Chicken News

Scientific American: The Startling Intelligence of the Common Chicken
"Chickens are smart, and they understand their world, which raises troubling questions about how they are treated on factory farms"

Drug-Resistant Bacteria on Chicken: It’s Everywhere and the Government Can’t Help

Antibiotics in Animals Tied to Risk of Human Infection

Thousands of Birds Burned Alive
On the last story, Charlie notes that as the horror of a "laying" hen is so great that, "being burned alive is probably a blessing compared to the daily torment that egg-laying hens endure."

Said It All in 1899!

We must realize on the one hand, that we can do little if we do not set ourselves a high ideal, and, on the other, that we will fail in accomplishing even this little if we do not work through practical methods and with a readiness to face life as it is, and not as we think it ought to be.
-Theodore Roosevelt, Jan 2, 1899

Recipes, and Rachel Reporting from Texas

Snacks for the Big Game | Comfort Foods for the Big Game
(click on the pictures for the recipe)

Rachel Shippee met Rick at Houston Community College:
he now wants to cut way back on eating meat.

Ethan at Texas AandM now wants to get involved!

Longtime VO member Lynn Chorn (right) with new friends
at Houston Community College.

More Ginny Links

What Does a Vegan Dietitian Eat?

The Laziest Vegans Top Ten Asks Ginny Messina

Vegan Diets: Sorting Through the Nutritional Myths

Calcium and Protein and Bone Health in Vegans

Pictures Part 1

Rachel Atcheson and Kassy Ortega at Georgetown U
(in front of what looks like a modified Van Gogh's Starry Night)

Debbie Berlin, Christina Myers, and Kassy at George Mason U.

Tammy Lee sends this picture from Napa Valley College.

James DeAlto (below) and Brandon Becker (above)
at University of North Carolina.

Shirts!

While supplies last, VO's shirts are on sale for only $10! Quantities are limited, and several sizes are already sold out.

To get a sense of style and size, you can see the shirts modeled here, and order them via the Vegan Outreach catalog.

Links and Aircraft Carrier

The prologue to the latest This American Life is both moving and very informative on human nature.

Along with his standard jokes, Jon Stewart provides some insight into the pork industry and the media's fatuous coverage.


And VO's member on the USS Harry Truman wrote regarding the booklets we sent him:

"Even those who I simply talk with about VO are deeply touched, and promise to participate in a Meatless Monday that we will be promoting in February! We have already received so much support from the command; e.g. a raw salad/fruit bar option at every meal has been approved. Next is an addition to our menu cards that will clearly state whether a dish is vegan/vegetarian. I'm so excited to be a part of this, and I know that with the help of a couple hundred VO booklets being passed around, we will have the most compassionate ship in the fleet!"
-Todd, 1/23/14

Changing Hearts and Minds

The context for this TED talk is different, but the punch line is the same: It isn't about being right, it is about being able to connect and thus bring about real, constructive change.




Thanks to Chris for sharing it.

Summer in Australia

Thomas Black, Beth Menser, Louis Hill, Mike Bravo, Kate Richmond

The wonderful Chelsea Collins sends Louis' report from Down Under:

"It was a warm day as we relaxed in the sun with big plates of Hare Krishna lunch - the signature dish here at Newcastle University - the five of us fingering pensively through the booklets, struggling to keep in our emotions. Why, humanity?

"Upon the depletion of our voluptuous dessert, we arose and enthusiastically sought out some open minds to educate and inspire - and open minds we found. We dispersed into three groups and found people willing to accept reading material all over campus. We also found new vegans and vegetarians who seemed happy we were spreading the compassionate answers.

"A couple of us look very similar - e.g., Mike and myself - and upon regrouping Mike told me of a girl who had smiled at him and laughed when he handed her a leaflet, telling him that she had received one already from a guy that looked exactly the same as him, just without the dreadlocks.

"A joyous atmosphere was abundant, and we must now simply leave life to take it’s course over the summer for those four hundred individuals that received insights into the lives animals live."

Digression

I really loved this article:

In the Name of Love
Elites embrace the “do what you love” mantra. But it devalues work and hurts workers.

I can't begin to guess how many vegetarians and vegans there are in the world because other people have pursued making money -- and donating that money to effective animal advocacy -- instead of doing what they "love."

Over the past 20 years, millions and millions of people have received a VO booklet because of people who took a job to pay for advocacy. You can see the results here.

-Matt

Ginny on Soy and Women

Soybean Isoflavones are Different from Estrogen

Click for full-size.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr Day!

Outsourced

25 Plant-Based Foods to Try!

Nobelist Sees the Future

Nobel Prize Winner Predicts Rise Of Veganism In 2014

excerpts:
Nobel Prize winning economist (and a professor at Stanford and Harvard) Alvin Roth predicts that veganism will become the dominant paradigm in the near future–or in his own words, that “meat eating might become repugnant” to the general population.

“We already don’t eat whale. We think whales might be smart. The next question is cows,” Roth says. Most Americans would recoil from eating whale, and feel justified in criticizing the Japanese over whale and dolphin hunting. Most Americans also eat beef. This is possible not because humans evolved to eat only land mammals, or because whales are closer to us in appearance than cows. Both whales and cows are intelligent, social animals with distinct personalities and a range of emotions. The single biggest difference lies not in whales and cows themselves, but the way our society accepts eating one and rejects the other without rational inquiry. If the tide of social paradigm shifts, eating animals in general might be considered morally outrageous by all.

From Kassy

Francine had been vegetarian before, and is now going back
and sticking with it, for the animals!

Bo Brown at Frederick Community College.

Kim Moffatt at U MD, College Park.

Kassy was joined by Joe at Montgomery College.

Dead End / Mirage

Dead-End Genetics

Excerpts: “As a result of intensive breeding techniques aimed at profitability, virtually all chickens today suffer simply because they exist. ... Eighty percent of all chicken produced globally — some 44 billion birds — come from one of three companies: Cobb-Vantress, Hubbard, and Ross. While these companies are fiercely competitive, the birds they market are almost identical in outcome, and all of them can suffer from profound welfare problems, most of them caused by fast growth.

“Compared with standard-bred birds who take around 120 days to reach market weight, our table birds today reach the same weight (while eating less) in around 42 days. The industrial breeds of chicken have been selectively bred to grow so large so quickly that they can collapse under their own weight, have difficulty walking in the final weeks of their life, and have musculoskeletal, heart and lung problems. They are obese infants at slaughter age.”

Also, Paul shared a story where a European Union economist predicts further declines in beef and pork consumption. But poultry production there might rise, due to its “healthy image.”

This “healthy image” is a mirage, however. Consumer Reports showed half of chicken at supermarkets have not just bacterial contamination, but “superbugs.” This included chickens labeled “no antibiotics” and “organic.”

From Joe

At Western Kentucky University, a student came up to let me know that after getting the booklet she had viewed the video footage of poultry slaughter on the Vegan Outreach website and actually threw up. One animal agriculture student let me know that we are destroying agriculture. Good to know.
—Joe Espinosa

Please also see this article by Joe: Decency, Justice, and Why Animal Rights Is Not So Radical After All

"Honey, let's have vegan tonite."

Number of flexitarians on the rise!

Also, this week's Enewsletter is quite inspiring -- great stories and pictures! Please make sure you received your copy!

Kenny Torrella on Messaging for Maximum Change (Repost)

Kenny uses his January 2014 vacation
to take action for animals!

Animal advocate extraordinaire, Kenny Torrella, read this 2010 commentary by Bruce Friedrich. On another blog, he quoted it and added this comment:

I read [Bruce's quote in this interview] a few weeks ago and have been experimenting with it lately, and I think it's a small tip for activists that goes a long way. For 2.5 years I had been telling people I was vegan if the subject came up. Now if people ask I say I'm vegetarian, and it makes a world of a difference. When I used to say I was vegan, people would immediately say some kind of variation of, "That's awesome, but I could never do that myself." Now when I say I'm vegetarian, people become more open and tell me about other vegetarians they know, vegetarian foods they've tried, how they've considered going vegetarian, or they had been vegetarian in the past and want to get back into it.

Whenever I met a vegetarian while leafleting, I used to say, "Have you considered veganism?" The situation would immediately turn a bit sour. For a split second they saw me as someone they had much in common with, and after asking if they've considered veganism, they see me as someone telling them to do more -- that their vegetarianism is not enough. Out of the number of vegetarians I had met and responded to like this, not a single one responded positively -- none said, "Why yes, I have been considering veganism lately!" All of them said a variation of, "Well, veganism seems like a good thing, but it's just too much for me." No matter how much cajoling, they wouldn't budge. The funny thing about this is that when I was a vegetarian I was the same way toward vegans. This is something important to remember. I didn't go vegan because another vegan was telling me to, or even telling me about it... I did it on my own after thinking about it and researching it for several months.

