Why I am a Vegan

[Jade]

[ada]

This reminds me, I was recommended to see a series on Netflix that's exaclty that. It is called Zoo.

[Diana]

What is "Zoo" about, particularly?

[ada]

What is "Zoo" about, particularly?

Animals became intelligent and gained telepathic consciousness or something, and instead of hunting one anoter every single living animal turned againt humans.

[Diana]

What is "Zoo" about, particularly?

Animals became intelligent and gained telepathic consciousness or something, and instead of hunting one anoter every single living animal turned againt humans.

That sounds interesting.

[Nía]

This just had to be put in here, title-wise.

[Diana]

Thank you Nia. The Moby TedTalk was amazingly wonderful.

[Diana]

I looked up Moby's music. This song is beautiful and extremely moving:

[Nía]

I looked up Moby's music. This song is beautiful and extremely moving:

Didn't know that one yet, thank you Diana! Wow, it's beautiful indeed...

Moby was one of the earliest vegan heroes in Europe, this is one of his most-loved songs over here:

Edit: And here's an officially free video stream of his latest album:

[Jade]

As the 21st century dawned, it was clear that Domino’s needed to change direction.

The direction they settled on was “add more cheese.” As HuffPo reported, Domino’s “reformulated its pizzas to contain nearly twice as much cheese” and then bought a lot of ads to get that point across; the campaign “took the bold step of acknowledging just how awful its old pizzas were, while gushing about the ‘cheese, cheese, CHEESE!!!’ that distinguishes the new recipe from the old one.”  Their reboot efforts, from new product development to marketing, cost at least $12 million. But it didn’t cost Domino’s a dime.

Domino’s company-saving move toward extra cheesy was funded by an organization named Dairy Management. And we know how much was spent on that effort because Dairy Management made that number public. It had to — because it is part of the U.S. government.

http://nowiknow.com/the-macroeconomic-ma...esy-pizza/

[Nía]

Domino’s company-saving move toward extra cheesy was funded by an organization named Dairy Management. And we know how much was spent on that effort because Dairy Management made that number public. It had to — because it is part of the U.S. government.

Is that true!? Oh my gosh...

Dairy Management Inc. is an American trade association funded primarily by the US Dairy Promotion Program, itself funded by government-mandated checkoff fees on dairy products and federal tax dollars and dedicated to promoting the sale of American-made dairy products. It also operates under the names Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, American Dairy Association, National Dairy Council and U.S. Dairy Export Council.

Dairy Management Inc. was incorporated in 1995 as a nonprofit corporation by members of the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board and the United Dairy Industry Association. It is a marketing creation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is funded by Dairy Promotion Program government-mandated fees on dairy products and by general federal tax dollars via the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The corporation has 162 employees and a budget of about $140 million. It is headed by longtime chief executive Thomas P. Gallagher.

Dairy Management is associated with the "Got Milk?" and "Real Seal" campaigns and works with industry to develop products that increase consumption of milk and cheese. It also funds research into the benefits of dairy consumption. Dairy Management has successfully promoted increased use of cheese in prepared food products such as pizza.

Oh my. Thanks for sharing, Jade.

[AnthroHeart]

I can get rid of sugar, and even milk with some effort, but cheese is hard.
Though coffee is even harder.

[xise]

I can get rid of sugar, and even milk with some effort, but cheese is hard.
Though coffee is even harder.

Have you tried a lot of the plant-based cheeses available these days? I'd say easily 50% of the vegan cheeses are decent enough that you could put them in crackers and assorted cheese appetizer dish at a party no one would even guess it was vegan cheese.

Vegan food is taking off. Just 6 years ago the selection was awful. Now it's going full steam ahead. I predict in a few more years no one going vegan will even feel they have to give up the meat or cheese taste to go vegan.

[Jade]

46% of all plastic in oceans is just abandoned fishing nets.

A recent survey by scientists affiliated with Ocean Cleanup, a group developing technologies to reduce ocean plastic, offers one answer. Using surface samples and aerial surveys, the group determined that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the garbage patch by weight comes from a single product: fishing nets. Other fishing gear makes up a good chunk of the rest.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/...he-problem

[Diana]

A recent survey by scientists affiliated with Ocean Cleanup, a group developing technologies to reduce ocean plastic, offers one answer. Using surface samples and aerial surveys, the group determined that at least 46 percent of the plastic in the garbage patch by weight comes from a single product: fishing nets. Other fishing gear makes up a good chunk of the rest.

Yet another indication that farming/hunting animals for food is harming this world. At least, the way most humans do it.

