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Man, self-professed "animal lovers" get real angry when you politely suggest that they stop eating the body parts of the animals they claim to love.

#EatPlantsNotPain <3

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Vegan Propoganda?

“Vegans are often accused of forcing propaganda onto others to further the cause of Animal Liberation so I thought I’d make a list of all the carnist propaganda forced onto us all every single day:

1) We’re taught ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’ but never told what really happens to the animals on that farm.

2) We’re taught ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and the sheep says, ‘Yes Sir. Yes Sir. Three bags full!’ as if wool is a victimless product.

3) We’re shown cartoons and movies where kids are crying looking at broccoli and other vegetables and demanding chicken nuggets so we’re conditioned to associate fruits and vegetables with something unpleasant and animal products with something pleasant.

4) We’re asked to complete match the following exercises in school where we are required to ‘Match the animal with the products they give us’ and rewarded when we match cows with milk, chickens with eggs and sheep with wool. Animals don’t willingly GIVE us anything. We FORCEFULLY TAKE everything from them.

5) We’re taught that the correct pronoun to be used for an animal is ‘it’ – the same used for objects - when we should be taught that animals are individuals, not commodities.

6) We’re taught the ‘Balanced Diet Pyramid’ and told that protein comes from meat and calcium from milk only. We’re asked not to exclude any of the food groups otherwise it will make us sick. We’re never told about the plant based sources of protein and calcium and never taught to ask why humans are the only ones that drink milk beyond infancy and that too the milk of another species. We’re never told that the human body has no more need for a cows milk than it does for a dogs, cats or horses milk.

7) There are ads EVERYWHERE with cartoon images of animals smiling and selling their own cut up body parts to persuade people to buy animal products.

8) Animal products are mentioned in literally every cartoon, movie, serial, so much so that the disclaimer, ‘No animals were harmed in the making of this film’ doesn’t even apply to animals killed for food.

9) We’re taught to use euphemisms like beef, pork, mutton, ham, bacon, leather, gelatine so that we’re not reminded of the fact that these are the cut up corpses of someone who once had a family, a friend, a face and a heartbeat.

10) We live in a society that reminds us that we’re on the side of the majority so vegans must be the crazy ones.

11) We’re told that words like ‘farm fresh’, ‘organic’ and ‘humane’ should somehow make us feel guilt free because murder is alright as long as it is done quickly – only if the victim is an animal of course. If a human was ‘killed humanely’, the discussion would be VERY different.

12) We’re given toy animals with our Happy Meals while failing to make the connection that these toys come with a meal of a tortured, slaughtered being.

13) We’re taught that a horse lives in a stable, a lion lives in a den and a dog in a kennel. Schools take us to zoos to learn about ‘how animals live’ even though there is nothing natural about these settings.

14) We’re taught that the same principles of justice, equality and peace don’t apply to animals because ‘they’re just animals’ and ‘they’re different’ so it’s okay for us to treat those who are different as inferior beings. At the same time, we’re told to respect all humans and uphold the principles of justice, equality and peace because differences among individuals are no reason to treat certain individuals as inferior.

Now that you’re aware of just some of the ways by which we’re all conditioned to disregard animal rights, what are you going to do?

Continue being the oppressor and fund those who profit from convincing people that animal products are normal, natural and necessary. (OR)

Listen to those who are trying to make people vegan just because they want to stop the massacre of gentle, innocent beings.

Get on the right side of justice. Go vegan.

~ Ritika Rachel Thomas”

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Images are powerful. Images are what made me completely transform my life nearly a decade ago, because I didn't want to contribute to suffering anymore.

Please take a look at my latest blog post, 16 Instagram Accounts That Will Inspire You To Go Vegan, and do with that information what you will. Feel free to share <3

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Credit.

I don't think vegans get enough credit for simply keeping it together and not sobbing all day every day despite living in a society that not only violently slaughters millions of innocent animals daily, but simultaneously vilifies us for asking others to choose compassion.

I don't think vegans get enough credit for politely smiling while you tell your bacon jokes, in hopes that our "coolness" will make you more receptive to the truth we're trying to expose.

I don't think vegans get enough credit for starting businesses, inventing new food groups, opening farmed animal sanctuaries, figuring out how to make leather out of pineapples, practicing dozens of recipes to impress family members, and learning literally everything about protein just out of desperate hope that our contributions will convince even one person to eat plants instead of pain.

I don't think vegans get enough credit for peacefully walking through grocery stores that are lined with the body parts of those we couldn't save in time. For conversing respectfully with shoppers whose carts are full of dead animals, because we know, we know, we know, we used to buy that stuff too.

I don't think vegans get enough credit. But honestly, you can keep the credit- that's not what we're here for. We just want the needless killing to stop.

Join me.

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My four dogs have entirely different personalities, just like most humans. Just like cows, pigs, and chickens. If you're still eating animals, do you ever stop to wonder about their personalities? Were they social or shy? Brave or timid? Cuddly or energetic? I guarantee they were at least one of those things. Until they were killed for humans to snack on their body parts.

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Can you look into her eyes and tell her that her discomfort, her pain, her loss, and her suffering are worth a meal that you'll forget eating 10 minutes later? I can't. If you're one of thousands of humans embracing a cruelty-free diet this year, I wrote this blog post, 12 Things I Wish I’d Known When I Went Vegan, to help YOU be the change you wish to see in this world.

