Two elephants enjoying their lives at the PAWS animal sanctuary. Photo from PAWS website.

I’ve ranted about the circus a little on this blog here and here. If you don’t believe me, all you have to do is Google the terms “Ringling Bros.” and “abuse” to see for yourself.  I just learned that Ringling Bros. is coming to California at the end of this month and will be in my area in August. If any local peeps happen to find my blog, please seriously reconsider taking your family to the circus. Save yourself the money and visit an animal sanctuary instead. Or if that money is burning a hole in your pocket, consider donating the amount that your circus tickets would cost to an organization that rescues animals from the horrendous, horrible abuse that is the circus:

PAWS:  Located in Galt (just south of Sacramento), Performing Animal Welfare Society or PAWS is dedicated to the protection of performing animals, to providing sanctuary to abused, abandoned and retired captive wildlife, to enforcing the best standards of care for all captive wildlife, to the preservation of wild species and their habitat and to promoting public education about captive wildlife issues.

Why is this place so great?  First off, they are a worker-owned co-op, meaning that the people who work there are the owners.  Pretty cool, right?  Secondly, they are very vegan friendly.  There is a huge selection of vegan baked stuff (from local bakeries) like cupcakes, cakes, cookies, scones, etc.  They are also very Raw friendly.  Third, they have the most insane bulk foods section you’ve ever seen in your life.  I did happen to take my camera with me so that I could post some photos of it, but I chickened out at the last second.  I didn’t want to look like a weirdo taking photos of dried beans and rice, so I used my iPhone instead so that I could look as if I were texting/emailing/Facebooking all the while casually snapping photos.  Why I was concerned about looking like a weirdo in SF is anybody’s guess– the town is full of ‘em!!

Most of my pictures are blurry, but you can read some of the bin labels if you zoom in and look closely.  None of these are repeats (photos of the same thing).  I’m not joking when I say that the bulk section is HUGE:  bulk spices, teas/coffee, beans/legumes, rice, pasta, cereals, flours, sugars, candy (lots of vegan ones too), nuts and nut butters, olives, dried fruits, oil, soy sauce…. seriously, if you can think of it, it’s probably in the bulk section.

Above:  bulk candies… notice how many are vegan!  Vegan gummy bear things, peanut butter cups, nut cluster things.

Above: granolas galore!

Above: more cereals

Above: any kind of flour you could ever need

Above: more flours

Above: cereals… notice how many are Raw!  How cool is it that you can get raw granola in the bulk section?!

Above: Rice, rice…

Above: …and more rice!

Aside from the bulk section, Rainbow also carries lots of hard-to-find vegan goodies like Dandies marshmallows.  They stock them all the time!  They also have all kinds of vegan cheeses, even those soft ones that can be spread on crackers.  I’ve never tried them, but I’m impressed that they carry it.  The fruit/veggies section is all organic and mostly locally grown.  The peaches smelled so delicious when I walked by, but I just couldn’t bring myself to shell out $3.50 per pound for them.  Likewise with the plums.  We did, however, stock up on bananas and in addition to being fair trade, they were so sweet and yummy (and comparable in price to my local store or Whole Foods).

The vitamin section is also out of this world, but I didn’t take the time to look through it.  We had been there long enough and my kiddo was hungry and ready to leave.  I could seriously waste hours in this store just looking through everything.

The price of most items was comparable to or maybe a little bit more expensive than Whole Foods.  By that, I mean like the loaves of bread, boxes of cereal, etc. were comparable in price to WF.  The prices on the bulk items is very reasonable, the most expensive items being the Raw cereals at $8 per pound. I know that sounds like quite a bit, but for the Raw stuff that sounds like it’s probably the going rate.

Anyway, the bottom line is– if you’re looking for something and can’t find it at any other store, chances are good that Rainbow has it.  I just wish it was closer!

It’s just wrong! I was one of those people who said “I could never give up cheese!” until I learned exactly what it’s like on a dairy farm. See for yourself in the video above.  Thank you, MFA for bravely going undercover to expose the cruelty of our “food” industry:

Captured on hidden camera, the shocking scenes of abuse reveal a culture of cruelty at Conklin Dairy Farms in Plain City, Ohio. During a four-week investigation between April and May, MFA’s investigator documented farm workers:

• Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears
• Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach
• Kicking “downed” cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck – abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm’s owner
• Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars – some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head
• Twisting cows’ tails until the bones snapped
• Punching cows’ udders
• Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death

Dairy is a cruel industry. Cows are repeatedly impregnated. When the calf is born it is separated from it’s mother almost instantly and the milk that the mother produces for her calf is sucked out to be sold in grocery stores. Male calves are either left to die or they wind up as veal while female calves grow up to become dairy cows. When they can no longer produce milk, they are slaughtered. Consuming dairy (no matter where it comes from or how “humane” or “organic” it is) contributes to this abuse.