It always blows my mind in movies/television/books when going fishing is seen as a cozy, relaxing time. Then someone drags in a fish with a hook in its mouth gasping to breathe. Such a huge disconnect.

[ada]

It's quite ridiculous actually, there is so much evidence and research. But ever since going vegan I get constantly mocked for being not "normal". Perhaps I'm just too weak, and shy, to convey anything why it is good for us and the planet. I know many reasons, I've watched and read. Yet I can't get any point across when someone asks me why, and tells me that eating meat is essential for the body. If I say that animals suffer, I'm being told that plants do too. If I say that it's bad for our body, I'm told that it doesn't matter because one should live their joy be it eating meat. I feel like I have the tools, yet I do nothing, and that bothers me so much.  :-/

What do you tell one who asks why are you vegan? Without pointing them to videos, movies, or articles. People prefer to avoid that.

[xise]

If I say that animals suffer, I'm being told that plants do too. 

"Well, plants suffer too" is one of the biggest arguments for going vegan. We kill a ton more plants to feed animals to produce the calories/protein/nutrition than we do eating the plants straight. 

Like you can google this - many studies about how if the world went vegan it'd free up literally 1/3 to 2/5s of the farmland that was previously dedicated to plants grown for animal feed, as well as eliminating animal farms. It's just the nature of the food chain, the higher up you go, the more resources you require.

[Jade]

It's quite ridiculous actually, there is so much evidence and research. But ever since going vegan I get constantly mocked for being not "normal". Perhaps I'm just too weak, and shy, to convey anything why it is good for us and the planet. I know many reasons, I've watched and read. Yet I can't get any point across when someone asks me why, and tells me that eating meat is essential for the body. If I say that animals suffer, I'm being told that plants do too. If I say that it's bad for our body, I'm told that it doesn't matter because one should live their joy be it eating meat. I feel like I have the tools, yet I do nothing, and that bothers me so much.  :-/

What do you tell one who asks why are you vegan? Without pointing them to videos, movies, or articles. People prefer to avoid that.

This is definitely a struggle. People want you to either validate their susceptibility into humane-washing ("I eat free range eggs!") or they want to double down on their own internal validations for why making a change means nothing.

Like xise said, if someone genuinely thinks that plants feel pain too, and that is their "comeback", the only logical response is that we farm way more plants to feed to animals. But honestly, when someone brings up that point, from their point of view, they often don't care about the suffering of either plants or animals. They just wanna have a "gotcha" moment and use the vegan's compassion against them.

It's a really delicate rope to walk, and it's about being on your feet and reacting to each situation. Do you think the person would be more affected by environmental facts, health facts, or compassion? I'm a full blown ethical vegan now, but 6 years ago, I went vegan for my health and the health of my loved ones. I know people are reluctant but sometimes they will be inclined to watch something easy, like on Netflix, like Forks Over Knives, What the Health?, etc. These movies have made a lot of converts actually. People who are resistant to watching them are afraid of this!

The truth is, we are birthing creatures onto this planet just to make them suffer. Sure, there may be some few and far between magical "happy farms" where they don't live their lives in extreme torture. But even organic, free range, etc farms still sear the beaks off of newborn chicks, (and grind up all the males at birth if it is an egg operation), cut off pigs'/cows' tails, remove infants from grieving mothers, etc. All of these are common, standard practices. The marketing terms that are used to make the slaughter more palatable have nothing to do with how the animal is treated on a day to day basis. There are almost 2 billion cows on this planet, there are almost 20 billion chickens. We cry about the woes of human overpopulation but we are growing and feeding billions of poop machines because of societal eating habits and preferences. And most of these poop machines (almost all pigs and chickens) live in dark buildings and never see the light of day. When they do, it's on their way to slaughter, and they are babies.

Anyway, after my ranting, my point is, I'm going to try the "overpopulation" angle from now on. 2 billion cows, weight-wise, might as well be 20 billion humans. Can you imagine what this planet would be like if we added 20 billion more humans? Can you imagine what this planet might be like if we were able to eliminate 20 billion human-sized beings just by ceasing their intentional breeding just to be enslaved, milked, and slaughtered? Another angle people like to use is, "What happens if we stop breeding them? Then cows/chickens/pigs/etc go away!" and I'm okay with that. 100%. Most of these animals are freaks of nature and so far removed from what was originally created to live on this planet, that maybe it's just their time to go, after our artificial sustainment of them has literally destroyed the planet. We've already lost a lot more unique species by our lack of proper stewardship, to be fair. We'd still have the red jungle fowl, we'd still have wild boars, we'd still have wild oxen. These animals are basically the same species, without their inbred impediments, like laying so many eggs that they their bodies fall apart at 1/6th their natural lifespan, growing so fast that if they live to adulthood, they suffer immensely until they drop dead of a heart attack, and having mammaries that swell so large that they drag on the floor. Continuing to breed these deformed monstrosities just because we like having them around is almost a worse crime than breeding them to eat them.

