Innocent Animals

5 Ways to Show Your Pet Some Love on National Love Your Pet Day

Photo: Girl kissing a pet bird

February 20th is National Love Your Pet Day, a day dedicated to celebrating the special bond between pets and their human companions.

5 Reasons Why People Go Vegan

Picture: Little girl loving a pig

If you asked for vegan food at a restaurant 20, 10, or even five years ago, you’d be met with an eyeroll or confusion. Fast forward to now, and times have definitely changed. Hawaii has been found to be the most vegan-friendly state, with the highest number of fully vegan restaurants per capita of anywhere in the country. Preventing the exploitation of animals used to be the primary reason for going vegan; however, today the health and environmental impacts are also leading people towards eating a plant-based diet.

Animal Compassion — Be Kind to Every Kind

Photo: Cows on a farm

Every second roughly 1,800 animals, both land and sea, lose their lives in order to feed people. That adds up to over 55 billion animals killed to support the U.S. food supply every year.

Gratitude for Animals is a Necessary Part of Permaculture

A new book criticizing vegetarianism and veganism is making a splash in the UK.

Is it ethical to support the lesser of two evils?

In the second to last chapter of Eating Animals, Foer gets to the crux of his argument.

Jonathan Safran Foer wants you to eat a dog

In the second chapter of Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer tells the reader to eat dogs. His reasons are myriad: many cultures around the world have eaten them, and not a few still do. Millions of dogs are euthanized yearly in the United States, and their disposal is an economic and ecological problem. Dog meat is said to be tasty, and the surplus of dogs creates a cheap and easy food supply.

Like lambs to the slaughter

Ryan at The Veg Blog posted a link to a set of award winning photographs from an Italian slaughterhouse a few days ago. Many of the images are gruesome and painful to look at, but for me, as for him, the second photograph showing three lambs looking through a doorway at three skinned sheep made the strongest impression.

Your Health and the Environment

Photo: Cows Standing in a Pasture

What we eat can cause or worsen diet-related illnesses and thus has a significant impact on our quality of life.

Virtually all the major scientific and medical institutions in the world agree that the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, obesity, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, cancer, and diabetes, among other diseases is linked to a meat-based diet consisting of highly processed foods laden with fats and artificial ingredients. These institutions further agree that the risk is greatly reduced by adopting a healthy low-fat, high-fiber diet.

Love Life! Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them!

Photo: Toy Animals with the words "Don't Eat Animals" spelled out on blocks

What makes it wrong, and the idea of it even repulsive, to eat a pet, but okay to slaughter other animals and put them on the dinner table or in our children’s lunch box? Our pets earn a special place in our hearts and often are treated as members of the family. Great efforts and expense are taken to see that they are kept safe, well-nourished, comfortable and happy.

Animal Assisted Happiness

Photo: Girl with a goat

I stumbled on a lovely volunteer organization called Animal Assisted Happiness, courtesy of a friend at the Care2 network.