When I signed up for a vegan cooking class at my local community centre, I ended up getting more than I bargained for – not just delicious food, but also an encounter with one of my favourite bloggers and a trip down memory lane.
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It seems like everyone’s talking about chickens lately! If you were in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall a couple of weeks back, you might have seen the inaugural Melbourne Chicken Save rally. A few days later, Animals Australia launched their new campaign to raise awareness about factory farming of chickens, and finally, the chicks (do you like that?) at Our Hen House aired the first episode of their community/online TV show.
I come from a family of green thumbs, but sadly, I didn’t inherit the gene. I did inherit the fat bum, the short sightedness and the horror of public speaking, but not the green thumb, I’m afraid.
Well what an exciting day it’s been! Melanie Joy is touring Australia, speaking about carnism, so H and I took the day off to go and see her.
She was speaking at the National Herbarium at around lunchtime, and I knew there was slim chance of any vegan food at the Botanic Gardens cafe, so I made the Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies from Veganomicon to keep us going. (Not a healthy lunch…but they do contain flaxseeds, walnuts…and dark chocolate!) I highly recommend them—can’t go wrong with that much chocolate in one cookie. Anyway, we made up for the bad stuff with a healthy fix later on.
Continue reading I think it was Arnold Ziffel who first made me love pigs. If you’re too young to remember him (or if your parents only let you watch the ABC) Arnold was a pig on the TV show Green Acres. He was handsome and he was smart—hell, he could do crosswords!
My next favourite pig was probably Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web (read to us by Mr Forrester in grade 3) who only confirmed the idea that we shouldn’t be eating animals, because they want to live too.
I was really quite obsessed with pigs, even before Babe came along and stole our hearts. I collected pigs (not real ones, pictures and ornaments and piggy banks and that kind of thing). When I first saw pictures of Edgar Allen Pig, from Edgar’s Mission, many years ago I could absolutely understand how Pam Ahern could fall in love with him, but I still hadn’t REALLY met a pig (apart from a quick pat at the Royal Melbourne Show each year).
Remember that viral video that did the rounds a few weeks back? The one with the adorable little boy who refused to eat his octopus for dinner? It was a scene that was probably familiar to a lot of us—the moment when the truth hit us, that our dinner was made of dead animals’ bodies chopped into bite sized portions. Here’s my experience as a 4 year old.
What made this little boy’s situation special was that the camera captured his moment of realisation—at about the 60 second mark, when he says, “Nobody eats chicken…those are animals!” Then you can see him thinking…and realising (oh, I remember that feeling!)…and then he agrees to eat just his potatoes and rice. (I was going to embed the video, but since last night it has disappeared from YouTube…what a pity. Well, I’m sure you’ve already seen it anyway.) Continue reading
Most vegan people I know, including myself, have been vegetarian before they became vegan. (OK, Marieke Hardy went cold-tofurkey from meat eater to vegan, which is pretty damned incredible) , but most of us begin by giving up eating flesh and continuing to consume milk and cheese and eggs, smug in the ‘knowledge’ that no animal has had to die for our meals. Ha!
I suppose by now everyone has seen the article from the ABC’s Science Show, about how smug veg*ns “who don’t eat meat because they consider it cruel could cause more harm to animals than actual meat production does”.
We all know it’s a load of rubbish, but I suppose the ABC knew a patronising attack on veg*ns would be sure to get everyone commenting and arguing. I’m surprised that The Science Show would stoop to that kind of thing, though.
Did the Easter Bunny come to your house last night?
He dropped by our place and left us enough chocolate to make sure we have been thoroughly ill for the day.
He’s very kind to people—it’s a pity humans aren’t always so kind to rabbits.
We were lucky enough to visit Edgar’s Mission yesterday to see all the animals…oh, and pick up their poo!
Edgar’s Mission is a sanctuary farm, about an hour’s drive from Melbourne, where rescued animals can live out their lives free from fear and cruelty.
We decided that if factory farms are hell, then Edgar’s Mission must be heaven!
The Lentil Institution 