January, 2012

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Helping Animals 365 Days a Year

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Towards the end of 2011, I went through a period of discouragement. I suppose it had something to do with the holidays and the focus on food traditions like turkey and general gluttony. I began to feel that making any changes to the world view of using animals for food and other products was impossible. Every time I thought about it I got depressed and felt helpless. I desperately wanted to do something to end the suffering.

Well I realized, once again, that even though the task is huge, things are changing and I just have to keep plugging away. So I decided to make a new year’s resolution whereby every single day of the year I would make sure to do something to raise awareness of the plight of animals – and I would keep track of them on my Farm Sanctuary calendar! My mission is to do something, anything, as direct as possible, involving someone who is not vegan, every single day. And it doesn’t have to be something different every day. But if a day has almost gone by and I haven’t done anything – I do something! It has been surprisingly easy and has definitely helped me feel more in control of the situation. Here are some of things I have done…

  • wrote a letter to Mountain Equipment Co-op asking them to consider selling only products that are cruelty-free (and I got a response!)
  • when asked by a colleague if I’d read any good books over the holidays, I lied and said ‘Food Revolution’ by John Robbins (which I’d read over a year ago!)
  • wrote a letter to the Province about an article about the escaped cow regarding the fact that the cow had been referred to as ‘it’ several times in the article
  • baked some vegan cookies to thank my neighbour for giving me a jump when my car battery died
  • had 5 different conversations with students in my classes about veganism – all started when students asked about the ‘animal peace’ necklace I always wear.
  • have Farm Sanctuary and PETA reading materials available for students to borrow during ‘silent reading’ time
  • put up posters in Kitsilano promoting the movie Vegucated
  • loaned my neighbour the cookbook ‘Supermarket Vegan’ as she is trying to lose weight
  • answered questions from a man who asked about my Humane Myth bumper sticker
  • put PETA address labels on 3 letters I mailed
  • when writing a reference for a friend’s daughter to get in to the TREK program, I slipped in a comment about how she had such mature questions for me when I decided to become vegan!
  • went to our monthly volunteer night and wrote letters regarding the deer culls in Kimberley, Penticton, and Invermere, as well as the Canadian government’s decision to begin live export of cattle to the United Arab Emirates.
  • had some neighbours over for a vegan dinner
  • invited some non-vegan friends to come to see Vegucated
  • added Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer quotes to the signature lines of my email.

I think you get the idea. Of course I am always careful to not be preachy – I just try to casually work things in. It’s become a fun challenge and helps keep me hopeful! Maybe you want to try it too – New Year’s Resolutions don’t have to start on Jan. 1! Just think of the possibilities if every one of us was consciously doing something every day! I would love to hear some ideas any of you have! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Take 5 minutes, save 5 animals

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

 

The Humane League has discovered yet another way to engage in onlineadvocacy.  The process is simple: You go to Take5Save5.com, which chooses a random Craigslist page for you, and post an ad stating that you have a free vegetarian starter kit to send it out to anybody who responds with their mailing address.  Any addresses you receive are plugged into the form at Vegstarterpack.com.  They do the rest.

Ads with cute pictures get more results!

Posting an ad on Craigslist is free and relatively painless–you have to register, but just once.  In fact, 5 minutes is a bit of an exaggeration: with the exception of the registration process, it takes about half a minute to post an ad.   Attach a cute farm animal photo (ads with pictures tend to get more attention than those that don’t) and hit “submit”.  The whole process is remarkably easy, and survey results indicate that it works.

Okay, so you may be curious as to what my experience with Take5save5 has been like.  I’ve already told you that it’s exactly as easy as they claim, but is it actually successful?  Over the past couple of weeks or so, I’ve posted a total of 10 ads.  I did them one at time–anything else and you run the risk of spamming Craigslist, which will result in your ads being flagged and removed.   Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, however, you might get flagged: I found that it happened pretty frequently, despite the fact that Take5Save5 says it won’t.  It’s a minor irritation, though, considering the fact that it only takes thirty seconds to post a new ad anyway.

Anyway, I posted 10 ads and got 21 responses.   While some of those ads ended up being flagged, it usually didn’t happen until at least a couple of people had already contacted me!  For maybe a minute of work a few times a week, I’d say that’s more than worth it.  I’m definitely going to keep it up.

Has anybody else used Take5save5?  What was your experience?

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Eating Vegan at UBC, part 2: Sushi

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

So, this is a little embarrassing. Long, long ago, I started a series of posts on vegan food at UBC, but I never got past the first post. (I guess it was a series of post.) Well, it’s a new year, and time to get that series going again. This time, there will be more than one post. At least two! I swear!

OK, we’re going to start things off easy, with sushi. Lots of the work has already been done: in late 2009, the Ubyssey ran a column on sushi at UBC, and not much has changed since then. I’ll just add a couple of things here to veganize their work, so to speak.

1. Don’t bother with Osaka Sushi if you’re vegan: there’s mayo in everything. But the Honour Roll, Suga Sushi, and One More (my personal favourite) all have plenty of vegan rolls. I confess I’ve never been to Mio Japan, so I can’t say how much of their menu is vegan–they’re right down the stairs from One More, and if I’ve walked all the way to the Village, it’s probably specifically to go to One More or Curry Point (see last post). Does anyone else have anything to say about Mio Japan?

2. I’m much less keen on Suga Sushi than the Ubyssey’s reviewer is. I’ve eaten there a handful of times, and their rice often seems to be… funky. Two or three times, I’ve gotten rice with a strong, not entirely pleasant taste & odour. But that might just be my wimpy tastebuds–your mileage may vary. And on the other hand, they’re open through the winter break, unlike most of the other places on campus–so if you’re on campus between terms & craving sushi, this is the place to go (& that’s why I’ve gone back to their funky rice).

Next time: vegan options in the SUB, other than the Delly (which deserves its own post).

To read other posts in Eating Vegan at UBC series, click on the tag “vegan-UBC” below.

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