People are compassionate. People hurt when animals suffer - there is real emotional empathy when we, say, watch a video of a mother duck reunited with her ducklings, or, a dog from a laboratory feeling the grass under their feet for the first time. We've just been subjected to propaganda our whole lives to make us totally ignore the suffering of billions of being on this planet. Trying to face that for the first time is extremely difficult. It usually has to happen in bits and pieces. Try to operate from a place of compassion for the person you are discussing this with. Find compassion for everyone who is a victim of this system of exploitation and torture. Starting from the heart is the most important thing, imo. Set an example of compassion, not an example of anger or rejection. I'm convinced that most people, on some level, want to stop being a party to the torture of billions of baby animals and the ultimate destruction of our planet. Talking about veganism continues to help normalize it and bring it to the mainstream, offering another choice to the Got Milk? generation.

[Diana]

It's quite ridiculous actually, there is so much evidence and research. But ever since going vegan I get constantly mocked for being not "normal". Perhaps I'm just too weak, and shy, to convey anything why it is good for us and the planet. I know many reasons, I've watched and read. Yet I can't get any point across when someone asks me why, and tells me that eating meat is essential for the body. If I say that animals suffer, I'm being told that plants do too. If I say that it's bad for our body, I'm told that it doesn't matter because one should live their joy be it eating meat. I feel like I have the tools, yet I do nothing, and that bothers me so much.  :-/

What do you tell one who asks why are you vegan? Without pointing them to videos, movies, or articles. People prefer to avoid that.

Aside from what has already been said in answer to this, I have a few things to add.

I don't hide the fact that I'm vegan, nor do I promote it. It is just who I am. When asked about it, I treat the questioner like a small child who has asked a question about sex, and I answer with the simplest explanation with no details first ("I do it because it's healthier, and I care about the animals," for example). If they want more info, I give a little more. At some point I might ask if they really want to know about the planet, greenhouses gases, factory farms, etc. If they do, I tell them. 

The best thing I have is my example. As in Jade's case, I am super healthy being vegan. I have been vegetarian most of my life. I look younger than almost anyone else my age. I have vitality and I am intelligent. This is usually enough to send a message to people about the efficacy of not eating meat without me saying anything.

On the other hand it is a hard road to walk, if your heart breaks for the suffering animals. I don't ever get angry at anyone in particular for being asleep or staying in denial even when faced with the facts, but I do get frustrated sometimes over the general situation and the state of humankind. This is when I remind myself of that wonderful line in The Year of Living Dangerously, when Mel Gibson asks Linda Hunt (playing a man) why he keeps trying to help the poor of Jakarta when it doesn't seem to change anything, and he answers that it adds light to the sum of light.

[Jade]

Trump administration removes protections for whales and sea turtles who are caught in fishing nets.

The regulation was designed to reduce the numbers of humpback whales, leatherback sea turtles and other large creatures that accidentally become tangled in mile-long nets set adrift by commercial fishermen overnight to catch swordfish off California and Oregon.

The regulation allowed for shutting down swordfish fishing with the drift nets for up to two fishing seasons if too many of the endangered animals were getting caught in the nets.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-admin...est-coast/

[Diana]

Very sad news.

 

[Nía]

Oh my gosh.

So at the same time that those articles and videos about cetaceans potentially being more intelligent than humans are going viral, the Trump administration has nothing better (sounds ironic in the context of this administration, doesn't it?) do do than remove protections they already had. Telling... Edit: Just seeing that article is a year old already, so there's no time-correlation there to those new findings. Still very sad!



(How can people be made understood whales and dolphins and porpoises are also 3D? Of course, sea turtles and "other large creatures" are worthy the same amount and efforts of protection, just the implications are so... mind-blowing. Another genocide of a fellow 3D people? Though it's hopefully not intentional. But who knows, there must be more than Q'uo readers who are aware of their metaphysical state of being...)

[Jade]

"The progress of the movement should cause especial joy to those whose life lies in the effort to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth, not because vegetarianism is in itself an important step towards that kingdom, but because it is a sign that the aspiration of mankind towards moral perfection is serious and sincere.'' -Leo Tolstoy

[Jade]

However, the experiences of bisexual reproduction which were of the nature of the entity Gandalf were to a small extent of spiritual benefit due to an unusual relationship with another entity, this also what you call a cat. This entity also being of an unusually third-density orientation or investment from previous life experiences. Thus the formation of what could be seen to be recognizably love did exist in this relationship.

