Compassion for animals

The following piece is the acceptance speech given by Dr. Melanie Joy on October 9, 2013 at the House of Commons in London, where she was presented with the Institute of Jainology’s prestigious Ahimsa Award for her international work on nonviolence. Dr. Joy is the eighth recipient of the award. Former recipients include the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.

I want to first thank the Institute of Jainology for honoring me, and the cause for which I work, with this award. And I would also like to thank them for their efforts to help create a world in which one day ahimsa will no longer be worthy of such recognition, because nonviolence will simply be the norm.

This award is a step in that direction. For it is often those with the greatest vulnerability to violence who are the most exploited and the least protected, and whose victimization remains invisible. Recognizing my efforts to illuminate the violence inherent in animal agriculture, and the violence in the consciousness that enables this practice, is a powerful statement legitimizing farmed animals as vulnerable others, as victims who are therefore deserving of protection from harm.

I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful to be receiving the Ahimsa Award, but this award does not belong to me alone. The platform on which I stand has been constructed by the tireless animal advocates and activists, the unsung heroes, whose courage and commitment to speak the truth in the face of overwhelming social denial – to demand compassion and justice for all beings – is perhaps the greatest example of ahimsa I know. And in particular I stand here because of the efforts of my team at Carnism Awareness and Action Network, all volunteers whose dedication frankly humbles me. So I accept this award on behalf of those whose work has made mine possible. And I accept this award on behalf of the pigs and chickens and cows and fish and sheep and rabbits and ducks and everyone else who has been or will be an invisible victim of agricultural violence.

Thank you.

And now I’d like to share with you how I came to be here today, the story of how my search for truth and my discovery of love helped teach me the meaning of ahimsa.

*******

From the moment I was weaned, I was taught to both seek and deny the truth. I was taught to apply the Golden Rule – to consider how I would feel were I on the receiving end of my actions – but also to systematically violate others. I was taught to keep an open mind and a caring heart, but also to block my awareness and shut down my empathy. I was taught to practice compassion, but to participate in cruelty. I was taught to love, and I was taught to kill.

And so I learned to be a psychological acrobat, walking the tightrope between denial and truth, juggling facts and fictions in an elaborate – and deadly – act I didn’t even know I was performing. And it was my journey across that precarious mental highwire that led me to where I stand today.

My first memory of what I would later realize was my acrobatic training was from when I was just two years old, and we adopted a puppy who my parents named Fritz. Fritz became my first friend, my best friend. And Fritz and I were inseparable; he would bound by my side across the open expanse of the local golf course, under an impossibly vast, cloud-swept sky; he lay contently at my feet as I chronicled my adventures in my private journal, nestled in our secret fort in the woods; he good-naturedly pulled me across the little frozen pond between the trees that I had declared my personal skating rink; he aided and abetted me when I smuggled my unwanted dinner from my mouth to my napkin and then to him, at his station under the table, my partner in crime.

And Fritz and I understood each other. When he stepped on a shard of glass and sliced his paw, I cringed in pain. When he caught wind of his Christmas bone and wagged his tail so hard it pulled his backside along with it, my heart swelled with joy. When I lay feverish and aching he held vigil by my bedside. And when he died, at the age of 13 of cancer, I wept with grief for the loss of my brother.

I am the person I am today in part because of my relationship – my connection – to the dog with whom I grew up. Indeed, the relationships we form with others, human and nonhuman, shape our hearts and minds in profound and powerful ways, for better or worse. They wound us and they heal us. They teach us how to be givers, takers, leaders, users, performers, abusers, nurturers. My connection with Fritz helped teach me how to love.

My connection with Fritz taught me to identify with others. When we identify with another, we see something of ourselves in them, and something of them in ourselves, even if the only thing we identify with is the desire not to suffer. My connection with Fritz taught me to empathize with others. When we empathize with another, we look at the world thorough the their eyes, so when we make choices that impact them we ask ourselves, what would he or she ask us to do? Indeed, empathy is central to our psychological wellbeing, and to the wellbeing of our planet. It is the antidote to all forms of violence – from judgment to hatred, from domestic abuse to genocide – as it is the seed from which compassion blooms.

