A friend of mine is giving a talk tomorrow on the topic of animal rights at my University.  I won't be able to attend because of work but I am sure it will be an eye-opening event.  I recently told him about my attempt at vegetarianism and he encouraged me greatly.  He even sent me  to a website, Veg.com, to find out more on the benefits of a meatless lifestyle.  I signed up to recieve nutritional information via snail mail.  Weeks later I receved a DVD about the upside of vegetarianism. 

I pop in the DVD and I hear the voice of my least favorite actor; Alec Baldwin. I thought to myself, uh oh I am not gonna dig this.  There is a 3 minute discussion of how a VEGAN lifestyle reverses heart disease and a 12 minute segment showing how animals are abused on farms so that I can have my precious hamburgers.  Now I understand that instances of animal cruelty and disrespect occur but the video seemed to be saying that all animals are routinely beaten with mallets, shot with bolt guns or shoved into cages to small for them so that the McMasses can have it our way.

The problem I have is that I grew up on a working farm, and we never treated our chickens to beatings, hormone injections or cramped living quarters.  Hell we didn't even use pesticides on the acres and acres of okra and pepper.  We feed our pigs a mixture of grain and seeds and never let them cannibalize one another for sustenance. I guess I just don't appreciate the way the video went about sending its message(even though Joaquin Phoenix, whom I love, was in it).  All it did was piss me off because there were no depictions of farms that respect animals in life and in death to support themselves.  If someone is interested in becoming a vegan vegetarian, showing both sides of the farm industry will not sway them from choosing a lifestyle of vegetarianism.  It will likely make them more apt to pay attention to the choices they make when they practice their consumer habits.  That could mean steering clear of meat and dairy or shopping with companies that do business with organic producers of meat and produce, who do not practice brutality toward animals.

That's just my two cents, I haven't made up mind yet about going vegan and I think I can say that I probably will not because I really love salmon and fish is off limits to the vegan.  Well that's all for now.

Goddess Bless