The Vegan and Vegetarian Secrets Blog …

Did you know that the world’s current population of human beings is about  6.7 Billion?

That’s a lot of people!

If only 1% of them are vegan, that means that there are 67 Million vegans walking the earth right now. That’s a lot of people too!

So here’s the deal. Every vegan has one year to help one other person become vegan. Just one. Forget about reaching the masses, forget about starting a movement, forget about all that stuff. Just spend the next year finding one person who will commit, and I mean really commit, to ending all forms of exploitation of all other animals. If every person who is now a vegan would do that one simple thing, then 365 days from now there would be 134 Million vegans. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Guess what, in another year there would 268 million vegans. Just by having every vegan work all year long with only one goal in mind, and that goal is to find one new vegan.

In another year there’d be 536 Million, keep on working and the year after that over 1 Billion, and then there would be 2 Billion, and then 4 Billion and then, just 8 short years from now, there would be a Vegan World, if you want it.

One vegan, every vegan, each helping one new person become vegan every year for the next 8 years.

The World is Vegan, if you want it. It’s not a slogan, it’s a plan.

Go vegan.

UPDATE: Some people have asked whether I’ve taken the increasing world population into account in writing this post. I have. I looked at the UN’s projections as reported on Wikipedia which predict 9.15 Billion people by 2050, or 40 years from now.

My use of the estimate of the proportion if vegans in the world at 1% has also been questioned. I’ve seen that number mentioned in connection with a Gallup poll taken in the US in 2007, but I do not know how accurate it is. But suppose that the actual proportion of vegans is only 0.01%, meaning that I guessed wrong by a factor of 100. Suppose that instead of 67 Million vegans alive in the world today there are really only 670,000. What happens to my vegan world plan them?

Well, if every current vegan can convince just one other person every year to become vegan as well, and if each of those new vegans can do the same, then in 14 years there would be over 10 Billion vegans, more than the entire population of the world.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a realistic optimist; I am not a starry eyed dreamer. But the point remains. Advocacy for a cause is something that can be effectively done by a small group of committed activists who are intent on helping others make new decisions. We don’t need huge budgets, or high profile campaigns, or celebrity endorsements. If our message is a good one, and if our strategy is sound, and if our tactics are effective, people won’t resist. Convert a non-vegan, change the world.

- Tim Gier

ref: http://timgier.com/2010/07/28/a-vegan-world-in-8-years/

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:

• 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
• 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
• 70 million gallons of gas — enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
• 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
• 33 tons of antibiotics.

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:

• Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
• 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
• 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
• Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

Sourced by: Kathy Freston

Imagine if the world went vegan for one day… We could save the environment, your health, world hunger and the animals.

Ref:  Animal Freedom Day

This year Melbourne will play host to Vegan Fitness Week from 1-7 November. The organisers of the event have planned a full week of food and activities including basketball, cycling, bushwalking and arm wrestling, kicking off at the World Vegan Day Festival this Sunday at Abbotsford Convent.

Sunday, 1 November
- World Vegan Day/strength demonstration/grip strength (rolling thunder, grippers, two hand pinch for the crowd to have a go throughout the day) – plush pizza in the evening

Monday 2 November
9.30am – armwrestling (st kilda)
12pm – lunch at bowl of soul
- rockclimbing at cliffhanger (opens at midday)
5.00pm – basketball (location tbc)
- dinner at englightened cuisine

Tuesday 3 November
10.00am – energising breakfast at soul food vegetarian cafe
- strongman/woman (st kilda)
- hot dog eating contest (st kilda)
- TBA (st kilda)

Wednesday 4 November
9.00am for 10.00am arrival – bike ride to las vegan (99% vegan cafe with killer calzones)
12.00am – 2.00pm – ride to Edwardes park for athletics (long jump, triple jump, discus, shotput) (reservoir)
2.30pm – ride to preston to grab some vegan pies, donuts and other greasy foods from la panella and tabet’s bakery.
- Take train or ride, depending on how you feel, back to base for recuperation before an evening of pie fueled karaoke.

