Category: Veganism

‘My grandmother.. twisted the hen’s neck and killed her.’

 

DEBBIE NELSON recounts early memories that paved the way to veganism.

 

My grandparents were farmers. Every year my family would travel from Denver, Colorado to Rockford, Illinois to visit them. They still lived on the farm in my early years. I saw as a very young person a lot of cruelty on this farm. I didn’t understand the reality yet. I’m sure it was stored in my psyche.

At about six years old I was asked to feed the chickens. I went into their outdoor fenced area. I started to scatter their food on the ground. My grandmother walked into the chicken yard with me and picked a chicken up.  She twisted the hen’s neck and killed her. She was one of the dinners she made and we ate.

I was told not to go in with the pigs. I didn’t go into their pen with them but went to the small barn where they were housed. They were crowded in a small pen all together. They were vocal and acting agitated and upset. They were so tightly squeezed together they could hardly turn around. The pigs were allowed outside sometimes. Their outside pen was only as big as the inside one. Its ground was concrete. Almost the same as being inside.  Very sad!   Another memory kept in my cells to be later unlocked.

Next to the pig barn was the milking cow barn. All I saw was a row of about 10 to 15 Holstein cows in standing stalls. They were on concrete and couldn’t lay down. That’s all I saw.

I had a picture of my mother with her cow (4H?). My mother looked so proud of her/him. The reason I think she/he was 4H is because she or he was impeccably groomed. My mother was holding her in a show stance. If she was a female she would become a milk cow on the farm and ultimately go to slaughter. If the Holstein was a male calf, after the fair judging he would go to auction for slaughter right away. 4H brainwashes kids not to get attached to their animal projects. It teaches them that their animal/assignments are commodities to be sold. Still there is much crying of children on the letting go day. The kids know the animals they cared for so tenderly are going to die. This group includes all types of farm animals from chickens to pigs.   My young brain wondered about their relationship.

I have pictures of my sister and I bottle-feeding two lambs. Most certainly this was an activity which helped me in my younger years to love baby farm animals. Now I wonder what happened to their mothers? The lambs were so enthusiastic and experienced at drinking from the bottles.

For over 50 years I have had horses in my life. I have a picture of me being led around on my first pony ride. I was led by my uncle on my grandparent’s farm.

I matured through my preteen and teen years into womanhood, a carnivore. I ate turkey on Thanksgiving. I had to watch my drunk father wave the turkey leg around pretending he was Henry V111.  I ate ham on Christmas and lamb at Easter. Bacon and eggs were often on my plate for breakfast. This choice of food continued into my early years of marriage. I even made a “pork roast” for me and my husband.

Then the enlightenment started. In the 1970s HBO was just beginning to show. It highlighted at cow slaughterhouse on one of its programs. Bam!  I became an instant vegetarian.

We moved to Washington State. Our home was then in a small town. It was surrounded by dairy farms. I wondered about the life of the cows on these farms. I was teaching horse riding to several dairy farm wives and daughters. I saw with my own eyes the abuse of the dairy cows and calves. Once all this sunk in Bam!  I became a vegan.

I thanked all the animals who gave their lives to give me for my purses, saddles, bridles, halters, shoes and clothing. I threw 1,000s of dollars away and was relieved and cleansed for doing it.

I did make the mistake of eating honey. Once I found out about bee abuse I stopped that.

I found being vegan is easy and enjoyable. Now days you can find many things to use on the grocery store self which I had to make from scratch.

I have evolved into an animal ethics researcher educator writer and reporter. I advocate for the vegan life style anyway I can. I will never stop this crusade.

Give it a try. You’ll like it.

We can expect a backlash – but the march towards a vegan world is gaining momentum

 

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” – Mahatma Gandhi.

2019 has started with a bang! Superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z have called on their fans to embrace veganism in 2019. Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsey, previously known for his mocking outbursts against vegans, has announced that his restaurant will now offer a vegan menu.

Reportedly, more people than ever are taking up the Veganuary challenge, trying veganism for a whole month, supported by nutritionists, and provided with delicious, mouth-watering recipes, concocted by the Bosh kitchen lads.

Livekindly website claimed that about one in ten Scots will have taken the Vaganuary Pledge in 2019.   It has been reported that over ten thousand people a day have been taking the Vaganuary pledge. Ten Thousand a day! That is truly a remarkable number.

Overall it is expected that three million people will go vegan this year.

Three million is a conservative estimate, if you ask me. You needed to be living in a cave in Narnia to have missed the vegan pieces moving on the chess board of change, and even there, hidden in your Narnian cave, you would still have felt the earth tremors as tectonic plates shift towards a new, cruelty free, world order.

