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Archive for 2010

2008 Summer TCA Tour - Day 3

Sea Shepherd has announced its plans to assist with the oil spill cleanup and wildlife rescue in the Gulf Coast.

According to the organziation’s website, Sea Shepherd is working to secure a boat in Europe to bring to the Gulf area. The HAZMAT trained crew will assist in rescue operations on both land and sea, working with BP officials, local fisherman and other government officials.

Captain Paul Watson is calling on other organizations with both manpower and supplies to join their efforts.

“Sea Shepherd and other organizations have ships,” said Watson. “These groups, as well as governments and corporations, have resources. We need to mobilize these resources now. This is going to be a long, dirty, and fatiguing process, but we must act, and we must act now.”

Sea Shepherd is looking for volunteers to assist, as well as donations of detergents, towels, fuel and other supplies.

Sea Shepherd has a history in assisting with oil cleanup and marine rescue, including the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

For information on how you can assist, email gulfrescue [at] seashepherd [dot] org.

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David Kirby Eats Less Meat After Writing “Animal Factory”

Written by Vegetarian Star on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 in Authors, Food & Drink.

Animal Factory by David Kirby

Animal Factory by David Kirby

It’s amazing the impact a little education can have on your decisions.

After spending three years researching animal agriculture for his book, Animal Factory, David Kirby eats a lot less meat, as he explained to the Washington Post.

“Before I started working on the book, I would go to the supermarket and buy meat. I was completely ignorant about where my food came from. I knew that it wasn’t Farmer Joe down the road. But I never put together the idea that if it weren’t from there, it wouldn’t be from a real farm somewhere. I pictured mechanization. But I didn’t picture what was really going on.”

Read the entire interview with Kirby at the Washington Post.

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Jenna Ushkowitz Green Tip VIDEO–Eat Less Meat

Written by Vegetarian Star on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 in Actresses, Environment-Eco-Green, Food & Drink, Videos.

Some of the cast members of Glee told Mother Nature Network how they stay green.

Glee has its share of singing vegetarians, so it’s no surprise that Jenna Ushkowitz‘s tip was to “eat less meat.”

A few facts from the Natural Resources Defense Council:

  • From 1995 to 1998, 1,000 spills or pollution incidents occurred at livestock feedlots in 10 states and 200 manure-related fish kills resulted in the death of 13 million fish.
  • Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algal blooms and fish kills.
  • Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algal blooms and fish kills.

Yeah, factory farms and meat give you nothing good to sing about, that’s for sure.

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Home Tree Earth Day VIP Reception At The JW Marriott At L.A. Live

Basketball legend John Salley recently went to Congress to throw his support for the Healthy School Meals Act, H.R. 4870.

The bill, that would offer more plant based proteins and non dairy beverages in schools, currently has 51 co-sponsors in Congress, according to Afro.

Salley is eager to see these items on the menus, even if meat is still served besides them.

“It’s important for folks to know that I’m not against meat, I’m for fruits and vegetables, just like I’m not against war, I’m for peace,” Salley said.

Currently, in some schools, it may be better to send a child to McDonald’s for lunch.

A USA Today investigation found that many fast food giants like Jack in the Box require more rigorous testing for pathogens in meat used in their restaurants, testing it up to 5-10 times more than the USDA does for school lunches.

Or try packing some cat chow in the lunchbox.

Chicken normally only acceptable for pet food was also routinely accepted by USDA standards.

Just another reason to forgo the “mystery” meat, where unknown substances don’t just refer to animal parts.

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Paul McCartney performs in concert in Miami

Jamie Oliver is still disappointed that french fries count as a vegetable in school lunches, but if the great Meat Free Monday champion Paul McCartney sits down for a snack of these with his daughter at NYC’s Serendipity 3, you gotta give them some credit.

As long as they’re not fried in trans fat oil and don’t contain any meat flavorings.

And while a plain old tator doesn’t make the grade “A,” a sweet potato contains more than enough of your recommended daily allowance of the vitamin.

In walks the sweet potato fry.

Alexia has a variety you can start with.

A balance of sweet and salty in the frozen foods section with 70% of recommended Vitamin A and only 5 grams of non-saturated, non-trans fat.

If french fries are the vegetables that will save the children, these must be the biggest lifeboats that hold the most thrown overboard.

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Jonathan Safran Foer. Credit: David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

Credit David Shankbone on Wikimedia Commons

So you love the taste of a well done steak or a ham and cheese sandwich.

You don’t give a flying saucer about animals and their pain and suffering.

Why should you make an effort to eat less meat, especially factory farmed meat?

Well, you don’t really want everyone in the office (not even the co-workers you don’t like) to come down with Swine Flu next year, do you?

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of his book on factory farming, Eating Animals, has interviewed with Vegetarian Times in the May/June 2010 issue where he gives this argument for those who aren’t interested one bit in “animal” welfare and rights.

“We known where the flu came from: it came from factory farms in North Carolina. The link between flu pandemics and animal agriculture is not an opinion. It’s a well documented fact by scientific organizations that have no interest whatsoever in promoting vegetarianism.”

Swine flu, of which cases were seen in humans over the past few years, has traditionally been confined to outbreaks among pigs.

Like other viruses, it sometimes develops an affinity for a different host.

According to Wired, in 1998, scientists found a strain of swine flu in U.S. factory farms that spread quickly, and experts warned then it could one day evolve the ability to infect humans, resulting in a pandemic.

Bob Martin, former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Animal Farm Production and a critic of factory farms, called these environments, “super-incubators for viruses.”

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Cows And The Earth: A Story Of Kinder Dairy Farming - Book Launch Photocall

Chrissie Hynde and Welsh singer JP Jones have collaborated to form JP Chrissie & The Fairground Boys and the group is set to give a benefit concert for Woodstock Farm Sanctuary.

According to Ecorazzi,the show will take place Saturday, May 29, 2010 on the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary headquarters in Woodstock, NY and tickets are priced at $20 in advance, $25 day of show, with all proceeds going towards the sanctuary.

Hynde has been consistently vocal about animal issues from zoos to McDonald’s and opened  up a vegan Italian restaurant in her hometown of Akron, Ohio a few years ago that is quite successful.

The Vegiterranean uses Gardein faux meat products in many of its dishes, including the Linguini Carbonara and Spaghettini with vegan meatballs.

Update: The event will be held at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in Woodstock, NY. The previous version of this post placed the event at Farm Sanctuary, which has locations in Watkins Glen, NY and Orland, CA. Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and Farm Sanctuary are two separate organizations and not affiliated with one another.

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Soundwave Festival Sydney

“I’m not entirely sure who understands and who doesn’t understand what it is that we’re doing, but something I wanted to do with those pro-vegan shirts, was to create a very poppy, very palatable image that draws people in and that will appeal to people and then have it juxtaposed with a very serious message – to really drive that message home. Because if you’re drawn in with something pretty and then you’re met with something serious you’re already there. I think it would be difficult to not understand the message of those shirts but a lot of people are really obtuse, so there’s no saying.”

–AFI’s Davey Havok, on his line of t-shirts at Zu Boutique ,which convey information about veganism and eating animals through animated pictures, such as a hamburger with arms and legs with the caption “It’s alive,” above it.

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