Random Thoughts

,Okay - here is my day of random thoughts.

First, I discovered the Vegan Freak Podcasts. You can find them here: http://veganfreakradio.com/.

The one that I listened to today really helped me clarify somethings regarding veganism vs. vegetarianism. When a person is a lacto-ovo vegetarian for ethical purposes (you believe that eating animal flesh is wrong), animals are still dying and milk and eggs contribute to this. It goes like this:

When a cow produces milk, it does so for the same reason that humans do, to feed it's babies. So, in order to produce milk, the cow must be pregnant at least once a year. (9 months people, not a good time). If the calf is a female, it enters the rest of the milk producing cows. If the calf is a male, guess what - veal. Is there a more disgusting delicacy? The veal industry is directly dependent on the milk industry. When the female cow stops producing milk, guess where she goes....yup - cheap ground beef.

Eggs- the condition that chicken's are kept in are absolutely horrendous (check out Compassion Over Killing for some footage), especially the egg laying hens. This alone was enough to make me stop with eggs, but again, males. Male chicks have no place in the egg industry, so they are ground up ALIVE. Or gassed. Or just left in a dumpster.

All of this just solidified my pledge to veganism. If you have questions about the stories I just told above feel free to check out any of the links on my blog or send me a message/comment and I will give you some books you can look into.

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Next on the Podcast, they talked about all the stupid reasons that people give (That I gave) for not going vegan. The most over heard, over used one is "I could never be vegan, I could never give up X" THIS WAS ME!!! I could never give up cheese. I can, and I did.

What this led me to, is my smoking habit. If I can so easily give up meat, dairy, and eggs. Why do I still smoke? I would like to say that there is a physical addiction here, but I might be just fooling myself. I really, really, really, enjoy smoking. Gross as it is. Bad as I know it is. More on this to come.

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On to my next challenge. Any one who knows me knows I can be a little obsessive. When I get on something I like to read, read, read all about it. So I decided to check out my local library and get my hands on some animal lib books. Luckily (and surprisingly, I might add), I could do this online. I typed in Carol Adams...nada. Peter Singer....Nada. Gary Francione...Nada. I think you get my drift here. Soooooo, I decided to do a general search on veganism. Guess how many books came up.....come on






SIX. And three of them were cookbooks. I am not even kidding.
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My last venture of the day was to the local Woodman's grocery store (it's employee owned!). I have friends from Madison that insist that they have a great tofu, tempeh, polenta, seitan section. The first time I was there I couldn't find it. This time I hit pay dirt and I was in vegan heaven. I bought polenta, and tofu, and tempeh, and some other things. Tomorrow night I am going to try to make tofurky and mashed potatoes with punk-rock chickpea gravy.
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