My connection with my dog taught me to be a compassionate witness, to look deeply into the truth of another’s experience, and into the truth of my own experience – even when the truth broke my heart. After Fritz was diagnosed with cancer and his dash to greet me after school was replaced by a hobble, his once overactive tail swaying limply and his once bright eyes clouded in pain, I still wanted nothing more than to keep him alive, even if just for another week. But I loved him. And my relationship with him had helped teach me that to love someone is to truly see them, and that loving another means making choices that are in their best interest. Love and denial cannot coexist.

And so my relationship with Fritz taught me to honor the truth.

But my relationship with Fritz also taught me to deny the truth. It taught me how to play my role in the circus of the absurd, teetering atop that perilous tightrope.

Somehow, throughout all those magical childhood years – years of wonder and adventure and best friendship, of sprinting across panoramic meadows, plunging in towering snow banks, burrowing in fragile, sweet-smelling leaf piles – somehow despite the powerful connection I shared with my dog, there was a deep disconnection within me. Beside my awareness and empathy there resided a numbness of mind and heart. Truth and denial lay side by side, uneasy bedfellows.

Indeed, for the first half of my life, I never thought about how bizarre it was that I could pet my dog with one hand, while I ate a pork chop with the other, a pork chop that had once been an animal who was at least as intelligent and sensitive and conscious as my dog and who – like all of us – had a life that mattered to her. The internal disconnection that caused me to unwittingly support extensive – and completely unnecessary – animal suffering was as powerful as the connection that caused me to love my dog enough to break my own heart to end his suffering. But I simply juggled these contradictions like the acrobat that I was, sleepwalking along the fine line of truth and denial.

*******

It wasn’t until a decade after the death of my beloved dog that I woke up. I first awoke to find myself hospitalized, after having eaten what turned out to be my very last piece of meat – a hamburger that had been contaminated with the foodborne bacteria, campylobacter. And then I awoke to the truth. I awoke to the truth about what is perhaps the most entrenched and brutal industry in human history, an industry that permeates virtually every aspect of human and nonhuman existence and whose very survival depends on denial.

The truth is that nonhuman animals are intelligent, sentient beings. Pigs, for instance, are as intelligent as three-year-old humans; and scientists have demonstrated that fish and certain crustaceans have pain receptors, such that some food manufacturers no longer sell live lobsters and crabs on the grounds that boiling them alive is inhumane.

The truth is that approximately 95% of the meat, eggs, and dairy that make it to our plates comes from animals who lived and died in abject misery. (And the other 5%, from so-called organic or humane farms is, I assure you, far from cruelty-free.) For instance, baby animals are routinely castrated and have their horns and beaks cut off without any painkiller whatsoever. They are born and raised in crowded, filthy, dark environments where their existence is one of torment and terror. The females may be hooked up to so-called rape racks, where they are forcibly impregnated, over and over, only to have their offspring taken from them just hours after birth. (There are few sounds as haunting as the wailing of a cow on a dairy farm, as her baby is carried off.). And when it comes time for slaughter, these beings are shackled by their ankles, dragged along a conveyor belt, sliced open, and plunged into boiling water, often while fully conscious.

The truth is that, according to the United Nations, animal agriculture is one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems facing the world today. Consider, for instance, the fact that greenhouse gas emissions caused by so-called livestock exceed that caused by all cars, trucks, ships, buses, and airplanes combined.