Sorry for the rant, but this crap makes me mad.

My #2 reason for avoiding dairy: it is nutrition for a baby cow, not for a human.

I’m only 86 pages deep into T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study, but those few pages have been completely life changing.  It really is an amazing book and I recommend that everyone read it.

From the T. Colin Campbell Foundation’s website:

The few people who were consuming protein-rich diets were more susceptible to primary liver cancer. At about this same time, an experimental animal (rat) study from India showed the same effect. My associates and I then embarked on a basic research program to investigate this surprising effect of protein feeding on cancer development. Supported entirely by public money–mostly from NIH–we explored in depth over the next 27 years various characteristics of this association. We needed to confirm this observation then determine how it worked. We did both. The results were profoundly convincing and, along the way, they illustrated several fundamental nutrition and cancer principles.

• Tumor growth could be alternately turned on and off by feeding diets containing higher and lower levels of dietary protein, respectively
• Dietary protein promoted tumor growth but only at dietary levels above that needed for good health (ca. 10% of total energy)
• Although dietary protein did not initiate cancer, it enhanced initiation and, more importantly, promoted tumor growth
• The protein effect could be explained by multiple biochemical mechanisms, appearing to act in synergy
• The dietary protein having this tumor promoting effect was casein, the principle protein of cow’s milk. Two plant-based proteins, soy and wheat, did not promote tumor growth–even at the higher level–unless supplemented, possibly, with their respective ‘limiting’ amino acids
• The casein effect on tumor growth very likely extends to other animal proteins as well
• Based on the criteria used by the government’s program for determining whether chemicals are carcinogenic, casein is very likely the most relevant chemical carcinogen we consume

However, I question studies that are focused on single agents and single events because they are usually missing the larger context. Thus, we sought that larger context within which casein, perhaps animal protein in general, relates to human health. An opportunity arose for us to conduct such a study among human subjects in rural China where various cancers were geographically localized and where diets contained relatively small but varied amounts of animal based foods. In seeking this larger context in this nationwide study, we learned—from multiple perspectives—that relatively small amounts of animal based foods (and/or the lack of whole plant based foods) nutritionally conspire to cause degenerative diseases like cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases commonly found in the United States and other highly industrialized countries.

The episode was a major disappointment, though.  The contestants were quite obviously out of their comfort zone and the idea of cooking something vegetarian clearly rattled most of them.  Seriously, though, coming up with a vegetarian dish is a cake walk, especially if you are an accomplished chef.  A real challenge would have been to make them come up with a vegan meal.  In fact, I sort of though Natalie Portman was vegan, but I guess not.  Actually, it says here that she went vegan in 2009 after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals. And here is an article that she wrote about her reasons for going vegan.

In defense of the contestants, the twist that the meal was to be vegetarian was revealed at the last minute.  They were not allowed any time to come up with a concept for their dish and they were stuck using whatever was stocked in the restaurants’ kitchen already.

Now, I’ve been in the situation where I’ve gone to a restaurant to find that they didn’t even offer one vegetarian dish, let alone vegan.  In that instance, I had called ahead the day before (since I had no control over the choice in restaurants) and spoke with the chef who told me they would accommodate me.  Pasta.  With mushrooms.  And it wasn’t that good, but at least I had something to eat.

I guess I was hoping that this episode may change peoples’ perspective of what vegetarians actually eat, but was disappointed that the chefs themselves were unclear.  They seem to think that all we eat is vegetables, judging from the dishes they produced and what they said during their interviews.  For the most part, the only food group represented was vegetables.  What happened to beans and legumes or grains?  One person made a dish with lentils and one other person used garbanzo beans.  Disappointing.

I’m sort of behind on all the posts I want to get done, but this one will be quick.

When you buy eggs, this is the cruelty that you are supporting!

When I was vegetarian, eggs were okay with me because no animals actually died. Well, that’s not exactly true. And “cage free” or “free range” eggs aren’t any better.

I’ve contacted both the author and the publisher to let them know that my copy (and maybe others who haven’t thought to email them) is falling apart and they need to fix it for the future.  An automated response has already come back from the author:

Thank you so much for your email. Because of computer-related arm pain, I’m forced to reduce my time on email.  I regret that I may not be able to reply to your message, but please know that I have received it and appreciate the time you have taken to write.

Maybe she won’t even read it… who knows?!  We’ll see what the publisher says about this.  These books are expensive, ya know?!  The binding should be able to withstand normal use.  Sersiouly, has this happened to anyone else?

UPDATE: The publisher wrote back and has offered to replace my copy!  Woohoo!!!

Anyway, this gave my husband the idea– what if vegans went door to door?  Not that he thinks it’s a good idea, he was just curious as to how it would be received by the homeowner.  I wonder if some people would feel enlightened since most people probably have no clue how much an animal suffers to become food.  Maybe it would open their eyes to a different (likely healthier) diet.  Like I was today, I bet the homeowner would be annoyed.