Thursday 5 November
8.30am – scenic drive with possibility of dip into ice cold bay and eating
12.00pm – 4.00pm – bushwalking at Arthur’s Seat state park
4.00pm picnic
5.00pm – 7.30pm – mineral springs http://www.peninsulahotsprings.com/
8.00pm – 10.30pm – head back to base

Friday 6 November: Recovery day
10.30am – lawn bowls or bocce
12.00pm mini golf
2.00pm – 5.30pm – twister or whatever people want to do
7.30pm – dinner at shakahari (melbourne’s oldest vegetarian restaurant)

According to the organisers, this is a “once in a lifetime opportunity to meet up with possibly the strongest/coolest group of vegans in the southern hemisphere, so don’t miss it.” If you want to join in, visit the Vegan Fitness website and send a PM to the organisers or call Ivan on 0431 936 341.

Next year’s Vegan Fitness Week will be held in Germany, some time during the summer months.

source: http://www.aduki.net.au/content/view/292/37/

Washington, D.C.—The environmental impact of the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food has been vastly underestimated, and in fact accounts for at least half of all human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs), according to Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, co-authors of “Livestock and Climate Change” in the latest issue of World Watch magazine.

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock’s Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs, and poultry. But recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang finds that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions.

Reviewing both direct and indirect sources of GHG emissions from livestock, the study finds that previous calculations have both underestimated and overlooked certain emissions sources as well as assigned emissions they deem to be livestock-related to the wrong sectors. The authors locate these discrepancies in previous analyses of livestock respiration, land use, and methane.

Based on their research, Goodland and Anhang conclude that replacing livestock products with soy-based and other alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. “This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations—and thus on the rate the climate is warming—than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.”

For more information please contact: 

Worldwatch Institute
+1 202.452.1992 x594
1776 Massachusetts Ave, NW Suite 800
Washington DC 20036 USA
www.worldwatch.org

Free download of the article at:
http://www.worldwatch.org/epublish/1/current

Please distribute this important info widely!

Looking for a new innovative graphic designed by a vegan activist, Mark Middleton… he’s back with yet another graphic, and this one shows the animals deaths associated with producing a million calories from various foods. And I personally found it very interesting to note that chicken and eggs are up the top of the list. Just one more reason on the never ending list of why humans might just best serve the planet by living simply on a crulety-free vegan diet.

Please show your friends and family this graphic – you never know who it might wake up from their meat-based coma and to see the impact their animal-eating ways have on the planet and animals.

The graphic is interactive: you can click on its three tabs to show deaths associated with harvest, slaughter, and both harvest and slaughter. To read Mark’s post about this new graphic click here.

World Vegan Day was first celebrated in 1994 to mark the 50th Anniversary of The Vegan Society. Now its we celebrate the birth of veganism on the 1st of November, all around the world, every year!! 

Here are just a handful of interactive websites for celebrating World Vegan Day and avoiding animal suffering and the wasteful use of the planet’s resources:

www.WorldVeganDay.org

www.WorldVeganDay.org.uk

www.WVD.org.au 

www.VeganDay.info 

Now a little history about how veganism got started . . . in November 1944 Donald Watson invented the word Vegan (pronounced VEE-gan) and formed the Vegan Society to provide information on a healthy lifestyle that avoids animal suffering and the wasteful use of the world’s resources.

See www.vegansociety.com for more information.

The beautiful and haunting new 3D animation TV CSA is here from Choose Cruelty Free Australia!

Today I was informed of the the newest edition ’Meat & Livestock Industry’ commercials about to be launched onto Australian Telelvision THIS Sunday, but who could ever forget Sam Neill selling out the last time, and it seems he’s still at it… just with more of a twist this round.

(Yes, apparently as per Sam Neill famously putting it in the previous series of red meat commercials “Meat is an essential part of the diet”), but an article was written in the Herald Sun today – by a Meat-Eater accusing the MLA of lying and calling their commercials tripe!

A well know journalist infact and she writes for Australia’s largest newspaper. And I’m loving this so much cause Jill is admittedly a meat eater herself and has actually accused the Meat and Livestock Industry, of lying!!!