Photo by the heroic Sympathy at Slaughter

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For those of you considering a change to a cruelty-free life in 2018, this is for you! Read it here! <3

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Yo, animal lovers! I spent allllll day every day this week working on this Holiday Gift Guide. I picked out so many goodies, some from big companies, some from tiny Etsy shops. Every product or business on this list raises money for shelter pets, wildlife conservation, or farmed animals. 

I’m going to keep adding to the list throughout the season, so feel free to tell me what I missed in the comments section!

xoxo

Jessica

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If you're still eating animals, do you ever stop to consider how their body parts ended up on your plate?

Read the story: http://bit.ly/2AbyIhW

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I promise you there is at least one thing on this list you can do RIGHT NOW! 

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Did your steak come from the body of a blind, terrified cow? Would you even know?

Animals in transport are always so scared. They don't know what's happening, or where they are going, but they are often cramped, in dirty conditions, travelling in extremes of heat or cold, and when you look into the transports, they look back w/ eyes of fear and questioning. As always, they have all the questions, and we have all the answers. It's us in power and they, the most vulnerable. We have no verbal language with which to communicate our intentions for them. We humans can't tell them what we're going to do to them. But a few of us come to bear witness in their last moments. We see them. We see them as individuals, we see what they are going through. We see their questioning eyes and we wish we could talk to them, we wish we could help. We offer a soft touch, a soft word, or water. We communicate as best we can; a small, sad offering of care and solidarity. They accept our water. Sometimes they lick our hands. I don't pressume to know what a lick from them means, but it *is* a connection, and they are making it, despite all we put them through. It hurts the heart. It shatters my heart, actually. But when our hearts shatter open, there's suddenly room in there for more caring and more compassion. 

This cow. With the white face and milky eyes. This cow was much more scared than the rest, and I assume it's because of his/her limited vision, or perhaps s/he was fully blind. Without vision to help understand their situation, this cow would have been filled with even more questions and fear than the others. Maybe this is why s/he pushed frantically to squeeze themselves in between the other cows. For security and comfort. S/he briefly looked to the light, to the walls of the transport truck, when I took this photo, and then tried again to squeeze between the other cows. I'll not forget this scene, or this individual. This sweet, half-blind cow, needed, and deserved, our help and kindness, not our slaughterhouses. Here s/he is, in this photograph. Please look. Let your heart shatter open, too.

Photo: JMcArthur / We Animals

From the 24-hour Toronto Cow Save and Toronto Chicken Save vigil, August 2015.

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Cecil the Lion

Logically, I understand why the average person is more upset about Cecil the Lion's death than they are about the billions of animals killed annually for food. He was a beloved lion (though most of us didn't know that before this week), he left behind a family that will undoubtedly be killed soon (much like every mother or father killed on a factory farm), most of us grew up revering the majesty of lions (love for farm animals is conditioned out of most kids around the time they figure out their parents are feeding them body parts), the arrow wound made him suffer for two days before he was fatally shot (don't get me started on the pre-death lives of factory farmed animals) and it was illegal. I'm sure people are also upset that it was a hunt for sport, rather than for food or clothing (not that animals suffer any more or any less depending on humanity's intended use for their bodies).

What I don't quite understand is the degree of more-upset-ness. If you were twice as upset, sure. Ten times as upset? Maybe, I mean it's heartbreaking, of course we're sad. But for the entire internet to explode with outrage, for the man to be receiving death threats and go into hiding for killing an animal society deems more worthy than others, and for this incident to be the topic of discussion on so many news outlets and late night shows while equally horrific violence is happening behind slaughterhouse walls all across our country so the same people leaving essays of rage on the dentist's Yelp page can grab a quick hamburger on their drive home seems a little disproportionate. Am I defending Walter Palmer? Of course not- what he did was inexcusable. I just think we need to take a look at the amount of energy and passion put into hating this one man and consider spreading it around a bit. We can't bring Cecil back to life, but we CAN make choices every single day to lessen our own roles in violence towards animals by leaving them off our plates and out of our closets.

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My aunt just found a printout of a poem I wrote for her in 1998. I think this tells you pretty much everything you need to know about me. 

“Until next time, my piggy friend!”

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Current mood. 

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Today I came across this photo taken at a Toronto Pig Save vigil, during which compassionate people offer love & kindness to animals being transported to slaughter. It's not unusual for farmed pigs to be covered in these bruises and bloody scrapes. Did they come from abusive humans or stressed, cramped fellow pigs? Hard to know. What I do know is this baby was killed hours later, his/her body parts eventually ending up as strips or chunks on someone's plate. The people who consumed the flesh likely didn't think much of it. They certainly knew nothing of this animal's identity or personality. Yet this individual's life was created and ended solely to be part of those meals that were probably forgotten soon after.

I'm so so sorry, little pig. We need to be smarter, do better, and fight harder.

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"When instinct and every fiber of your soul tells you to save a life, but you can’t, it changes you. To connect with someone as they go to their death. To not answer the pleading in their eyes and in their wails, breaks you...This is the story no one wants to know. How do we get us all to look? To really see and to not turn away?"

Narration, photography, and videography by my hero Jo-Anne McArthur