Health, Consciousness, & Reality

(photo credit)

Last night, Big Red and I watched the highly touted documentary, Vegucated. The filmmaker, Marisa Miller Wolfson, a vegan herself, follows three NYC omnivores as they attempt the vegan lifestyle for six weeks. They visit farms, animal sanctuaries, investigate what "free range" means, and shockingly, what it doesn't. They speak with the likes of Dr. Joel Fuhrman and T. Collin Campbell, as well as visit the vegan friendly retail store, Moo Shoes, to shop.

The film is compelling, as all in this genre are (Forks Over Knives, Food, Inc., etc.). After watching clips of the horrors of slaughter house practices and the inhumane treatment of livestock, I always turn my DVD player off with a knot in my stomach and the renewed resolve to live a more conscious and healthy life - one that does not involve eating animal products. At the start of 2012, I actually went vegan for several months as a way to kick off a healthier way of eating and to lose some weight. The resulting effects of omitting animal products were wonderful. I felt lighter, less fatigued, more lucid and clean from the inside out. I was educated on the health benefits of such a way of eating, and came to realize I could get all the nutrition I needed from a plant-based, whole food way of life. There is some hard evidence out there that suggests when eating a properly balanced whole food/plant-based diet, heart disease and cancer rates significantly drop. Who wouldn't want those odds?

I was very successful and in fact lost 30 lbs. But I didn't keep up the vegan lifestyle. For one, Big Red likes meat. He was willing to go along with my food scheming ways, so long as there was an occasional meat-based dish. He likes cows milk and eggs. He likes cheese, and so do I. Very much. Cooking two meals isn't feasible, not on a regular basis, and since I'm the resident chef - by choice - these are daily considerations. These are not excuses, this is my/our reality. I don't think it's right to impose my way of thinking on Big Red, that isn't fair to him. Just because I've got a bee in my bonnet about the welfare of cows and chickens and pigs and fish, doesn't mean he should as well. He's a grown man and can make his own choices, but because I do the grocery shopping and the cooking, does that mean I make his food choices for him? I don't think it works like that, or at least, it wouldn't work well.

In our debriefing of the film last night, Big Red said that while the film was provocative, going vegan wasn't going to solve the atrocities being done to animals - we are just one or two people, how could that make an impact? Further, if there were a demand for more plant-based foods, something would go awry in the farming of those products and then there would be some crazy overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, and we'd have issues there as well. He's a little skeptical if you haven't picked up on that already.

But I still feel guilty. I feel bad that there's cheese and eggs in my fridge right now. I feel bad that some poor chicken was shoved into a teeny tiny metal crate and kept contained just for its eggs. If my decision to make vegan-like choices doesn't save all animals, at the very least it would ease my guilt. Not to mention the perks of the health benefits.

Is there some kind of balance possible? What if I cut down, once again, on the purchasing of animal products, and when I do buy them, I buy them from retailers like Wild Purveyors? It's a family owned business (like) that specializes is seasonal, locally sourced raw and specialty products. Their animals are locally raised in a pasture and humanely slaughtered (like). And all products are antibiotic, GMO, and rBST free (like).

If I can't choose not to be 100% vegan, then is this an acceptable alternative? At the very least, it's on the spectrum to moving in the right direction - or at the very least, a direction in which I'm comfortable living.

Madonna of the Mills

Big Red and I just finished viewing the documentary, "Madonna of the Mills," on HBO. The documentary follows Laura, a woman from Staten Island, who has rescued over 2000 dogs from Amish and Mennonite puppy mills in Pennsylvania.

Come. On. Pennsylvania.

According to the documentary, Pennsylvania is the 7th state with the highest concentration of puppy mills. This all due mainly to the aforementioned farmers. Initially the Amish and Mennonite started "raising" animals for the commercial pet trade as supplemental income. It was something that would help keep their children home and a job those kids could help with. Because puppy mills are so lucrative, many of these farmers dropped their produce farming and focused entirely on their puppies. At one point in the documentary there is a clip of a farmer showing off his "stock." He waves his hand proudly (picture a Barker Beauty from the Price Is Right) showing off his 800 dogs.