The truth is that there is overwhelming evidence linking the consumption of animal products with some of the most prevalent and debilitating diseases in the western world, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

The truth is that those on the front lines of killing – the meatpackers and slaughterhouse workers – are economically and physically exploited and are often traumatized by an industry whose business is violence. Human Rights Watch states that the working conditions of these individuals are so appalling they violate basic human rights; and not surprisingly, such violence begets violence. For instance, one worker stated (and I apologize in advance for the brief profanity):

“One time I took my knife…and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into its nose. Now that hog really went nuts, brushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left…and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass. The poor hog didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”1

The truth is that, globally, 124,000 farmed animals are slaughtered…not every day, or even every hour….but every, single, minute. And so I would like to take a moment of silence, to honor the victims on whose behalf I stand here today, and to commemorate the 124,000 of them who will be killed during the next sixty seconds.

(Sixty seconds of silence)

Thank you.

And the truth was that an entire society of rational, caring people – just like myself – had somehow checked their hearts and minds at the door to enable a global atrocity that has caused more bloodshed than all wars, genocides, famines, and natural disasters combined, in what could only be called a collective madness.

We tearfully bury the bodies of deceased dogs, yet we contentedly consume the bodies of dead pigs. We stop in our tracks to return a fallen bird to her nest, while our chicken nuggets await us back home. We laugh beside our children as they reach toward the calf in the petting zoo, though we feed them the very milk that was taken from this baby, milk that was taken along with his mother. We would call it abuse if a happy, healthy golden retriever were slaughtered just because people liked the way her thighs taste, and yet, when the very same thing is done to individuals of other species we call it humane. We don snorkels and masks and fins to stare in awe at the sundry creatures of the sea, balm to our busy minds, yet we may also soothe ourselves by tricking these same beings into impaling themselves to death on the ends of our sharpened hooks. And the methods of mass destruction….How many times had I heedlessly driven past the squat, elongated factories – windowless sheds in remote locations in which hundreds of thousands of individuals were caged and confined, castrated and cauterized and cut open – factories that bore a haunting resemblance to other architectures of the darker chapters of our history? And how many times had I cheerfully hummed to my radio as truckloads of terrified animals passed me on their way to slaughter, the whites of their eyes flashing from behind dark little slats?

Something was horribly wrong.

How on earth had such a glaring truth been so fully eclipsed by denial?

*******

It was after awakening but before understanding that I was compelled to seek what I would discover was an even deeper truth. And so, to make sense out of the atrocities and absurdities and acrobatics I could no longer un-see, I immersed myself in the study of violence and nonviolence, ultimately writing my doctoral dissertation on the psychology of eating animals.

And what I discovered made everything suddenly clear. There was in fact a rational explanation for the pandemic insanity that had laid claim to an otherwise sound populace.

What I discovered was that there is an invisible belief system that conditions us to eat certain animals. This belief system is woven through the very fabric of society to shape all social institutions and it is therefore internalized, shaping the very way we think and feel – or, more accurately, don’t think and feel – about eating animals. It is a system of oppression that requires us to act against our core values, our own interests, and the interests of others. The system must therefore use a set of social and psychological defense mechanisms so that rational, humane people participate in irrational, inhumane practices without fully realizing what they are doing. And the core of the system is denial.

Carnism, the name I gave to this system of denial, is constructed around an elaborate narrative that presents fiction as fact and distorts our perceptions so that we fail to see the contradictions that are right in front of us. Carnism is the ringmaster that keeps us ungrounded.

Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is based on a mythology, on what I call the Three Ns of Justification – eating animals is normal, natural, and necessary – a mythology that has been used to justify violent practices throughout human history, from slavery to male dominance.

Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that in much of the world today, many of us eat animals not because we need to, but because we choose to. And ironically, carnism robs of us of our ability to make such crucial choices freely – because without awareness, there is no free choice.

Carnism teaches us to deny the fact that animals are individuals, with their own personalities and preferences, and to instead to see them as abstract members of a group: a pig is a pig and all pigs are the same. And as with other victims of violent ideologies, we give them numbers rather than names.

And carnism teaches us to deny the fact that eating animals is not merely a matter of personal ethics, but rather it is the inevitable end result of a deeply entrenched oppressive system. So we fail to see that eating animals is in fact a social justice issue.

