"The reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility." ~ Susan Orlean

Fish Oil Does NOT Prevent Heart Attacks!

"Fish oil does nothing" is what I heard them say as I turned on the radio this morning. (I never believed it did!!) Read here Omega 3 pushers! http://www.dailygossip.org/fish-oil-does-not-prevent-heart-attacks-4496

Summer Days, Drifting Away

We've all seen the Back To School commercials where the parents are overjoyed to be sending their kids back to the classroom, we've all heard people thank god they're going back soon and we've all heard someone somewhere at sometime tell us how they go about celebrating once the kids are back in school. I don't get it.
Time off with my kids is spent living. Really living. We try to do something fun everyday and not everything has a huge price associated with it. Picnics are a big thing for my kids, skipping stones at the beach, swimming, summer festivals, camping; that kind of stuff. Why would I ever want those sort of days to be over? I work part time so not everyday was full of time and freedom but we definitely made the most of the summer. To celebrate the fact that they're stuck back in a stuffy classroom, surrounded by expectation, social demands upon them, absorbing an overload of information all day everyday makes me sad for them in comparison to what we've just spent the summer doing ...Living. And learning as we go; it seems far more natural that way.

Burlington + Ribfest Shame On You

So once again it's time for the shameful annual RibFest Weekend in my hometown of Burlington Ontario. I drove past the site yesterday and before we were even close to Spencer Smith Park, the smell of murder hit me and I could feel myself well up. Tens of thousands of pigs are slaughtered for such an event and it saddens me that the place I grew up not only sponsors such a horrific scene but that they continue to support a slaughterhouse in the community. I go to as many Pig Save events as I can, I take my children to Fearmans to demonstrate the cruel truths behind what really happens to these animals but I cannot bring myself to represent at RibFest because it upsets me so much. I cannot pysically handle the smell and it's guaranteed I will throw up; not so pleasant for my fellow activists. One of these years I'll manage to be a part of it but hopefully it is shut down before that opportunity ever arises. Below is a fabulous article that was recently seen in in the Toronto Star with regards to Quality Meat Packers; similar to Fearmans (formally Maple Leaf) in Burlington. Finally people (meat eating humans) are starting to come to some realizations. It's worth the read. 

Walkom: Slaughtering pigs, a never-ending horror

Published in Toronto Star on Wednesday July 25, 2012

GABRIELA PANELA/AFP/GETTY IMAGESToronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom asks: Do humans have the moral right to truck and slaughter pigs just so they can eat bacon for breakfast instead of cereal?

By Thomas WalkomNational Affairs Columnist

 This is an old story. It is also a cruel story, which means it will continue.

The specific story is about pigs. The broader story is about humans and how, when it comes right down to it, we don’t care a lot.

Every day, along Lake Shore Boulevard in Toronto, a parade of tractor-trailer trucks passes by carrying pigs to slaughter.

These particular trucks have become relatively famous in the world of the Internet. That’s because, at certain times of day, traffic moves slowly enough to let anyone standing on the sidewalk see — and videotape — what goes on inside.

What goes on inside isn’t pretty. The latest video, apparently taken on July 17 and posted on the website of an animal rights group called Toronto Pig Save, shows animals jostling against one another in a mash of their own vomit and excrement (contrary to popular mythology, pigs — if left to their own devices — try to keep themselves fastidiously clean.)

The temperature in Toronto had hit 36 degrees centigrade that day and pig transport trailers aren’t air-conditioned.

So let’s just say it wasn’t a comfortable trip. In fact, under Canada’s rarely enforced animal welfare laws — which require animals to be transported humanely — it may well have been an illegal trip.

But it was a typical trip and, I suppose that’s the point. We care about dogs locked in parked cars during sweltering heat waves. Those stories, when they happen, are front-page news.

We don’t care much about the pigs being trundled day in and day out through unbearable heat along Lake Shore.

Toronto Pig Save focuses on Quality Meat Packers, the abattoir to which the Lake Shore Blvd. animals were headed. It’s the second-largest hog slaughtering plant in Ontario.

Is Quality Meat worse than any other slaughterhouse? There’s no evidence I know of that it is. Indeed, as an economic enterprise, it is a Canadian success story. A family-owned business that has been operating in Toronto since 1923, it now exports pork products around the world.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is so impressed that it awarded Quality a $3-million loan in April to help it kill and process pigs more efficiently.