800 dogs caged in wire. Cages that by USDA standards don't have to be much bigger than the size of a washing machine. The dogs are rarely ever let out of their confinements to enjoy a leisurely walk or run through some grass. They are stepping in each other's feces and their paws are infected because of the wire trappings.

Don't even get me started on the clips of the rescued dogs. Their eyes, oh man, those sweet sad eyes just pleading for help and love. There was one sweet dog, an older female named Liberty, who when first rescued would find a corner, lay down and put her face directly into the corner. Her new attentive owners would have to bring over her food bowl and water bowl and put it under her nose.

As if that's not horrible enough, here are some alarming facts:

10 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT PUPPY MILLS

1. 99% of puppies sold in pet stores come from puppy mills.
2. Nearly 100% of all puppies in pet stores have parasites when they are purchased.
3. 48% of puppies being sold in pet stores were ill or incubating an illness at the time of purchase, according to a recent California study.
4. 500,000 puppies are born in puppy mills and sold in pet stores every
   year in the United States.
5. There are 35,000 pet stores in America
6. Puppy millers can make more than $300,000 growing puppies every year.
7. Puppy mills have been around since the early 1960s.
8. Almost every Puppy sold in a pet store has a mother who will spend her entire life in a tiny cage, never being petted, never being walked, never being treated like a dog.
9. Female dogs are usually bred 2x a year. At that rate, they usually burn out by age 5, at which time they are put to death.
10. About 1 million breeder dogs are confined in puppy mills throughout the country.

It's infuriating and heartbreaking. While we watched the film, both Big Red and I brought Olive up onto the couch between us. At one point he went and got her a treat. I couldn't blame him. I think of how much love I have for Olive, what a sweet soul she is, and something burns in my chest at the thought of anyone treating her poorly. To think so many thousands of animals will never have the chance of having the life Olive lives is disheartening.

I'm proud of the fact that we adopted Olive from an animal shelter and that we did not buy her. For every dog that gets purchased, another in a shelter goes without a home.

All facts were taken from the website: madonnaofthemills.com

dinner time

Our resident mama deer and her two little ones stopped by our neighbor's yard, as they often do, for dinner last night. I happen to have my camera handy so I was able to snap a few images of the trio. They weren't the least bit interested in a weird lady peeking around a tree like a creeping marauder. They ate to their fill and then vanished back into the trees.

And then just because I think this is an adorable picture of Olive, I included it as well.

The toy in her mouth used to be a plush lion. Olive has an affinity for ripping up soft toys almost immediately upon being given one. But that's fine by us as she's never once touched our furniture or linens. Mom brought the lion for her. It's now a disemboweled lion. Its stuffing entrails are scattered around the house. Poor little lion, you lasted about a day. You were no match for our "intense chewer."

Frankly, I'm happy you were sacrificed and not our furniture.
That's the way we like it around here.

Backyard Nature

When I let Olive out yesterday afternoon to do her business, this is what I found sitting in the yard:

Two baby deer waiting for their mamma to come back and get them. Maybe she had to stop at the grocery store for milk. They were so well-behaved and entirely unafraid of me with my camera, or the neighbors on their deck next door.

While we regularly see wild turkey (so incredibly loud sometimes), groundhogs, skunks, raccoon, chipmunks, moles, squirrels and deer, we have never seen such young deer before. This isn't something we would have ever seen back in Torrance, CA. We have a veritable zoo right in our backyard. It's quite nice. I'm not a fan of the skunks or the raccoon, but the other animals are great. And to be honest, it's not like we're in "the cut." We're just seven miles from the true city; we're barely touching upon the start of the suburbs. I have to proudly report that Olive did not take off like a wild banshee when she saw them. I called her back into the house and she followed my directions. My instinct says that the fawn would not have been as excited to play with her as she would have been to play with them. And I didn't know where mom was. Lord knows what a crazed mamma deer would have been like coming out of the trees.

There you have it. This week's edition of backyard nature. I have to include the following picture of Olive, lazying the day away as I write in my office. To her credit we did go on a walk this morning, a little later than usual and it was sticky-gross hot out:

Yeah, that's right girl. Kick up those paws and relax. It's summertime.