Veggie Nugget #35

"Take the broad view of what veganism stands for - something beyond finding a new alternative to scrambled eggs on toast or a new recipe for Christmas cake. Realise that you're on to something really big, something that hadn't been tried until sixty years ago, and something which is meeting every reasonable criticism that anyone can level against it. And this doesn't involve weeks or months of studying diet charts or reading books by socalled experts - it means grasping a few simple facts and applying them."

-Donald Watson, founder of the Vegan Society.

That quote is from an interview with Watson which you can read here. When I feel down about the prospects of a widespread movement toward veganism, I think about Watson, who died only 8 years ago. The man invented the word "vegan."

Veggie Nugget #34

"Some people feel threatened by the prospect that in recognizing and upholding the dignity of other living beings, we betray our own dignity as a species. It should rather be asked how the human species gains dignity by creating worlds such as this for anyone to live in. Can one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of meat, an "it," without degenerating into cruelty and dishonesty towards that creature? Human slavery was brutal. Does anyone really believe that nonhuman slavery operates on a higher plane?"

Karen Davis, from her book Prisoned Chickens Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (REVISED ED)


(Note: I would make a few cents or something if you bought this book on Amazon by clicking on that link. If you would like me to not make money on your purchase of this book (and seriously, I'm totally OK with that) just go to Amazon via a different route and buy it that way.)

Veggie Nugget #33

I'm not afraid,
I'm not afraid,
All of us are different.

But we can still,
We can still be friends.

-The characters of Yo Gabba Gabba. Video here.

Veggie Nugget #32

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

-Bertrand Russell

I came across this quote over at Dan Cudahy's excellent blog Unpopular Vegan Essays, in his post On Chance, Choice, and Character.

And, by the way, I have shared that post via Google Reader.

Just in case you haven't noticed, there's a box in the upper right of this blog which contains items I've recently shared. These are other peoples' blog posts that I think are great. Not whole blogs, just individual posts.

Feel free to take a look every once in a while. You can also view my Shared Items page here, and, if you're feeling so bold, subscribe to the feed in your reader.

One more thought: I firmly believe the above quote should be applied across the board. I've been vegan long enough that it's something I take for granted now. It helps to occasionally question the foundations upon which my veganism rests. It's a good exercise. One that I think we should apply to every aspect of our lives.

This doesn't have to mean constant questioning of ourselves, of course. I think that's why Russell chose to include "now and then" in his statement. Constant self-questioning would drive anyone crazy. Even philosophers.

Veggie Nugget #31

Mt. Rainier, Md.: I want to care about the health and well-being of cows and chickens and pigs. Really, I do. But I don't. How can you convince me to eat less meat if I could not care less if 10,000,000,000 chickens or cows are tortured?

Jonathan Safran Foer: I couldn't. You are on the periphery of society---96% of Americans think animals should have legal protection. But you have every right to be.

Perhaps the environmental arguments mean something to you? Perhaps you like breathing good air, drinking good water? Perhaps you don't want E. Coli or campylobactor. Perhaps you like your antibiotics to work when you're ill? Perhaps not.

-From an online discussion at the Washington Post on Thursday with Jonathan Safran Foer.

His tone could be less snarky, but the substance of his answer couldn't be more spot-on.

Veggie Nugget #30

"Children confront us with our paradoxes and dishonesty, and we are exposed. You need to find an answer for every why — Why do we do this? Why don’t we do that? — and often there isn’t a good one. So you say, simply, because. Or you tell a story that you know isn’t true. And whether or not your face reddens, you blush. The shame of parenthood — which is a good shame — is that we want our children to be more whole than we are, to have satisfactory answers. My children not only inspired me to reconsider what kind of eating animal I would be, but also shamed me into reconsideration."

-Jonathan Safran Foer, from this piece that ran in the New York Times Magazine, adapted from Foer's upcoming book Eating Animals.

Really looking forward to reading this book. This will be the last nugget from it for a while, since the book doesn't come out till some time in November.

Veggie Nugget #29

"This isn’t animal experimentation, where you can imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Yet taste, the crudest of our senses, has been exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses. Why? Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to confining, killing and eating it? It’s easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it. Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals."

-Jonathan Safran Foer, from this piece that ran in the New York Times Magazine, adapted from Foer's upcoming book Eating Animals.

Veggie Nugget #28

"To give up the taste of sushi, turkey or chicken is a loss that extends beyond giving up a pleasurable eating experience. Changing what we eat and letting tastes fade from memory create a kind of cultural loss, a forgetting. But perhaps this kind of forgetfulness is worth accepting — even worth cultivating (forgetting, too, can be cultivated). To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry."

-Jonathan Safran Foer, from this piece that ran in the New York Times Magazine, adapted from Foer's upcoming book Eating Animals.

Veggie Nugget #27

"Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat. Turkeys have been so genetically modified they are incapable of natural reproduction. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter."

-Jonathan Safran Foer, from this piece that ran in the New York Times Magazine, adapted from Foer's upcoming book Eating Animals, which I'm very much looking forward to.

I'll be posting a few more nuggets from that piece and once I read the book I'll probably be posting more from that. It's so refreshing to see a literary-type writer tackle animal issues. Makes for a lot of well-written insight.

Veggie Nugget #26

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel

Veggie Nugget #25

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."

-Alice Walker

Veggie Nugget #24

"There is absolutely no single personal change that the average person can make that has a better impact on the environment than going vegan."

From "On the Environmental Disaster of Animal Agriculture" over at Unpopular Vegan Essays.

If you have some time and the wherewithal to think deeply about an uncomfortable subject, then I suggest checking out the rest of his blog.

Veggie Nugget #23

"I went vegetarian when I was about - I think I was about 8 years old. One day I cut this piece of meat open and blood came out and I asked my mother, ‘Where did this come from?’ And she said ‘animals,’ and that was it. And now these days, you can get everything vegan — vegan marshmallows…so now I’m eating all these things that you couldn’t even get before.”

-Geezer Butler, guitarist for Black Sabbath.

Yeah that's right, Black effing Sabbath.

Veggie Nugget #22

"Daddy makes supper really good."

Anna, a couple minutes ago

Veggie Nugget #21

"Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

-Elie Wiesel

Veggie Nugget #20

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

-Anne Frank

Veggie Nugget #19

"I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings."

-Cesar Chavez, farming activist

Veggie Nugget #18

“The costs of mass-producing cattle, poultry, pigs, sheep and fish to feed our growing population... include hugely inefficient use of freshwater and land, heavy pollution from livestock feces, rising rates of heart disease and other degenerative illnesses, and spreading destruction of the forests on which much of our planet’s life depends.”

-TIME Magazine Visions of the 21st Century, “Will We Still Eat Meat?”

Veggie Nugget #17

"Can a world-class athlete get enough protein from a vegetarian diet to compete? I’ve found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great."

Carl Lewis, nine-time Olympic gold medalist (read more from Carl here)

Veggie Nugget #16

"Interestingly, many long-term studies have now examined milk consumption in relation to risk of fractures. With remarkable consistency, these studies do not show reduction in fractures with high dairy product consumption. The hype about milk is basically an effective marketing campaign by the American Dairy industry."

-Walter Millet, M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H., Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition chairman