*******

So there it was. Nearly two decades after the death of my cherished canine companion, I had finally come to understand the very strange – and very dire – nature of the circus act I had been performing. And I knew that if I didn’t share what I had learned I would be colluding in carnistic denial rather than speaking my truth.

So I wrote a book based on my research – entitled “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism” – which sold tens of thousands of copies and whose content has been translated and disseminated around the world, and which eventually formed the basis of my organization, Carnism Awareness and Action Network, now a hub of global carnism awareness activity. I have witnessed the spread of carnism awareness across nearly every continent, as more and more individuals are adopting the cause as their own and as I continue on what is now the third year of my international speaking tour.

And along this most recent phase of my journey, as I travel the world meeting thousands of people from an array of backgrounds, whose lifestyles fall all along the carnistic continuum, I have learned what is perhaps the deepest of truths. Yet unlike the tragic truth about animal agriculture, or the unnerving truth about carnism, this truth is inspiring, for it is the very reason the other truths must remain shrouded within the protective cloak of denial.

The truth is that we care. We care about animals, we care about justice, and we care about the truth. And carnism depends on our not caring, and the system is built on deception. Carnism is a vulnerable system that needs a strong fortress to protect itself from its very own proponents – us. Why else would we need to go through all the psychological acrobatics if not because we care?

The truth is that there is a way off the tightrope. Awareness sweeps out the fictions that clutter our inner worlds, creating space for truth to emerge. We can thus reclaim our authentic thoughts and feelings, and with them, our freedom of choice. With awareness we can choose to be conscientious objectors to the violent system that is carnism, and we can choose to become active witnesses in the transformation of this system.

The truth is that more and more people are waking up. The vegan movement, which is the counterpoint to carnism, is in fact thriving; it is burgeoning in cultures around the world. And the movement is growing precisely because its principles are our principles, its mission is what we all wish for. Veganism is centered on justice, and compassion, and above all it demands an end to the carnistic game of Let’s Pretend.

Veganism, of course, is not the solution to global violence and injustice, but no true solution will be possible without it. For when it comes to systems of oppression, although they can never be equated, as the experiences of each set of victims will always be somewhat unique, they can and must be compared. Because all oppressive systems are structurally similar – the consciousness that enables such oppressions is the same. It is the mentality of domination and subjugation, the mentality that causes us to turn beings into things, lives into units of production. It is the might-makes-right mentality that makes us feel entitled to wield complete control over the lives and deaths of those with less power, just because we can. And to feel justified in our actions because they’re only: savages, women, animals. It is the mentality of meat, the carnistic consciousness.

And so the truth is that, as a powerful man – Hitler – once sad, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”2

But the truth is also that, as a more powerful man – Gandhi – once said, “all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.3

So it was the love of a dog that taught me the true meaning of ahimsa. My relationship with Fritz taught me that love is not merely a feeling, but a practice, a practice that – like all practices – reflects our state of consciousness. It taught me that love should not be limited by arbitrary boundaries such as species; indeed, whenever we place limits on our compassion, we diminish ourselves and damage our world. And so it was the love of a dog that led me to my life’s work, to transform the violent system that is carnism. For transforming carnism is not simply about changing behavior, but about shifting consciousness. It is about shifting from ignorance to awareness, from apathy to empathy, from callousness to compassion, from denial to truth – and from violence, to ahimsa.

Thank you.

1 Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the US Meat Industry (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 102-104.
2 I recognize that there is some debate around the attribution of this statement, and that the issue is as of yet unresolved.
3 Ibid.

Islamic Studies 101

UNBELIEVABLE AND WRITTEN BY A MUSLIM.   The writer is the Pakistani Executive Director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, a think tank established in 2007, and an Islamabad-based freelance columnist. It sure makes interesting reading... Particularly coming from a Pakistani official. By: Dr Farrukh Saleem Why are Jews so powerful There are only 14 million Jews in the world; seven million in the Americas , five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa.   For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together.   Ever wondered why? Jesus of Nazareth was Jewish.   Albert Einstein, the most influential scientist of all time and TIME magazine's 'Person of the Century', was a Jew.   Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis was a Jew.   So were Karl Marx, Paul Samuelson and Milton Friedman.   Here are a few other Jews whose intellectual output has enriched the whole humanity: Benjamin Rubin gave humanity the vaccinating needle. Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine. Albert Sabin developed the improved live polio vaccine. Gertrude Elion gave us a leukemia fighting drug. Baruch Blumberg developed the vaccination for Hepatitis B. Paul Ehrlich discovered a treatment for syphilis. Elie Metchnikoff won a Nobel Prize in infectious diseases. Bernard Katz won a Nobel Prize in neuromuscular transmission. Andrew Schally won a Nobel in endocrinology. Aaron Beck founded Cognitive Therapy.  Gregory Pincus developed the first oral contraceptive pill. George Wald won a Nobel for our understanding of the human eye. Stanley Cohen won a Nobel in embryology. Willem Kolff came up with the kidney dialysis machine. Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than Peace Prizes). Why are Jews so powerful? Stanley Mezor invented the first micro-processing chip.   Leo Szilard developed the first nuclear chain reactor; Peter Schultz, optical fibre cable; Charles Adler, traffic lights; Benno Strauss, Stainless steel; Isador Kisee, sound movies; Emile Berliner, telephone microphone; Charles Ginsburg, videotape recorder. Famous financiers in the business world who belong to Jewish faith include Ralph Lauren (Polo), Levis Strauss (Levi's Jeans), Howard Schultz (Starbuck's) , Sergey Brin (Google), Michael Dell (Dell Computers), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Donna Karan (DKNY), Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins) and Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Donuts). Richard Levin, President of Yale University, is a Jew. So are Henry Kissinger (American secretary of state), Alan Greenspan (Fed chairman under Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush), Joseph Lieberman (US Senator), Madeleine Albright (American secretary of state), Casper Weinberger (American secretary of defense), Maxim Litvinov ( USSR foreign Minister), David Marshal ( Singapore 's first chief minister), Issac Isaacs (governor-general of Australia ), Benjamin  Disraeli (British statesman and author), Yevgeny Primakov (Russian PM), Barry Goldwater (US Senator), Jorge Sampaio (president of Portugal ), John Deutsch (CIA director), Herb Gray (Canadian deputy PM), Pierre Mendes (French PM), Michael Howard (British home Secretary), Bruno Kreisky (chancellor of Austria ) and Robert Rubin (American secretary of treasury). In the media, famous Jews include Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Barbara Walters (ABC News), Eugene Meyer (Washington Post), Henry Grunwald (editor-in-chief Time), Katherine Graham (publisher of The Washington Post), Joseph Lelyveld (Executive editor, The New York Times), and Max Frankel (New York Times). The most beneficent philanthropist in the history of the world is George Soros, a Jew, who has so far donated a colossal $4 billion most of which has gone as aid to scientists and universities around the world. Second to George Soros is Walter Annenberg, another Jew, who has built a hundred libraries by donating an estimated $2 billion. At the Olympics, Mark Spitz set a record of sorts by winning seven gold medals; Lenny Krayzelburg is a three-time Olympic gold medallist.   Spitz, Krayzelburg and Boris Becker (Tennis) are all Jewish. Did you know that Harrison Ford, George Burns, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Sandra Bullock, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Ben Kingsley, Kirk Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Cary Grant, William Shatner, Jerry Lewis and Peter Falk are all Jewish? As a matter of fact, Hollywood itself was founded by a Jew. Among directors and producers, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Oliver Stone, Aaron Spelling ( Beverly Hills 90210), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1/2/3), Michael Man (Starsky andHutch), Milos Forman (One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Douglas Fairbanks (The Thief of Baghdad ) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) are all Jewish. So, why are Jews so powerful? Answer : EDUCATION  Why are Muslims so powerless?  There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims. Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless? Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities', and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500. As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.   Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same. Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs. (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).   Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP. Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge! Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20. Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.  Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan 's export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent.   The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait, Morocco, and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent, while Singapore is at 58 per cent. Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.  Why are Muslims powerless? .....Because we aren't producing knowledge, ....Because we aren't diffusing knowledge., .....Because we aren't applying knowledge. And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies. Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).   Oil rich Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion. ..... (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).  So, why are Muslims so powerless? Answer: Lack of education.  All we do is shout to Allah the whole day !!! and blame everyone else for our multiple failures!!!!!