In many ways, veganism is like a religion.  It’s a lifestyle that vegans are proud of and want everyone to be.  At least, I want everyone to go vegan.  It’s something that I’m passionate about, something that I’m unwilling to change, something that I love to discuss when asked.

So what do you think– what would happen if vegans went door to door?

A little while back, I accidentally bought some crackers that contained whey.  Serves me right for not reading the ingredients on something that I’ve never bought before.  Sometimes becoming distracted at the grocery store is inevitable.  Anyway, the point is that I had already bought the crackers and couldn’t really return them (actually, we had eaten most of the box before I discovered it’s dirty little secret), and now my eczema is back.  After completely giving up dairy over a year ago, I was eczema free since.  I guess now I’ll have to “detox” again and keep putting on the lotion.  It seems to be almost gone now.  Hopefully never to return.

This made me think of the first time I went to the doc when I started having eczema problems, which was around 18.  I went in, told her about my gross elbows and she wrote me a prescription for some ointment.  Why the heck didn’t she tell me that it could be from dairy?  She never discussed the causes at all.  As far as I know, eczema isn’t something that just happens.  There’s usually something to trigger it.  Most doctors would rather treat than prevent.  Have high cholesterol?  Don’t try reversing it by adopting a cholesterol-free (VEGAN) diet, take all these pills instead.  And don’t fool yourself– chicken and beef have just about the same amount of cholesterol.

In Iowa, where the 20 million hogs easily outnumber the 3 million people, the rotten-egg-and-ammonia smell of hog waste often wafts into homes, landing like a punch to the chest.

“Once, we couldn’t go outside for a week,” said Karen Forbes, who lives near a hog feedlot outside Lorimor. “It burned your eyes. You couldn’t breathe. You had to take a deep breath and run for your garage. It was horrid.”

Karen Forbes lives “near” the feedlot.  Can you imagine how bad it is on the feedlot?  While I do feel bad for these people who have to breathe this everyday, does anyone ever stop to think that pigs can’t possibly enjoy living in these conditions either?  I guess nobody but me cares.

So, what are they going to do about it?  Spend $1.7 million to further “study” hog odors.

Hog odors have been a perennial issue at the state Legislature, where lawmakers argue over the need to protect quality of life without ruining Iowa’s $12-billion-a-year pork industry.

How about this solution?  It’s free and it isn’t hard at all.  STOP EATING THE PIGS AND THEY’LL STOP STINKING UP THE AIR!  And runoff from these farms will stop polluting water sources. With people starving all over the world, people losing their jobs and homes here, etc. etc. can’t you think of better ways to spend $1.7 million than to keep studying a study that has already been studied and still not remedied?  Stupid.

Now, not even corn is safe.  In addition to putting or spraying weird things on food, our government is content with letting companies manipulate the genes of crops.  And even though genetically modified corn is banned in most of the world, our government doesn’t have a problem letting us eat it.  Recent research concludes:

1) A new long term study by the Austrian government confirms previous findings that consumption of GM (genetically modified) corn, for as little as 20 weeks, can damage the reproductive system, lower fertility rates and increase illness and death rates in offspring.
Learn more

2) Researchers in Mexico reported in December that some popular varieties of GM corn negatively affect the learning response of bees. Scientists say this may be an indicator of the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, a recent catastrophic and mysterious die-off of as much as 30% of the world’s honey bee population in the past couple of years.
Learn more

3) In Italy, scientists published a study that put the biotech industry in a public relations tailspin. In the study, laboratory tests showed a direct connection between consumption of GM corn and a damaged immune system.
Learn more

See, the only person looking out for you is YOU. This stuff is scary. GM products aren’t even safety tested. Need an explanation for why people get cancer like crazy? Well, it probably has something to do with these weird things in our food supply. Not to worry, if you don’t want to eat this stuff, here are some tips for avoiding genetically modified produce (keep in mind that food made with GM ingredients doesn’t have to be labeled as such):

1) Look for products that voluntarily label themselves as GMO or GE-free.

2) Buy Organic:  Products certified as “Organic” are not allowed to contain genetically modified ingredients.

3) Avoid non-organic products that contain the most common genetically engineered ingredients: corn (corn syrup, corn meal, corn oil, etc.), fructose, dextrose, glucose, modified food starch, ingredients including the word “soy” (soy flour, soy lecithin, etc.), vegetable oil, vegetable protein, canola oil (also called rapeseed oil), cottonseed oil, and sugar from sugar beets.

It really is important to buy organic everything these days, if you care as much as I do about what you put into your body.  AND, you can’t just stop there– you can bet your life that farm animals are being fed GM corn, soy, etc.  Best just to avoid meat altogether, if you ask me.  For more info, check out this great site.