This is one of those things you dream of happening in the media especially if you are vegan, you know secretly wishing someone on the inside would be brave enough to say such things in the public eye. I often think things like this are too good to be true – but this one is the real deal my friends.

A Meat Eater Actually Accuses ‘MLA’ of LIES & TRIPE!!!  .(I can hear the veg*ns secretly gleaming with joy over this one. You’ve gotta love that great Aussie Spirit from Jill for being one of the few to step up to the plate and speak her mind over all the BS such industries pump out into the world).

Kudos to you Jill!

PS> If you haven’t seen the series of ‘Red Meat We Were Meant to Eat it’ commercials you can review them HERE

But be sure to check out the article written by Jill Singer at the Herald Sun today, it’s a cracker of an article and so refreshing to hear such words come from an actual avid meat-eater. We vegans can’t get blamed with this outburst that’s for sure. However we can agree and even stand by Jill on this one, if we too agree with her brilliant stand of grace that is.

This is how Jill starts off her article:-

*HOW do I loathe the new Sam Neill ads for red meat? Let me count the ways.*

As a consumer I find them misleading. As a woman I find them patronising. And as a fan of Sam Neill I find them disappointing.

In case you haven’t heard, the Meat and Livestock Association’s latest generic television advertisement for red meat is being launched this Sunday.

It features Sam Neill making friends with an ape called Dennis and explaining to him that you need to eat red meat for your brain to evolve.

Sam and Dennis then get down and dance the “butcher boogie” together.

MLA chief executive David Thomason predicts the ad will be a big hit with consumers, and help get their message across that humans are meant to eat red meat. How I hope he is proven wrong.

Much as I enjoy eating meat, I don’t like being fed bull, and the MLA’s advertising has been full of it for many years.

We’ve seen Sam Neill explain that craving red meat is instinctive behaviour, that red meat is nutritionally superior to chicken and that red meat is an essential part of human nutrition.

Sam Kekovich and Laurie Lawrence are other hairy-chested types who have been paid to feed us similar tripe.

There’s nothing new in the MLA’s propaganda; red meat has long been associated with masculinity. Hence the evolution of the catering tradition for crowds – beef for men and chicken for the ladies.

Even now, when most of us hunt down our food in supermarket aisles, the MLA wants to keep us trapped in the distant, gendered past.

By using traditionally blokey men to tell us they need meat, the MLA is sending a message to Australian women. It knows that women still carry the “basket power” – they do most of the shopping – and it’s our job to look after our menfolk.

The facts are that we face greater problems from excessive consumption of red meat than from eating too little of it.

The statement that red meat is an essential part of our diet is a lie. It is a more essential part of a maggot’s diet that a human’s.

There are countless studies proving foods such as fish are a superior form of protein than red meat.

The MLA sneakily drops into its ads that red meat three to four times a week is essential for good nutrition, but moderate consumption is not its real aim.

Increasing the sale of red meat is, full stop.

Read the full story here – Choking on a Red Meat Article

Want to find out what we’ve been up to at Veg-Secrets recently?

Then don’t waste anytime and click the below link right now to find out more:

Veg-Secrets BIG News

As the future of jumps racing hangs in the balance, we urgently need your help today to protect horses from injury and death.

Jumps racing is a cruel and dangerous ’sport’ in which horses are forced to jump metre-high fences at high speed. It’s 10 – 20 times more dangerous to horses than flat racing, and many of the injuries sustained during jumps races can be horrific. As a result, 13 horses died on the track last year (Victoria), and now 7 horses have died within the past fortnight (5 in Victoria and 2 in South Australia).

During the Warrnambool racing carnival last week three horses – Pride of Westbury, Hassle and Clearview Bay – died after sustaining horrific injuries during jumps races.

Racing Victoria then suspended jumps racing pending a final decision on the future of jumps racing tomorrow at a specially-called meeting of their Board. This meeting tomorrow is crucial.

Please let Racing Victoria CEO Rob Hines and Chairman of the Victorian Racing Board Michael Duffy know that the community will no longer tolerate Racing Victoria endorsing this cruel sport and that their decision must be to ban jumps racing.

Take Action by Clicking HERE