But economics is one thing and morality another. The question raised by the Lake Shore hog trailers is a moral one: Do humans have the moral right to truck and slaughter pigs just so they can eat bacon for breakfast instead of cereal?

I reckon most Canadians would answer yes to this — although I also think you’d get a different response, in this country at least, if the word “pigs” was replaced by “dogs.”

Pigs are notoriously smart animals. They also have an unsettling habit of looking you directly in the eye — as if to say: “I know what you have in mind for me and I’m disappointed by your lack of character.”

If more people looked pigs directly in the eye, there would be more vegetarians. But they don’t and there are not.

As a result, the tumbrels keep rolling along Lake Shore, transporting the condemned to their place of execution. Nothing much changes.

My colleague Catherine Porter wrote about the pig transports in May. I write about it this month. Maybe someone else will write next month.

If people wanted to end hog misery, they easily could — simply by not eating pork. But they do not.

As I type this, someone down the street is barbecuing ribs. They don’t smell as good as they once did.

Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 6 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup natural peanut butter (it's saltier than some of the commercial brands)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips (you can use semi-sweet but the milk just tastes better with the saltiness)
• 1 pinch of love, the deepest kind you've got

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Cream butter or margarine with brown sugar and white sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in peanut butter, baking soda, and salt. Make sure it is well blended. Add flour, chocolate chips and love.
3. Drop teaspoons of cookie dough then flatten with fork slightly on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 6-7 minutes or until just showing a hint of brown on edges. Don't overcook. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 -10 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. My father-in-law makes these for us and although this is pretty much the recipe he gave me to use (minus the love ingredient, I added that in but I'm pretty sure he secretly uses it too) I just can't seem to make them quite like he does.

NOT Everyone Loves Marineland

When our kids were really little, my husband bought passes for Marineland every year for three years. I never felt right about being there but it was a compromise. Chris has never challenged me on raising our boys on a vegetarian diet, he has no issues when I give them markers and bristol board to create signs for the protests and demonstrations I take them to and my carnivore husband eats tofu for dinner on a regular basis. Studying sea life is a passion of his; he uses his saltwater tanks for educational purposes and teaches our children all the fascinating things there are to know about the under water world. This doesn't mean I agree with it, but it does mean I know that every marriage has compromises to make and this is one of them. He knows and appreciates this. Marineland was his thing. I'd take the kids on my own while I did home daycare but we'd go just for the rides, have a picnic and call it a day. I could never bring myself to taking the children to the viewing tanks, or to visit the sickly deer living in an unnatural habitat, or to gawk at the sad looking bears living in concrete caves. It was heartbreaking and I knew I was contributing to this torment. After the second year of having passes, my husband noticed one of the baby Orcas who had been born the previous year was missing. He asked one of the female trainers who shrugged her shoulders and simply said "It died" The following year another Orca was missing, the mother. My husband circled the tanks, walked around the other viewing areas but she was no where to be found. When he asked, he was told that she had died. In 2004, Marineland had five Orcas. Today it has one. Sad. And so wrong.
The other day a story broke out on the torture that goes on at that place. Some former Marineland trainers have finally come forward and disclosed the reality of the facility. Read the article published in the Toronto Star and see why this place should be shut down. Not everyone loves Marineland.

This isn't the only facility in Canada that needs to go. As of March 2012, 38 dolphins have died at the Vancouver Aquarium; 9 Orcas, 7 Narwhals, 9 Belugas and 13Pacific White Sided Dolphins all lost their lives due to pro captivity in this money making business. Nottare

s50 years, the Vancouver Aquarium didn't have any successful breeding program. Three orca babies, four beluga babies and two Pacific white-sided dolphin babies have died. As of March 2012 at least 9 orcas, 7 narwhals, 9 Belugas, 

A Lifetime Of Misery For A Few Minutes Of Entertainment

The truck the elephants live in all year long, chained to the inside.

The circus is no fun for elephants or any of the animals who are tortured into learning the tricks they perform in order to provide humans with a few short minutes of entertainment. More is posted on PETA.org but one article states bears, elephants, tigers, and other animals do not voluntarily ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. They don't perform these and other difficult tricks because they want to; they perform them because they're afraid of what will happen if they don't.

