|
Portugues: Uma
definição para vegan
One Thing
Jack Norris, RD, Director and Co-Founder, Vegan
Outreach
Being vegan to me means one thing: an attempt to reduce
the intense suffering of non-human animals. To me, saying
"I'm vegan" is synonymous with saying, "I
have decided to live a lifestyle that does not support
animal exploitation."
The great majority of animal suffering in the U.S.
is a direct result of people buying animal products
for food. I think it is important that vegans make
the meaning of the word "vegan" to focus
on avoiding the products that obviously/reasonably
lead to animal suffering so that people will understand
that it is not about personal purity but rather reducing
suffering. If we could eliminate the animal agriculture
industry, billions of beings would be spared miserable
lives of suffering, pain, and slaughter.
What Veganism Means to Me
Bruce Friedrich, Vegetarian Campaign Coordinator,
PETA
Slaughterhouses are perhaps the most violent places
on the planet. Animals are routinely sent kicking
and screaming through the skinning and dismemberment
process, every one bleeding and dying exactly like
they would if they were human beings. Farms today
treat animals like so many boxes in a warehouse, chopping
off beaks and tails and genitals with no painkillers
at all, inflicting third degree burns (branding),
ripping out teeth, and hunks of flesh. Animals transported
to slaughter routinely die from the heat or the cold,
or freeze to the sides of the transport trucks or
to the bottom in their own excrement. Dairy cows and
egg laying hens endure the same living nightmare as
their brethren who are raised for their flesh, except
that their time on the "farm" is longer.
They are still shipped to the slaughterhouse and killed,
at a fraction of their natural life span.
There is simply no excuse for anyone who considers
herself or himself to be an ethical human being, let
alone an "animal lover," to be supporting
these kinds of practices, all of which are routine
and universal throughout the industries which turn
animals into meat products.
If I can't watch it happening, I want no part of
it. I enjoy watching fields tilled and love picking
apples and tomatoes and carrots and other vegetarian
products. If slaughterhouses had glass walls, as Paul
McCartney is so fond of saying, we would all be vegetarians.
Every time I sit down to eat, I make a decision about
who I am in the world: Do I want to add to the level
of violence, misery, and bloodshed in the world? Or,
do I want to make a compassionate and merciful choice?
There is so much violence in the world, from war torn
regions of Africa and Europe, to our own inner cities.
Most of this violence is difficult to understand,
let alone influence. Veganism is one area where each
and every one of us can make a difference, every time
we sit down to eat. I find it empowering that I can
make an option for peace and compassion every time
I eat, simply by not encouraging violence and misery
against animals.
Define Yourself
Fred Fishman
When the term "Vegan" was coined, times were
different, and animal products weren't in almost everything.
You could eliminate all animal products and still live
a relatively normal life. Nowadays you'd have to eliminate
the use of phones, books, computers, cars, bicycles,
planes etc (all of which contain some elements of animal
products) to be "vegan" by the original definition.
So, since I'm assuming you're not willing to do that,
you'll have to define your own version of veganism,
and live your life accordingly.
Forget Vegan
Matt Ball
As anyone perusing the internet will see, there are
no shortages of opinions about the definition of "vegan."
A common thread seems to be that each person's definition
of vegan is: "What I am." If a person eats
sugar (or drinks water) that was filtered with charred
bone, then sugar is vegan. If they don't, it isn't.
Honey, whey, film, old baseball gloves, beer, smoking,
medicine, etc.
A friend of mine (and long-time vegan) once wrote
to a member of the vegan police: "I grow weary
of the term 'vegan.' It seems to become just a label
for moral superiority."
This may sound odd coming from a co-founder of Vegan
Outreach, but it doesn't matter what label anyone
places on me, or what label anyone places on themselves.
For example, if Peter Singer (author of Animal Liberation)
were to eat a dish that contains hidden dairy when
at a colleague's house, or if Carole Morton (who runs
Green Acres Farm Sanctuary and is a humane agent in
a rural PA county) were to eat the eggs laid by the
hens she has rescued ... do I want to cut them off,
shun them from our vegan club?
Being vegan, for me, is about lessening suffering
and working for animal liberation as efficiently as
possible. It has nothing to do with personal purity
or my ego. If, by some bizarre twist, eating a burger
(or, better yet, a triple-cheese Uno's pizza :-) )
were to advance animal liberation significantly, then
I would do it.
I understand that different people have different
views of things. That is fine. I understand that the
world is a pretty crappy place in many respects, and
that is not OK, but allowing this to make me depressed,
angry, or judgemental accomplishes nothing, or even
less than nothing.
Subscribe to Vegan
Outreach enewsletter to keep up on events
|
