Notes
from Vegan Outreach
Vegan Outreach is happy to announce
the availability of our latest booklet,
Compassionate Choices (pdf).
This booklet, which will replace
Try Vegetarian, is essentially
a less graphic version of Even
If You Like Meat. The front
cover is softer, the first two inside
pages do not contain graphic images,
and the slaughterhouse section is
removed. This will be a good booklet
to use for displays or at leafleting
situations where the graphic images
on the cover of Even If
may be uninviting.
Thanks to Jon Camp and Lauren Panos
for all their great work in creating
CC!
You can order copies from the catalog.
Report from Mexico
Just came back
from a long awaited trip to my homeland,
Mexico. Don and I had been planning
to start "Fuerza Animal"
there, a small group dedicated to
raising awareness about animal abuse.
So, last Friday was our debut! Our
target was my alma mater, UNAM (Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico), which
is the largest university in Latin
America. We gave away all we had
in an hour -- people were very receptive,
and we had many great encounters,
including:
 My
cousin Alejandra (at right) offered
the booklet to a philosophy professor
who asked for more to distribute
to his students. He said he has
been a vegan for 15 years and
that he as well as his thesis
director were very interested
in AR. He mentioned how much work
is still needed in Mexico regarding
animal issues and was very glad
to see us there. - Another faculty member also
said she wanted to help the animals
but didn't know how to get started.
She gave me her contact information
so she can join us in leafleting
next time we are there. She also
took 10 booklets and said, "I
will give them to people that
will truly read them, thanks!"
- I also interacted with several
groups of girls that showed real
excitement about getting the booklet.
It was awesome! One approached
me and asked for more booklets
to distribute. She, too, gave
me her contact info and wants
to leaflet in the future.
-Italia Millan, 2/3/08
Karen Johnson, an activist who
distributes Vegan Outreach literature
at tables throughout Cape Town,
made the Cape Times, in
an article entitled: "Vegan
venture turned into magical experience
of an exotic culture."
The meaty side of dinner was
the conversation. Karen is irrepressibly
passionate and convincing about
her vegan cause. She says the
ethical decision about what we
eat is a personal journey. She's
come up with an inspired "veg
pledge" - inviting the public
to sign a commitment to not eat
a specific meat for a week --
or to go all the way and experience
the benefits of a vegetarian or
vegan diet instead.... Ok, I'll
take the pledge for seven days
-- where do I sign up? Full
story.
Report from Germany
Some people argue that Vegan Outreach
should work more on reforms than
promoting ethical eating. While
we
don't oppose the former, we
recognize that as long as animals
are regarded as food, there will
be abuse.
A case in point: while the European
Union is far ahead of the US in
terms of animal protection laws,
this
report from Germany
shows what goes on behind the walls
(you don't need to speak German
to understand the footage).
Thanks to Kristina Musholt, Vegan
Outreach now has Warum
Vegan? on our
website.
More on Reforms: Report from California
Fallout continues from the undercover
footage of the Chino slaughterhouse.
See, for example, these articles
in the Washington
Post and Los
Angeles Times. The latter
makes the point, "The U.S.
Department of Agriculture has 7,800
pairs of eyes scrutinizing 6,200
slaughterhouses and food processors
across the nation. But in the end,
it took an undercover operation
by an animal rights group to reveal
that beef from ill and abused cattle
had entered the human food supply."
USDA's inspectors have now been
withdrawn, closing the plant. The
key point, though, is that the inspectors
were at the slaughterhouse the entire
time the undercover
investigation went on, a point repeated
in this
editorial.
 Individuals
generally evolve by small steps
in their diet and activism; the
same is true of how societies change.
Reforms -- especially those that
abolish some of the worst practices
of modern agribusiness, as the Prevention
of Farm Animal Cruelty Act in
California would do -- are necessary,
important, and inevitable; there
is no
other way to go from a carnivorous
society, where farmed animals have
virtually no protection, to a vegan
society where they have near-total
protection. But we have to keep
in mind that as long as animals
are viewed as food, and factory
farms and slaughterhouses are closed
to public inspection, tremendous
suffering will occur.
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issues of Vegan Outreach's e-newsletter
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 Vegan
Outreach
P.O. Box 30865
Tucson, AZ 85751-0865
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