To Our Readers:

Jane and I have spent a significant portion of the last two weeks putting together a petition to Oprah Winfrey. On April 4th, Oprah did a show in memory of her companion dog, Sophie, who passed away on March 10th. The show was inspired by a billboard she saw on her way in to work, asking her to investigate puppy mills. During this show, Oprah exposed some of the horrors inherent in the nature of this business. However, she made, what we consider to be, a blunder when she defended the breeders by saying that they thought of these dogs as livestock. The implication here, which was hopefully unintended, is that livestock can be abysmally treated by their owners.

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential people in this country, if not the world. Her reach is far. If enough of us get together and sign a petition, perhaps we can get her to present to her audience the inhumane nature of the treatment of livestock.

We need your help. We're asking you to please sign our petition, and to pass this along to everyone you know. We can work together to change the world!

Thank you -- Lane & Jane Wright

What's going on in Canada? At the end of March, in discussing why I am vegan, I mentioned that Canada opened their commercial seal hunt (according to the Humane Society of the US this is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet) on March 28th. Today I read that Canada is paying pork farmers $50 million to slaughter 150,000 pigs by November; all in the interests of propping up the Canadian pork industry which is in the throes economic implosion.

The Canadian Association of Food Banks is working with the pork council to come up with a plan to distribute some of the meat to the 720,000 Canadians who depend on food banks each month.

-- from The Canadian Press

I don't eat meat. I go to the school that you don't "need" to eat meat to survive. But to just kill these pigs and throw them away? That seems outrageous to me. I truly hope the Canadian Association of Food Banks can make some headway. The government plans to distribute "some" of the meat? What is some? 5%? 30%? How many animals will be killed just so that a dying industry can be propped up.

I don't know much about the government of Canada, but since they are in essence "buying" this meat, I'm wondering why it isn't automatically going into government subsidized food programs. And perhaps, if hog farming is not an economically viable industry any longer, the Canadian government shouldn't try to prop it up. Maybe the subsidies could be designed to help these hog farmers transition to a more economically viable crop.

Then again, I probably shouldn't be pointing a finger at Canada. Doesn't my government do the same thing? We've given out approximately $15 billion annually in farm subsidies for the twelve year period 1995 - 2006. (Source: Environmental Working Group) I thought we were supposed to be a capitalist society. Doesn't that mean that market forces, not government intervention, should dictate prices?

Apparently, Oprah talked about puppy mills on her show today. Kudos to Oprah for bringing this disgrace to the public eye. If anyone can get Americans to change their behavior, it's probably Oprah. Just look at what she's done for Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz, and all those authors on her book club list.

According to my mom (she's the one who watched the show), Lisa Ling did an undercover story for Oprah (I'm not clear if she's a staff person or not). There was actual footage of puppy mills, showing their inhuman treatment of dogs:

• how the female dogs are bred every time they go into heat, so they are always pregnant or nursing;
• how the dogs don't know how to walk because they're kept in tiny little cages, even if the breeder has acres of land;
• how there's little use for the male dogs that aren't sold...

Puppy mills sell their puppies to pet stores, so as a consumer, you are potentially supporting this industry. The only way to avoid this is to rescue a dog or puppy from the pound, or a breed rescue. Unfortunately, those animals that are brought to the pound will often be euthanized since these facilities can only handle so many animals. If the animals are not adopted after a period of time, they are "put down." The other way to help minimize the number of animals that are euthanized is to spay and neuter your pets. This reduces the number of unwanted and feral animals.

I think it's laudable that Ms. Winfrey is taking this step to promote animal rights. However, in her show she and Ms. Ling made comments that the dog breeders felt they were justified in their behavior because they thought of the dogs as "livestock." So, are we saying that it is okay to treat livestock in an inhumane manner?

Oprah, maybe you should watch Earthlings and see if you still feel the same way about the "acceptable" treatment of livestock.

As many of you already know, Jane and I became vegan because of her family medical history (cancer, heart disease, diabetes....). We don't consider ourselves animal rights activists, although we believe that cruelty to animals (and humans) should have no place on this earth. Our focus in this blog is about food, and why it makes sense to eat vegan. Occasionally, something comes to our attention, like Earthlings, which needs to be shared. But for the most part, our focus is the vegan diet.

When we set out on our vegan journey we struggled a bit. The new eating regimen required more effort than the old, eating out posed all sorts of challenges, and we weren't sure how we would define veganism for ourselves. But we were up for that challenge. Our health was more important. We also both thought that if, over time, our bloodwork didn't support the great health benefits touted by the book that inspired us: Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes (which promises more health benefits than improved diabetes, i.e. a reduction in LDL cholesterol and triglycerides), then we might look for a family farm where we could buy locally-made dairy products, because milk and cheese were the things we missed most.

Today, we stumbled across a blog post at All's Well That Ends Vegan:

Even "dairy cows" from organic and small farms end up at these slaughterhouses

No one seems to be talking about this much either. What an opportunity to tell the public that no matter what "treatment" the animals receive on the "farm", they all end up on the same trucks, for the same torturous journey on the road, to the same slaughterhouses, to the same horrific end. People who call themselves vegetarians, but eat dairy products, especially seem to be missing this point. Ugh.

And just in case you didn't already know, the trip to the slaughterhouse for those "happy cows" (and any other animal off to the slaughterhouse) is inhumane. Often, the animals are driven for hundreds of miles. They are exposed to the elements, crammed together, and not given any food or water on this trip [because who wants to deal with additional waste product?]. They're scared, uncomfortable, hungry and thirsty, and have no room to move around. To put that in perspective: we complain about flying!

So, for us, that was the end of the image of they idyllic family farm. I'm pretty sure that I can safely say Jane and I will be vegan for the rest of our lives. We might still step off the path and consume the occasional slice of real pizza (accompanied by a side order of guilt), because the rest of our lives will hopefully be a long time, and we LOVED pizza. But after having had our eyes opened to the atrocities we perpetuate as a species, we can never go back, we're vegans!

Jane and I became vegans primarily for our health, but as with many other decisions one makes in life, our reasons were varied. We were happy to be doing something that is better for the environment and pleased to do our part to reduce the need for factory farming, but our primary focus was our health.

Our primary reason, better health, hasn't changed. But over time, we've become more aware of the compassionate nature of our decision. As I've mentioned in the past, Jane does most of the food preparation in our home. In our meat-eating days, I'd occasionally come home to find her "grossed-out" about the carcass she was handling. Now, when we're grocery shopping, she'll say to me "I can't imagine eating a dead animal ever again."

Recently I came home to find her crying in front of the computer. I dropped my things and ran into the room to find out what was wrong. When Jane was able to compose herself, she told me she'd been watching Earthlings, a 2003 documentary on the relationship between animals and humans, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, with music by Moby.

The video is presented in a less militant manner than the usual animal rights material. Personally, I find this to be much more effective. Rather than putting people on the defensive, it presents the facts in rational, straightforward manner which encourages thought.

We all need to understand where our food comes from. We should all understand the impact of buying our pets instead of getting them at the pound or an animal rescue. We should all be made aware of just how that new medicine (which may just combat the disease brought on by your meat-laden diet) was developed. We need to understand the environmental impacts of our actions. We all have a right to choose how we live and to choose what we eat, but we should make our choices based on all the facts. Watch Earthlings in streaming video (or click here to download Earthlings-- also available in Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, German, Hebrew, English, Estonian, Greek, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese).