/ˈvēgən/
Noun
A person who does not eat or use animal products.
The beauty of America is we have choices about our food and we have the safest, most abundant food supply in the world. Vegan, Are you really a vegan? I don't think anyone is 100% vegan..
Yes, you may not eat meat or animal products but can you live without using any animal products. No baseball, no volleyball, no basketball, no football... how many athletes claim to be vegan?
Think about cattle for a moment, they produce tons of everyday items.
Toothbrushes
Combs
Buttons
Dice
Marshmallows
Cellophane Wrap
Adhesive
Shampoo
Wall Paper
Film
Luggage
Artist Brushes
Felt
Medicines
Crayons
Floor Wax
gum
And the list goes on and on. Everyday we use beef by-products, often without knowing it! Unless you spend your whole life, making sure your floor wax or gum or shampoo doesn't have any animal products then you can't be 100% vegan.
Dog food, dog toys, fertilizer and methane gas are also animal by-products. It's impossible to live without animals.
Ruminants consume grass, grain and hay and turn it into products we can use everyday! They are the best recyclers out there. Also, if you take most animal by-products out of our life, then you are substituting them with factory made items. Do what is best for the environment and use the animal by products. God put cattle, sheep and hogs on this earth for a purpose. They are better for the environment than a factory any day!
Who wants synthetic gum anyway?
Good articule Karoline.
ReplyDeleteGreat job!!! Excellent Point!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the list... now I know what to avoid.
ReplyDeleteMother Earth did not put animals here for us to rip apart and make dice and chewing gum.
Thousands of years ago, we needed them to survive. Today, there are more than enough alternatives. For example, I make my own shampoo. Oh, and paraffin cause cancer. As a matter of fact... meat causes cancer too.
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/more-than-an-apple-a-day-preventing-our-most-common-diseases/
So yeah... lets do all we can to completely eliminate meat by-products from the market.
Um. Most of us know and avoid most of those already. By the way, footballs in the UK, where I live? Not leather. Although we do wish you meat eaters would stop putting animal products in everything.
ReplyDeleteYou make an interesting choice of words - cows 'produce' as opposed to cow 'are slaughtered for' and beef 'by-products' as opposed to 'parts of a dead animal.'
ReplyDeleteVeganism is all about trying to minimise ones use of animal based products. I'd much rather be a 99% vegan than not to try at all. It's interesting that if there was a pill that offered longer life, reduced rish of heart disease, lower incidence of cancer, more stable weight people would pay thousands for it; well there is it's called following a vegan lifestyle.
I read today that American research shows China now has the highest leves of diabetes in the world and this has been attributed to their changing to a western style diet.
I know it's hard to form an opinion when you're surrounded by people telling you only one thing, maybe they are a little bias? I'd really urge you to read a new book called meatonomics that details the true cost of meat (both financial in terms of tax payer subsidies and in terms of the impact on the health system in the USA.) Basically we are walking into a health mindfield and the tax payer is subsidising it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/meatonomics-the-bizarre-e_b_3853414.html Have a look and let me know what you think.
Compassion and love to you and your family
You do realise that most of those items have a non-animal alternative that is more widely used, right? Shampoo? Luggage? Combs? Chewing gum? Buttons? Dice? Toothbrushes? Even glycerine is more likely to be from a vegetable source these days. What kind of crazy things do you buy that are full of cow?! Do you deliberately seek them out or something? The things that are obviously made from animal products (such as tallow, leather, gelatine etc) are easy enough to avoid, especially as there are decent substitutes available. And as someone else commented, it's better to cause as little harm as possible than to give up and not care who you hurt. When you drive a car there's the possibility you might accidentally run someone over; that doesn't mean you should do it deliberately.
ReplyDelete