[flofrog]

It's quite ridiculous actually, there is so much evidence and research. But ever since going vegan I get constantly mocked for being not "normal". Perhaps I'm just too weak, and shy, to convey anything why it is good for us and the planet. I know many reasons, I've watched and read. Yet I can't get any point across when someone asks me why, and tells me that eating meat is essential for the body. If I say that animals suffer, I'm being told that plants do too. If I say that it's bad for our body, I'm told that it doesn't matter because one should live their joy be it eating meat. I feel like I have the tools, yet I do nothing, and that bothers me so much.  :-/

What do you tell one who asks why are you vegan? Without pointing them to videos, movies, or articles. People prefer to avoid that.

Aside from what has already been said in answer to this, I have a few things to add.

I don't hide the fact that I'm vegan, nor do I promote it. It is just who I am. When asked about it, I treat the questioner like a small child who has asked a question about sex, and I answer with the simplest explanation with no details first ("I do it because it's healthier, and I care about the animals," for example). If they want more info, I give a little more. At some point I might ask if they really want to know about the planet, greenhouses gases, factory farms, etc. If they do, I tell them. 

The best thing I have is my example. As in Jade's case, I am super healthy being vegan. I have been vegetarian most of my life. I look younger than almost anyone else my age. I have vitality and I am intelligent. This is usually enough to send a message to people about the efficacy of not eating meat without me saying anything.

On the other hand it is a hard road to walk, if your heart breaks for the suffering animals. I don't ever get angry at anyone in particular for being asleep or staying in denial even when faced with the facts, but I do get frustrated sometimes over the general situation and the state of humankind. This is when I remind myself of that wonderful line in The Year of Living Dangerously, when Mel Gibson asks Linda Hunt (playing a man) why he keeps trying to help the poor of Jakarta when it doesn't seem to change anything, and he answers that it adds light to the sum of light.

oh Diana my favorite of favorite films. When my son dylan was four months old.. I was one day re watching it while eating a salad and Dylan was next to me in his bassinet, he was watching it too as I paused the film he started to cry so I put the film back on and he stopped, I paused it again to be sure and he cried again. Some years later a friend of mine who was a psychic did a quick reading transferring the voices of my guides and they said, we are really happy that years ago flo showed her favorite movie to her son

This movie is so awesome

[Jade]

Animal Sacrifice Powered Ancient Jerusalem's Economy

Then he [Jesus] added, "Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: 'I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.' For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners." (Matthew 9:13)

Motive for murder? Food for thought.

BTW, animal sacrifice is still a very common practice (and profit) for Orthodox Jews. Tens of thousands of chickens are trucked into Brooklyn, NY for Kaporos every year. While they are supposed to be donated as food for the hungry after sacrifice, most end up in the trash. Typically it costs $20 to buy a broiler chick (6 weeks old) to have swung over your head and then killed with kosher methods. These are animals that in normal market are worth maybe a dollar or two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapparot

[xise]

Support Vegan Start-ups! Here's a link for a preorder cheese sampler from an acquaintance of mine who works for a vegan cheese startup company! I just ordered the $44 (+shipping and handling = $69 for me) sampler myself.

https://www.sperofoods.co/preorder

[AnthroHeart]

Do others who go vegan or vegetarian have trouble staying grounded?
I started again not too long ago, off and on (more often than not) being vegetarian
and my upper chakras are overactive and my lower chakras can't seem to keep me grounded.
I feel dizzy and such in my higher chakras and my mind.
It's a little disorienting. It doesn't seem to be due to vitamins or such.
It feels like an excess of energy throwing me off.

[Jade]

I think transitioning can definitely be a huge change. Animal foods definitely activate the lower chakras. I think eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, especially root vegetables, can be very grounding. The fresher the better - I mean, if they literally have dirt on them, even better! But sometimes it's hard balancing nutrients when we switch and we're not sure what to eat. People often load up on carbs and sugars and processed foods while transitioning because it's less complicated. A whole foods diet can be very grounding. And if you want my honest opinion, I think dairy is the most unhealthy thing you can put in your body, and if your dairy intake increased after quitting meat (as a lot of people do because it has a fair amount of protein) this might also put your body in a different place as far as feeling like you are getting enough proper food to eat.

There are other ways to ground the self other than food. Walking barefoot on the earth is an easy one. Meditating while focusing on the root chakra is good too.

[Nía]

The Media Never Mention the No. 1 Cause of Climate Change, by Lee Camp