Being vegan (avoiding all forms of animal use and
exploitation) is the least we owe to the innocent animals, whose enslavement, torture and killing are caused by our choices. But, avoiding animal products does not mean giving up yummy food or clothing needs.
Sweets, cakes, mock-meats, chocolates, ice creams, curds, paneer, cheese, tea/coffee - pretty much everything - can be enjoyed vegan! Plant based milks made of soy, coconut, cashews, rice, peanuts, almonds, etc., can veganize any dish you love! Tofu works wonders as paneer and as an egg-replacer.
Ample alternatives are available for wool, leather furniture/accessories, silk, honey, pearls, fur, etc. Shampoos, soaps, cosmetics and other lifestyle products involving no animal testing/ingredients are also readily available. To sum up, veganism involves no deprivation at all!
Find more at: https://indiaagainstspeciesism.wordpress.com/being-vegan/
Animal products use resources like land and water massively, since the tens of billions of animals that we breed every year have to be fed and hydrated daily all through their lives. The UN deems animal agriculture culpable for a whopping 50% of the world's grains, 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions (significantly higher than that of the entire transportation sector - planes, boats, ships, cars, trucks, buses, etc.), enormous deforestation and energy consumption! It also causes a lot of air pollution, water pollution (through farm runoff) and soil degradation.
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Award-winning documentary “Earthlings”
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Comprehensive FAQs: http://www.vegansidekick.com/guide
Blog (India): https://indiaagainstspeciesism.wordpress.com/
Blog (City):
Facebook groups: ‘Vegans in india’
Email: indiaagainstspeciesism@gmail.com
Phone number:
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Imagine being born just to be someone’s lifelong slave, or to be tortured
& killed for their avoidable wants. That’s the story of the tens of billions of land
& marine animals that we exploit yearly for food, clothing, entertainment, etc.
As progressive people, most of us are opposed to discriminatory practices such as caste-ism, sexism and racism. Unfortunately, there is one discriminatory practice that is still widely prevalent - Species-ism - the exploitation of a set of innocent beings merely on the basis of the irrelevant fact that they are not
human.
When it's not fair to hurt members of other genders, races and castes, how is it fair to hurt animals merely because they belong to other species? Why should justice and kindness be confined to humans alone when animals too can suffer acutely?
Animals that are raised for meat (such as chickens, pigs, goats and fish) and hens raised for eggs are subjected to a lifetime of enslavement and eventual death. Like meat and eggs, milk production also leads to torture and killing of billions of cows and their calves. Similarly, leather, wool, silk, honey, pearls, etc., and entertainment avenues like zoos and circuses also involve a lot of barbarities towards innocent sentient beings .
Animals of this world exist for their own reasons. They are NOT objects. They are
NOT our slaves. They are NOT ingredients. They are NOT fashion.
Animals can feel love, pain, fear and joy just like you and I can. Every sentient being - human or not - deserves not to be hurt .
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Behind every slice of cheese and every glass of milk, every box of eggs, every chunk of meat, every jacket of leather, every cage in a zoo or a circus
- there are cries of tortured animals who are separated from their families.
For any tabela/dairy to be financially viable, every cow needs to produce milk continuously. Hence, she has to be forced into a constant, body-breaking cycle of forced pregnancies, birthing and milking!
The impregnation is done either through a common bull, or an equally torturous process called artificial insemination, exposing the cow to pain and diseases.
The cow’s babies, the rightful owners of her milk, are largely deprived of it. Since male babies are useless for milk production, they are either starved or sold to be slaughtered or skinned (often alive for soft leather)! Like humans, cows are deeply attached to their babies. Yet, calves are separated from their mothers, who are subsequently seen letting out cries of anguish for weeks!
Chickens grown for eggs and meat are stuffed in awful, tiny cages or inside a stinking compound containing scores of other birds. To reduce the losses caused by the stressed birds’ pecking, they are de-beaked at a very tender age! The egg hatcheries brutally kill all male baby chicks , since they can’t lay eggs and don’t grow fast enough to be raised for meat.
As far as freedom is concerned, the question is not whether they can talk or reason, but, can they suffer?
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Why do we demand abolishing human slavery, Myth: Cows “give” milk to us. instead of making slaves’ treatment ‘humane’? It’s Fact: The only thing that a because robbing a being of the freedom to make her own choices in itself causes immense suffering.
Besides, a lot of cruelty is inherently attached to free cow in the wild would
give us, if we tried to milk her, is a kick. the very economic and environmental viability of animal products. For example, countless male chicks and hens are killed in free-range egg hatcheries.
Eating animal food (indirectly) consumes a whole lot more plants than eating plants directly. A person consuming animal products also consumes the plants fed daily to those animals for their
entire lifetimes! Up to five times more grains are required to produce the same amount of calories through animals as through direct grain consumption. Besides, the majority view among scientists is that plants cannot feel pain due to lack of a central nervous system.
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All our nutritional needs, like calcium & protein, are easily met via vegan food.
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 It’s scientifically accepted that animal products like dairy, meat, eggs and honey significantly increase the risk of heart attacks, diabetes and cancers (like colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers). On the other hand, a plant based diet not only reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancers drastically, but can also reduce hypertension and help reverse heart disease and diabetes.
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 Animal foods also come with antibiotics (fed to animals to fatten them), hormones and toxins like mercury (in fishes), etc.
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Many body-builders and Olympic-winning athletes are long standing vegans.
*Vitamin B12, an essential vitamin produced only by bacteria, is affordable and easily available and should be supplemented.
**: See http://www.pcrm.org and http://www.sharan-india.org
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