A request to restaurants

Ann Esselstyn - 8 Principles for becoming plant perfect

I am not a chef. I don’t peel anything and if it looks even a little bit complicated, I don’t make it.  What we have found is that eating plant based WITHOUT OIL is delicious, easy and  above all magical.

Follow 8 principles and you may well find yourself becoming PLANT PERFECT!

1. Eat oats (Old Fashioned) for breakfast, any way you can as oatmeal, as a cold cereal as we do
with alternative milk and fruit or in waffles or pancakes or just put your cereal bowl with oats, banana and alternative milk and a table spoon of flax seed into your waffle iron and you have your oat breakfast in waffle form  There are delicious ways to use steel cut  oats too.  Oats help lower cholesterol and also reduce artery inflammation.  Find the breakfast  with oats you love then eat it EVERY DAY!!!

2. Eat GREENS especially leafy greens as well as all the symphony of rainbow colored vegetables.
Cooked or raw vegetables are king!  Make leafy greens like Kale, collards and Swiss chard the nest on which you put your food, mix greens into your food or pile greens on the side of your plate.  Make kale sandwiches, mix greens into soup, cook kale, etc. cut in small pieces into pasta 4 minutes before it is done, then drain and you have a meal in one or mix a bunch of greens into pasta sauce and spread on your whole wheat, no oil pizza crust (see www. samis Bakery.com  on line for an
awesome millet/flax pizza crust) and top with vegetables of your choice. Never cheese.

3. Eat Beans and Lentils instead of meat and dairy.  All lentils are delicious. Try red lentils in soup.  They cook quickly and make the soup a nice color.  Put beans in salads.  Hummus made without tahini or oil has become our mayonnaise as a sandwich spread or dip for vegetables and crackers and even part of our favorite salad dressing.   Our main party dish is brown rice and black beans piled high with chopped tomatoes, thawed frozen corn, chopped green onions, water chestnuts, chopped cilantro, chopped arugula, chopped peppers, etc. and topped with salsa, low sodium tamari or if you don’t have heart disease with guacamole.  AVOID all the highly processed fake soy meats and any of the vegan cheeses, which have lots of oil in them.

4. Eat WHOLE Grains. Be sure that the word WHOLE is in front of wheat or rye in the ingredient list.   If not then it is just white flour fancied up to sound impressive.  Check also to be sure that there is no added oil in the bread.  Ezekiel makes many wonderful sprouted grain products available in the frozen food departments of health food stores. The Ezekiel Tortilla wraps are excellent and useful for everyday or parties.  Fill them with your choice and then roll them up and bake them for 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven. Delicious!  Use whole wheat pastry flour or barley flour in baking instead of white flour.

5. Eliminate oil! Empty all oil, even virgin olive oil out of your cupboards then you CAN’T use it. Instead any liquid works.  Vegetable broth (no sodium), water, wine, beer, orange juice, carrot juice, vinegar all work in stir -frying. Instead of oil in baking, use applesauce, baby food prunes, bananas. Finding a salad dressing you love is a challenge at first but there are so many possibilities out there you will soon never miss the oil filled ones.

6. Drink WATER! You can’t go wrong with water.  You can flavor it with a splash of orange or apple, etc. juice occasionally.  Never drink juices! And absolutely never drink pop, with or without added sugar.

7. Avoid sugar and salt as much as possible.   Save sugar for birthdays or special holiday treats.  Instead put grapes in your freezer for an amazing sweet treat or freeze bananas or mangoes and blend them in a strong blender for delicious “ice creams. “  Look at the government label for the amount of
salt in a product.  No added salt is ideal or aim for the salt content being equal to the calorie content.  Instead of salt add vinegar, lemon juice,  lime juice or hot sauces.  You will lose your taste for salt
before you know it.

8. Read Labels, especially the ingredients.    You will be surprised that often proclaimed zero
fat products have oil listed in the ingredients.  The government allows anything under .5 grams of fat to be called FAT FREE.

Fill up with all the great plant based food.  Life is GOOD!!!

from http://planeat.tv/ann-esselstyn

THESE ARE PRETTY CLEVER

Did you know about these?

Do you see the arrow between the "E" and "x" (in white)?                I had never noticed it before.

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The 2nd and 3rd "T's" are two people sharing (or fighting over) a
               tortilla and a bowl of salsa.

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The world's most famous bike race. The "R" in "Tour" is a cyclist.
The yellow circle is the front wheel of a bicycle, the "O" is the back wheel.

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The arrow means Amazon has everything from A to Z

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The gap between the "K" and the "I" is a sideways chocolate kiss.

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There is a dancing bear above the "ble".
Toblerone chocolate bars originated in Berne, Switzerland,
           whose symbol is the bear.

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See the "31" embedded in the "BR"?           Thirty one-derful flavors!

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Northwest Airlines. The circle is a compass.         The arrow in the upper left corner is pointing..?

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See the gorilla and lioness (in white) facing each other?   AWESOME ~  LOVED this one !

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The smiley half face is also a 'g".

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The emblem for the Milwaukee Brewers.
        Baseball glove forms an "M" and a "B".
This Logo was designed by a college student.

Steps to Cancer Prevention

• Do not use tobacco in any form.

• Eat a varied menu (whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans, without added fats), which supplies generous amounts of fibre, vitamins, and minerals.

• Have a variety of colors within your daily menu.

• Consume at least 40 grams of fibre per day.

• Avoid animal products and minimize added vegetable oils.

• Minimize alcohol intake.

• Engage in regular physical activity.

• Maintain your weight at or near your ideal level.

• Avoid excessive sunlight and unnecessary X-rays.

• Be sure to take a daily multiple vitamin without added minerals, or other reliable source of vitamin B12. Adults need 2.4 micrograms per day.

Health in Australia

Australia, like the US and other western countries, is becoming more and more obese. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2011-12, 70% of males and 56% of females in Australia aged 18 years and over were overweight or obese. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of suffering from a range of health conditions, including coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, some cancers, knee and hip problems, and sleep apnoea. In 2008, the total annual cost of obesity to Australia, including health system costs, loss of productivity costs and carers' costs, was estimated at around $58 billion.

Each year around 55,000 Australians suffer a heart attack., this equates to around 150 heart attacks a day, or one heart attack every 10 minutes. More than 350,000 Australians have had a heart attack at some time in their lives (From the ABS National Health Survey)

To quote from a documentary I saw ... "What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure. Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases."

Almost everyone I know is taking some sort of pill ... Cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure you name it.

However, it would seem to me that pills are the "band aid" solution. They mask the symptoms but do nothing to prevent the problem. Doctors in Australia don't have any interest in preventing any of the illnesses we face. They offer solutions once you already have the disease.

In contrast, even though I used to have very high cholesterol and a "fatty liver", even though my doctor recommended that I start taking Lipitor (an anti cholesterol drug), even though I was somewhat overweight ... since adopting a plant based diet I no longer have these issues and I'm drug free!

Again, to quote from the documentary I saw " Could it be there’s a single solution to all of these problems? A solution so comprehensive, but so straightforward, that it’s mind-boggling that more of us haven’t taken it seriously?"

What you eat can greatly affect your health and well-being. Scientific studies have shown time and again that choosing healthy foods can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

There is compelling evidence that dietary patterns that include processed foods and animal products, even in moderation, are the leading cause of modern diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The evidence that plant based diets are health supporting is consistent across all types of research, particularly in regard to whole plant foods. The wholefoods plant based diet has a wide breadth of benefit, in that the same dietary approach that will prevent or even reverse one disease is beneficial to the management of others.

