The Vegan and Vegetarian Secrets Blog …

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.

There are so many valuable reasons for going vegan – just as there are for going vegetarian. Being vegetarian vastly helps in reducing animal cruelty and suffering, environmental harm, hunger in the developing world and menace to our own health. Veganism extends all of these advantages even further however.

And here are just some reasons Why that is the case and a vegan diet is top knotch for the planet, the animals and your own health.  

1. Being Vegan means you’ll live longer. Vegetarians/Vegans on average live up to 6 years longer than non-vegans.
   
2. It’s better for the Environment, Going Veg helps put a stop to rain forest destruction. In the Amazon, approximately 60-70 percent of deforestation results from cattle ranches and soybean cultivation (to feed those animals).
   
3. Modern meat production involves intensive use – and often misuse – of grain, water, energy and grazing areas. For example: It takes 22 times the acres of land to meet the food energy needs of one person eating meat than it does for one person eating potatoes.
   
4. Livestock production also utilizes more than eight percent of global water use, primarily for feed-crop irrigation and as for energy use, it takes almost ten times more energy to produce and transport livestock than vegetables.
   
5. Studies show vegetarians have better sex and not to forget that eating animals can cause impotence.
   
6. A plant-based diet with lots of fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of heart disease, many types of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, food poisoning and obesity. It’s also clear how fruits and vegetables may reduce a persons risk. So leaving meat off your plate can help lower your risk of disease overall.
   
7. “The evidence is quite consistent that red meat is associated with a higher risk of colon – possibly prostate – cancer” says Lawrence Kushi of the University of Minnesota.
   
8. Food costs, helps put money back in your wallet. Vegetarian foods tend to cost less than meat based items. And if you exclusively grow your own fruit and vegetables and are not a processed food junkie, this means it can cost as little as $8 a week to feed your family.
   
9. You won’t be supporting industries that raise animals inhumanely for food, clothing, cosmetics testing or any other type of callous exploitation. Cruelty Free is the way to Be!
   
10. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent, it would free 12 million tons of grain annually for human consumption. That alone would be enough to adequately feed each of the 60 million people who starve to death each year.

What reasons do you have for Going Veg? … drop us a line and let us know your’s today. 

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses. 

~ George Bernard Shaw

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.