But as the stars are aligning for animal liberation, the pushbacks from those who fear change, and those who have financial interests in maintaining the status quo, will be felt stronger than ever before.

In late 2018, NZ Dairy giant Fonterra, possibly feeling the brunt of environmentalists’ fingers pointing at the detrimental effects of intensive dairying on our environment, have devised ‘open gates’ events, while investing big money in slick commercials, all aimed at polishing their public image.

Observing reports on social media, I got the feeling that news outlets Stuff and Newshub seemed to be engaged in a race to see who could come up with more vegan-hating click-baiting headlines. A ridiculous smorgasbord of stories were published, offering everything from vegan parents’ neglect to meat reduction not affecting climate change.

For activists, 2019 started with protests outside rodeo and horse racing events. Cubes of Truth are popping up in many a street corner, and vigils outside slaughterhouses by groups of the Animal Save Movement continue. As we stand in our protests and vigils, we hear both calls of support and encouragement, as well as castigating remarks and mockery.

Internationally, not a full week into the New Year, and social media was in turmoil. Greggs, a food chain in the UK, has introduced a new item on its menu – a vegan sausage roll. As vegans rejoiced, the move was met with a huge outcry from British Carnists, led by Piers Morgan, a TV presenter who has made a name for himself for being an anti-vegan critic. Thankfully, Greggs seem to have employed a very able and witty social media team, who have mastered fantastic one-line comebacks, winning them huge support even from non-vegans, and earning their vegan sausage roll worldwide publicity. Vegan friends in the UK are reporting continuously that the vegan sausage rolls are flying off shelves at Greggs.  Incredibly, Carnists seem to have been overly sensitive to this change by Greggs, some reports even suggested there was a protest outside Greggs in Manchester (later claims suggested this was in fact an anti-Brexit protest… but was it?)

And they call us snowflakes? Ha.

Also late last year and early this year, in both California and Israel, law suits were filed against activists of DxE (in the US) and Total Animal Liberation (in Israel) for non-violent resistance and for undercover documentation of the utter horrors going on in the hellholes where animals are murdered. Often, police and the courts still side with animal abusers against activists, as there is still a wide gap between the language of the law and what is just.  In 2019 we should start working towards changing laws, by creating strong lobby groups within parliaments everywhere, to influence and facilitate such changes.

One thing is certain, we are no longer ignored. We are laughed at, we are fought against, and fighting will only intensify. But as these phases continue – and they will continue – our numbers are growing and our influence is expanding. The vegan community, and Animal Liberation activists particularly, should not fret, but continue to intensify our actions and outreach. Make no mistake – this is a battle that we are about to win.

Our lives intermingle: on the sidelines peeking out at us from slaughter trucks, and when they are on our plate.    They call out to us to have mercy, to stop killing them, to change, to evolve ….   Let’s make 2019  the year that truly marks the beginning of the end of animal slaughter.

 

A ghostly form in our imagination,

A nagging whisper of existence,

Invisible / visible.

 

Snippets on the transport truck,

Tail hanging out, tuft of hair,

Pushing through the iron.

 

A smell, strong and pungent

Settling thickly in our noses insisting:

‘We are here!’

‘We exist!’ they call to us in bellows, bleats and grunts.

 

They watch from behind the bars.

Their eyes blink slowly,

Carefully, over bright jewels.

 

Rhythmic breaths taking in the smudgy air,

Chests rising and falling

Gentle noses pressing against unforgiving iron.

 

The truck sways and jolts, stops.

Soon their blood will rush through Earth’s veins

Streams of red soon to be spilled on concrete floors

And washed to nowhere.

 

We stop their beating hearts.

Hairs that pricked up at touch

Forming a coat of unique existence

A point of contact and strength

Are now stained red with our bloodlust.

Our hearts burn and twist with the shame of murder.

 

They exist now on the plate and in the cup.

Their pleasing smell intermingles with us.

‘You are here’! we say.  ‘Now we see you’.

 

They are not us, they are us.

Rhythms of their existence pulse gently as the ocean,

Inside our bodies but outside our minds,

Inside our culture, but outside our souls.

Inside of language but outside of meaning.

 

They are spirits; but brief, like smoke.

‘See us’

They whisper from the plates on your table

‘Hear us’.

‘Now’.

UK Government Urged To Make Slaughterhouse Images On Meat Packets Mandatory

An official UK Government and Parliament petition has been launched – if it reaches 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.

Continue reading →