and brochures and starter guides for showing you how to reduce and eventually eliminate - as much as feasible in this society - the animal products from your diet. The main barriers are psychological. But those can all be overcome. Where there's a will - not to mention sufficient resources and support - there's a way.

I grew up a die-hard meat-eater. I had all the aforementioned habits, ignorance, and fears. I'm not Superman, I don't have super-human willpower, I'm not into eating bland rice and steamed vegetables every night, I'm not a great cook, I'm not into hackey-sack, I like jazz and I think the New England Patriots are having a phenomenal season. If I can become vegan, so can you. And when you do, not only will you not ask questions such as "Where do you draw the line," but you will probably respond to them just like I'm doing now. Do the right thing, and good luck. Remember, help, support, and information are two or three clicks away.

Why Are Omnis So Frustrating? or Why are vegans so angry?

hey all,

this is p_m back after a long war with my ineffective computer to talk about why vegans are so angry. to start off let me tell you about a couple of my very omniverous classmates.
The two of them are the most considerate omnivores one might ever hope to meet. they apologies when they mention meat around me, ask me frequently if it will bother me if they should happen to show a picture of someone eating meat or eggs or dairy in a class project, and one even makes a point of saying that she "would" go vegan if not for x then apologizing for both consuming said non-vegan x and for mentioning the vile thing in my presence.

the two of them annoy the crap out of me. they do their best to avoid offending and in the process tend to make me feel as if my very presence is making them feel like murderers(which it should and if it lead to them going vegan i'd cope but anyway). while they over compensate and i reluctantley console them i'm left with two more people that are nice and intelligent that i cant stand to be around.

dont get me wrong people being too considerate isn't the only anger causing obstacle vegans have to face.

SOCIETY AT LARGE IS SUPPORTING MURDER / DEATH/ TORTURE / THE MAKING OF SENTIENT BEINGS INTO NOTHING MORE THAN THINGS OR COMMODITYS!!!!!!

that is fucked up. really fucked up. and they ( if your vegan) or you ( if your not) seem to get it even though its in their/ your faces at nearly every moment of life.

it's like being the first one of your friends to stop believing in santa claus. it's so obvious you want to shake them all, hell sometimes you want to straight up slap the sight from their eyes and the sense into their heads. it's a pain, literally.

vegans are "so angry", because omnivores are so oblivious.

finally let me tell you about my family. at thanks giving my uncle greeted me with "your looking vegan today" and the food that my mother and i made enough of for everyone, which took hours of time and effort and planning, was set in a dark corner next to the bones of some poor turkey and proptly labled "vay-gun" food and therefore distasteful.

ask me again why vegans are so angry...i dare you.

yours till the grand return to Vega ( which i know is not a planet for who ever didnt get the joke),
Plant_murderer

ps. go vegan, the hardest parts have little to do with the lifestyle and much more to do with omnis.