More vegan than vegetarian. Labels suck.

I've been having some very good (and some not so very good but at least not bad) discussions lately that are encouraging me to spell out to the world just where I stand.

Do I feel that an animal should die because humans want to consume it? Yes. Do I feel that any animal should be fed an unnatural diet, live in it's own piss and shit, with barely enough room for it's body, no room to turn around or stretch for it's entire life, never seeing the light of day, treated worse than any human prisoner, and finally literally tortured to death because humans want to consume it (and because the USDA is the greediest organization ever?). NO.

This is why I am NOT a vegetarian.

I don't qualify as vegan either. Though the veal industry is the worse offender in my eyes of animal cruelty which is why you won't see me eating dairy. (plus the unexpected health benefits of quitting dairy are pretty damn stellar, but that's just a plus).

I read labels to avoid any dairy, and any conventional egg ingredients. I eat meat that people I know have hunted, and I eat bison from NorthStar Bison since they are raised to live normal bison lives on huge swaths of land and then killed quick and mercifully.

I can't look at leather or wool the same way ever again.

I am admittedly hypocritical in a few ways - I will eat eggs from a particular local farm. Sure the hens have great lives and are not forced in anyway to overproduce and tax their bodies to death. They get lots of room and outside time. The hypocritical part is that I know that to get an egg laying hen, baby male chicks end up dieing and not in a humane way. Macular degeneration runs in my family and I'm bound to get it, and there's a TON of lutein in eggs, plus they're super healthy otherwise and I fraking love them. With that said, I've gone from eating one a day to one a week, and I take lutein supplements (wish I remembered to do that more often!).

Also, I'll eat fried potatoes that are fried in the same oil as meat. While I think it's a stretch to call it hypocritical, it still is in a way. But, if I were to get that anal retentive I'd go crazy.

I'll eat fish. Not factory farmed due to the waste, nastiness that you end up eating in the meat and pollution factors. Fish that's caught in the wild has it's own issues- there's a TON of by product from catching various seafoods- but it's the lesser of 2 evils as at least the byproduct (read: gobs of sea animals caught and killed that were not being fished for) gets tossed back into the ocean to feed other fish and bottom dwellers. This may change for me one day, but not today. Like eggs, I don't eat as much fish as I used too either.

Also, I'll drink Guinness. This comes back to fish since they use ingless (is that right?) aka fish bladders to filter out the yeast after fermentation. Nothing in the world comes close to Guinness for me. Sure this may change too someday. I could give up Ranch dressing (which I used to eat almost daily) but I just don't have the want, urge or guilt enough to give up Guinness.

I'll eat honey. Tho I've never eaten it on a regular basis- a little jar of it lasts us almost 2 years usually. I didn't know before how the queens were de-winged, and didn't realize that as we take honey it messes with the worker bee's heads. I do support bee keepers tho since the honey bee population is threatened.

So you see, I'm not vegan or vegetarian. What the hell am I then? Not eating factory farmed meat, conventional eggs or any dairy makes me a vegan in 99% of the eyes of the restaurant industry. As well as most passerbys, even some friends and some family. Out in the real world it's a hell of a lot easier to just say I'm vegan than to explained my choices of eating that just has no label.

I feel very comfortable in my choices and never have I been asked "why do you eat that bison, don't you know it's murder!" and gotten so defensive as to instead of reply with an answer to clarify my reasons say "I'll give up bison when you give up dairy." There is no worked up defense in me for my choices because I am at peace with them. I will answer your questions and I will tell you what I have learned and I will be open to hear what you have to say. But I promise I will never not answer a question about my eating habits because I feel bad about them.

OK with all this said I must say that anything anyone does to lessen animal cruelty is A-OKAY in my book. Hell yes. Baby steps is what usually gets any big job done. Most people have no idea of the horrors that happen to get the food to their plates, ya know? Hell I didn't know these horrors less than a year ago! And so any steps in the right direction are awesomesauce and I love you for taking the steps that you do take.

I reeeeeeeallly love the Farm Sanctuary <3

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/about/milestones/

The successful activist

Today I re-read a blog post by "E's Gone Vegan". I wish I would have re-read this a couple weeks ago in the height of my stressing out. Esp the comments.

It's good to know that successful activists (or just successful vegans in general) have felt the raging anger I have, and have learned to contain it and live happy. I am feeling much better these past few weeks and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've surrounded myself with friends who understand. They may not feel the same way, actually most of them do not want to know the truths because they know it sucks so they haven't had the chance to feel the same way... but they get it and they don't crack jokes on my (well, our) expense or get all defensive just at the mere mention of animal suffering. There has even been some discussion about it all that's been instigated by them, not us. The time I've spent with friends in the past few weeks has been rejuvinating. It's lead me back to feel what I have always known to be true, and that is the best thing I can do is be the change I want to see in this world.

OK. here's the blog posting I mentioned. E's Gone Vegan: The successful activist isn't even active?

Jehovah Jireh Farm in MD

YAY!!! I have found a local farm- http://jehovahjirehfarm.com - that raises briolers, hens for egg laying, turkeys and lamb. They raise most of their hens from chicks and do not clip their beaks. They slaughter on site their broilers and turkeys, all of whom are raised from chicks by them. They have to, by law, take their sheep to a USDA facility, but they go to a small processing facility where they know and trust the butcher. They sell their eggs at My Organic Market, and I am SOOO happy!! Yay!!!

just popping in to say

that over the weekend I heard something that I thought was pretty funny- we had friends over for most of the weekend. At one point one of them had the audacity to bring in a huge glass of cow milk and drink it at our table. I went into autopilot so as not to gag and say anything, but thankfully DH spoke up and asked that this person respectfully not do this again. OK so with that, here's the funny part. Somehow we got to talking about breaking bones. Now, *knock on wood*, I have never had a broken bone in my entire life. Nor was I ever a kid who drank milk. Or an adult- it got me sick (more on that later). The only people who said in this conversation "ohh my god I've broken so many bones in my life, I can't even tell you" were the guy gulping the huuuge glass of milk, and his wife, who also is a big dairy fan.

You see, both clinical and population studies show that milk-drinkers tend to have more bone breaks than people who consume milk infrequently or not at all.

I had to laugh. It was either that or throw up. LOL

It's been a tough week

Oh, hello!
First of all I want to share an article that I just read which was highlighted in Digging Thru the Dirt blog-

http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1905606,CST-EDT-edit26.article
It's titled : When Giving Thanks, Remember the Animals Check it out, I think it's very well written and I give 100 kudos to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Another awesome thing I've learned from Digging Thru The Dirt blog is that there's an animal sanctuary just over half hour away from my home! Yay! It's called Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary I emailed them yesterday to see about visiting hours since I haven't seen any of that sort of info on the website (it could be there, sure, but I don't see it. Do you? If so lemme know!). I am stoked- because I REALLY need to focus my energy into something productive.

...and that's because I am not handling well how so many people, even people I know well and who I KNOW are smart and compassionate, choose willful ignorance. IT. MAKES. ME. INSANE. It's stressing me out big time. That and I keep having flashbacks of images I've seen of the torturous conditions that are the norm on factory farms. So I am hoping that when I visit this place some sort of path will open up. I have never worked on a farm. The closest I ever even came to a farm was when I took horse riding lessons as a young girl. That and I lived right next to one in Burkittsville, MD for about a year (the corn was about 15' from our house, lol). So it might end up that it's just a great place to visit and to donate money to, and not volunteer at... but I am hoping I feel compelled to commit some time to volunteering. I worry- I am fantastic at starting things, and fall short oftentimes on seeing things thru. It's the Aries rising in me, I'm sure of it. :)