Now while leafleting, I give words of encouragement to vegetarians I meet. I tell them how awesome it is that they're vegetarian, to keep it up, I say "Aw, you're the best," I give them literature that has recipes and nutritional information. This makes a huge difference! They feel encouraged to do more, rather than being told to. They may not feel as alone in their choice if they meet another "vegetarian" that is also an activist and is thanking them.

Although our initial reaction is to identify as a vegan or to convince vegetarians to go vegan, 9 times out of 10 it doesn't turn anyone on to veganism -- it only makes them feel like they're being judged, as if their lifestyle choice to eschew all meat products was worth nothing. I'm not saying this is a fool-proof guide to live by and of course there are instances where it's important to say you're vegan, or if a vegetarian wants more information about going vegan, then by all means, hand out vegan literature and share your experiences as a vegan.

Although I was first skeptical of Friedrich's tip, I experimented with it and found it to be a much better approach toward turning more people on to a vegetarian lifestyle.

As always, kudos to Kenny for being concerned less with justifying his own choices and more with opening as many new hearts and minds as possible! (See also this follow-up.)

Alex on Animal Advocacy for All (warning: graphic images)

The incomparable Alex Bury wrote this for a San Francisco Bay Area discussion group regarding the shredded tofu option at Chipotle:

I have been vegan for almost 20 years. I can't wait to try this new option at Chipotle, and I will not ask where or how the tofu is cooked. I hope a lot of vegans in the Bay Area will do the same!

I understand concerns about potential contamination, but we need to be realistic. 99.9% of vegans grew up eating actual meat. We ate meat in meat restaurants for decades and did not die. (And we often go to grocery stores and buy vegan food that could easily have been prepared in a facility that also processes meat, but since we don't see the cooking happen in front of us, we don't ask.) Anytime we eat in any restaurant we run the risk of food poisoning. The risk of actually getting sick by eating a vegan dish prepared in a non-vegan restaurant is extremely low. [Editor note -- we recently saw an item of a couple who got food poisoning at an entirely vegan restaurant in California.]

More importantly, we need to realize that Chipotle does not, actually, need us. Billion dollar companies don't need a few hundred thousand vegans who may eat their new dish once a year. And we may think we're strong in number here in the Bay Area, but when you travel all over the country, like Vegan Outreach leafleters do, you are reminded that we live in a tiny little bubble of delicious veganism. It's hard to live in the Bay Area and not know at least one vegan, and not see great vegan options every day.

John Oberg leafleting in Iowa's snow.

But try going to Iowa and passing out 5,000 veg leaflets in the freezing cold. Interested students may still not even know what vegan is, and if they ask you for local vegan options, what are you going to say? Hand them a list of the 20 great vegan restaurants in downtown Iowa City? No, you're going to tell them about Chipotle. And you're probably going to eat there as well because you're cold and hungry and on a tight budget.

Students in Omaha, NE consider the animals' plight:
Omaha has three Chipotles.

If, instead of praising it, we complain about their vegan option, Chipotle may decide it's not worth the hassle. OTOH, if they get great sales and positive feedback, and decide to put the new item on menus across the country, millions of people will see that eating vegan maybe isn't so strange/hard/miserable/yucky/bland/whatever.

Also, when we make a puritanical fuss in a restaurant, we are showing the servers and the other customers that being vegan is difficult. Why would any of them want to learn more about what happens to animals in slaughterhouses if they just learned that vegans are so fussy and grumpy they can barely eat out?

One of the most powerful things we can do for animals is to happily join non-vegans in a familiar (to them) non-vegan restaurant. (I highly recommend reading these four short paragraphs.) When we order the vegan option with a big smile, without any fuss or complaints, we're acting as advocates for animals.

I find it doubtful that a pig crammed in a tiny crate -- or hanging in a slaughterhouse -- would want us to complain to Chipotle that their new vegan dish wasn't pure enough. I think she would want us to support the new dish and get all of our meat-eating friends to try it. If mainstream America starts eating that dish, millions of pigs could be spared a life of intense suffering.

-Alex