Some resources to back up these claims

Whole Foods Plant Based Health - an excellent Australian resource

Biggest US Insurer Kaiser Permanente Tells 17,000 Doctors to Recommend Plant-Based Diets! also includes links to studies to back up their claims

The Last Heart Attack -- CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta Documentary

Forks over Knives - examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.

Preventing disease and taking control of your own health is a topic I wish the Australian Government, Australian media and Australian people knew more about.

If Australians knew that a wholefoods plant based diet would extend their life and reduce (and reverse) many cancers ...would they?

If Australians knew that, by changing to a wholefoods plant based diet they could be in control of their own health ... would they?

If Australians knew that, by changing to a wholefoods plant based diet taking another pill was not the only way to deal with their health problems ... would they?

Shouldn't this be front page news?

How to live a healthy long life

From the introduction to Forks over Knives

"What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure. Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases. Could it be there’s a single solution to all of these problems? A solution so comprehensive, but so straightforward, that it’s mind-boggling that more of us haven’t taken it seriously?"

Almost everyone I know is

• overweight
• taking some sort of medication, and
• often tired

The following links have been inspirational to me to defeat these symptoms. 

1. 21 Day Vegan Kickstart program. It's free! I registered with them, they provided me with daily emails which included videos, recipes and support.

2. The Happy Herbivore (website & books)

I recently purchased a couple of books to help me.

They are

Forks Over Knives - The Cookbook: Over 300 Recipes for Plant-Based Eating All Through the Year

Available from Amazon

The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds

Available from Amazon

I have tried a few of the recipes so far and I'm keen to try more.

3. If you would like to watch inspiring information I'd recommend the following

101 Reasons to go Vegan 1 hour 10 minutes

Vegucated - trailer

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead - entire movie 1 hour 37 minutes

The Last Heart Attack -- CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta Documentary

Forks over Knives 

An open letter to Restaurant Owners

Dear Restaurant Owner,

I would love to see more vegan choices on your menu! 

I can assure you that my friends and I will frequent your establishment more often if these options were offered, and would be more than happy to spread the word! 

A vegan lifestyle is filled with variety and countless choices of delicious food. It only excludes the use of animal products. In terms of diet this means no meat, fish, dairy, eggs, honey or other animal derived ingredients. 

The many benefits of becoming vegan, include greater health, saving the lives of many animals and being much more environmentally friendly. It really is the lifestyle choice to make.

ANIMALS WILL BE SAVED
64 BILLION land animals and 1-3 TRILLION water animals are killed for human consumption each year. They live lives of misery. 

YOU'LL BE HEALTHIER
A well balanced plant based diet is the healthiest of all, is suitable for all ages and can significantly lower health risks, such as heart disease, strokes, cancer, diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol.
"... vegan diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases, and are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and athletes."
The American Dietetic Association, July 2009

THE EARTH WILL BE CLEANER
The best thing you can do to help the environment and save water is to adopt a plant based diet. Humans use of 'livestock' is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all transport put together and is a major source of water and land degradation.
The United Nations is calling for a global shift towards a vegan diet to maintain sustainability as the global population heads to 9.1 billion by 2050. 
United Nations Environment Program (2010)

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I think you will agree that increasing vegan choices would be good for your business.

Thanks so much!

This turned up sometime in the early afternoon of the Monday in the last week of November:

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very curious development indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

And then all of a sudden it took off and disappeared into thin air ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... leaving this:

 

I suppose that it was delivered by the one and only Doctor Loo.

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:
1. Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.

2. Take time to plan and prioritize.

The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do.  Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.

3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.

I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. 

4. Deflect partisan conversations.

Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: "Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt."

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people's weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

6. Eat high quality food slowly.

Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

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Optimal settings for Handbrake