For animals in circuses, there is no such thing as "positive reinforcement"—only varying degrees of punishment and deprivation. To force them to perform these meaningless and physically uncomfortable tricks, trainers use whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other painful tools of the trade.

Elephants are beaten, hit, poked, prodded, and jabbed with sharp hooks, sometimes until bloody. The trainers break the spirit of elephants when they're vulnerable babies who should still be with their mothers. Unsuspecting parents planning a family trip to the circus don't know about the violent training sessions with ropes, bullhooks, and electric shock prods that elephants endure. 

This year over seventy of us gathered in protest of the Shine Circus in Hamilton Ontario. There was some resistance from the misinformed who would yell out that we're ruining the fun for the children but for the most part we got very positive feedback. Some people left at intermission, saying they had never realized before what the animals suffer and the life they are forced to live. One father who left mid way brought his teenage daughters over to speak to us asking for more literature as our information had opened their eyes. A friend of mine didn't even get settled in her seat before deciding to leave with her four children because one of them asked what a bullhook is. Another woman I know posted on my Facebook page before the event even happened that my advocacy makes a difference because she has chosen to not use her tickets after all. All of this matters. My family has been at this five years in a row now; lets hope Hamilton simply bans the use of animals for entertainment purposes and the Circus will not be back in town again. But if it is, we'll be there. 

People In Your Life

Peace For Pigs

Fearmans Slaughterhouse, Burlington, Ontario, Canada

As a kid/teenager I would avoid this area of my hometown; the corner of Appleby Line and Harvester Road in Burlington. But in recent years I began to frequent it. I'll never be able to tolerate the smell in the air of the tortured pigs put to death in murderous ways each day in this part of the city. Being there however to remind the people who pass by puts thought in the mind of the community about the horror that goes on behind the walls of Fearmans (formally Maple Leaf Pork) Slaughterhouse. This daily tragedy takes the lives of up to 45,000 pigs weekly at this location alone and cannot be ignored. Among the largest pig slaughterhouses in Ontario are Quality Meat Packers and Fearman’s Pork. Both these facilities use carbon dioxide gas chambers to “stun” the pigs before they are hung upside down on one leg and bled with “hollow knives” and sent to the scalding tank to remove their hair. Though the pigs are supposed to be unconscious at the bleeding and scalding tank steps, this is not always the case! Once the pigs start blinking around 1.5 minutes after being stunned they are fully conscious, thus some of them may be going through this horrific process fully conscious. Resources such as Toronto Pig Save will give you all the information you need to know about these shameful businesses and organizations such as PETA will send you the literature you need to distribute and educate during a demo of your own. If you want to join in the next protest we hold you can contact me via Twitter @jennjam and I'll send you the information. 

My Own Made Up In A Panic About A Picnic Creamy Eggless Potato Salad

I'm so excited to see my girlfriends today. The five of us have been besties since childhood and today we're meeting up with all of our children and husbands for a picnic in the park. Among us all we have vegetarians, an egg allergy, a nut allergy and they're all skinny minis who are calorie conscious sooooooo, when I offered to make the salads up for this lunch I had to become a little creative. I've made a green salad with strawberries and blueberries (no walnuts for this occasion) a bean medley salad and I've just tackled a made up on the spot eggless potato salad that actually turned out pretty amazing! I may just scoop a little dish out on the side before I go to keep for myself for tomorrow ;) Hoping they all like it too; I got up at 7am out of potato salad worry to make it!
Vegetables:
Approx 20 fingerling potatoes, washed, peeled and cut into large cubes
1 quarter each of red, yellow, orange and green bell pepper cut small or one whole of any of those colours
3 stalks of celery cut small
2 green onions finely chopped
Dressing:
1/2 cup Veganaise
1 cup Sour Cream
1/2 cup Dill Relish
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp Spicy Brown Mustard (Gulden's) or any prepared mustard will work
1 tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp coarsely ground pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Dressing: Mix all of the dressing ingredients together and let chill in the fridge until the potatoes are cool and ready.
Vegetables: Boil the potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes or until they soften (but not mushy)
Drain in a colander and while they are still hot, add the chopped peppers on top to let the steam soften them a little while the potatoes cool.
Once cool, transfer the vegetables to a serving dish, toss with celery, green onion and dressing. Let it chill in the fridge approximately 1 hour before serving to let the flavours blend.