We had our first "official" vegan Thanksgiving today :)

Last year didn't count as I had spent the entire day at the hospital (my middle sis was in labor). Usually, we always go to my mother's for Thanksgiving but this year we decided against it. For one thing, now that we are vegan, it seems hypocritical to celebrate a holiday when the main part of your meal is the sacrifice of an animal. Secondly, we wanted control of a holiday for once!

Mark and I figured we could try to make an-all vegan feast this year. We made plans to celebrate this holiday with my mother-in-law. She's trying to become vegan and has done so much for us we felt it was her turn to get a Thanksgiving with us. We promised to do all the cooking and baking. Actually, Mark did all the cooking and I did the desserts.

We decided against using Tofurky and used Celebration Roast instead. Which was an important factor in planning this meal: keeping the tofu/soy quotient down. I found recipes for a tofu-free pumpkin pie and a vegan pecan pie (bonus!). Mark cooked a lot of veggies, made a Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, and rice pilaf. The food was soooooo delicious. I've posted photos here.

After we let our tummies settle down, we were ready for dessert. Unfortunately, the pumpkin pie wasn't a hit. I think it was because I used the maximum amount of cornstarch and blackstrap molasses. However, the pecan pie was very nearly devoured by the three of us over the course of the night! I'll be baking another one tomorrow, after we visit my mom at the hospital.

What I am thankful for this year: My husband, our dogs, my niece and nephew, my sisters, my mom, Christina's healthy pregnancy with the twins (knock on wood), my French class, good music, my few trips to SF during 2006, and my mother-in-law.


Our canine crew, hoping from some handouts as Grandma sets the table.

I was browsing around on Mypsace (yes, I have a profile but I'm starting to get bored with it...).
Anyway, I was on one of the veg*n groups I've joined and this bulletin caught my eye. I'm a sucker for surveys. I'm one of those people who will always respond to a survey if I find the questions interesting enough. This one was certainly different. A teen was asking that fellow vegans fill it out and message her back with the answers. A wee bit personal but it seems like nothing's sacred on the internet anymore.

1. How old are you?
33

2. What motivated you to become vegan?
To be one less person unnecessarily eating animals. I find it unethical to support the wholesale slaughter of animals for food, clothing, and testing. Especially, in this new millenium, when there are countless vegan options. As someone who lives with 4 dogs, this bumper sticker hit home: "If you love animals called pets, why do eat animals called dinner". Seemed rather hypocritical to be omnivorous while claiming to be compassionate towards animals.

3. Did you explore any websites to research more upon the subject? If not, where?
Of course I explored many websites to research the vegan lifestyle.

4. What store do you usually shop at?
For groceries: Whole Foods
For clothing: no particular favorite store

5. How has being vegan affected your "work" lifestyle?"
Usually receiving a lot of ignorant questions and/or disbelief that I can subsist on an animal by-product free diet.


6. How was being vegan affected your "social" lifestyle?
I don't eat out as much and am less likely to want to be around "meat-eaters". Also known as the public-at-large.


7. Have you felt different since you've become vegan? If so, How?
Completely different. I'm more compassionate yet hyper-sensitive to cruelty. I do not like hypocrisy and I have become extremely picky about the products I purchase.


8. Do you look at life differently, because of this experience?
My life has completely changed since I became vegan. It's one of the best decisions I have ever made.

9. When you first started to cut meat out of your diet, then dairy products, eggs.. etc. Did you feel tempted to go back to eating meat, eggs, dairy products...?
I won't lie. I was tempted throughout the first 6 months and I did backslide a few times.

10. If you did have these temptations, what was a constant motivation to keep going?
I just picture the animals that had to suffer just so that I could satisfy my tastebuds. It's not worth it, especially when I have discovered tasty vegan alternatives.

11. How long have you been vegan? And do you continue to do it for the rest of your life?
I decided to become vegan in April 2005. However, since I did backslide within those first few months, it doesn't seem fair to count back that far. So, technically, I haven't knowingly consumed any animal by-products since January 2006. I will remain vegan 'til the day I die. I couldn't ever, in good conscience, go back to an omnivorous diet.

To end this post, one of my fave comics:

I haven't been in a baking or cooking mode lately so I need to get on that tomorrow. Especially since it looks like my Friday is now open.

On another subject, I was reading an email from In Defense of Animals (IDA) and it appears China is on another dog culling mission. Apparently, on 7 November 2006, they started murdering dogs in the city of Beijing. Especially large-sized dogs (licensed or not), unregistered dogs without photo-identification, strays, or any dogs over the one-dog-per-family allowance. Their goal is to make Beijing "rabies-free" before the 2008 Olympics. WTF?!?!?! Do they really need to go there?

As someone who is a devoted animal lover and shares her life with four dogs, I am absolutely bloody outraged. And there's not a fucking thing I can do to stop this. No government can tell China what to do. No amount of petitions, awareness, etc seems to work.The Chinese government simply doesn't give a fuck.


Déjà vu: The Chinese government is demanding the dog cullings again:

An unfortunate dog caught up in the Chinese rabies scare. One of the 55,000+ dogs who lost their lives in August 2006.


The result of human overreaction.

This quote from the IDA article completely stood out: "If the city of Beijing is modern enough to host the Olympic Games, then they certainly have the ability to humanely manage communicable diseases through such measures as vaccinations and spaying/neutering of companion animals."

According to an article on Bloomberg.com, "police are killing strays before they can bite people, and ordering owners to register their pets. Beginning Nov. 1, owners without a credit card-sized license bearing their pet's photo will face fines of up to 5,000 yuan ($635) and the confiscation of the animal. Beijing authorities also introduced a one-dog per owner policy and is enforcing a decade-old ban on ``violent and large dogs,'' such as German shepherds.

Police are stepping up enforcement as the rate of infection rises and China is spending $34 billion in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. More than 8,900 unregistered dogs were nabbed in the city this year, Xinhua reported last month".

I'm sure they were allowed to live....

This bothers me, as well. From Bloomberg.com:
"Even large-sized licensed dogs are being targeted. Yangguang is a registered and vaccinated Golden Retriever, whose owners call a good-natured pet. Yet, they found a notice on their front door last month advising that neighborhood regulations deemed the dog a threat to safety and public health. If not gone within a week, the notice said the dog would be impounded and possibly destroyed.

``We see all the small dogs still in the neighborhood and think, how was our dog any different?'' said Li Meng, 26, who bought Yangguang, which means ``Sunshine'' in Chinese, over the Internet for her father. The pet is now living with a friend in another Beijing suburb. ``It's hard to say whether they're really doing this to control rabies or just to make money.''

What? Money couldn't possibly be a motivating factor?

"Tactics deployed by the city's dog inspectors aren't always civil, said Jeff He, a spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Beijing. In one case, a dog was beaten to death in front of its owner. Police have cut power and water supply to homes suspected of abetting clandestine canines, he said.

Concern over the disease in August prompted organized squads of citizens in Shanghai, and in Yunnan and Shandong provinces to organize to beat dogs to death. Unvaccinated strays pose the greatest risk of spreading rabies in urban areas, according to the WHO."

How thoughtful of these people to get together and rid their cities of the problem.
Check them out in action:

Year of the Dog????

"Asia accounts for more than 80 percent of rabies cases worldwide, according to a study by researchers in China and the U.K. published in December in Emerging Infectious Diseases journal. In China, 103,200 people died of rabies in four epidemic waves between 1950 and 2004, the study's authors said. Human cases are now approaching levels not seen since the 1980s.

A ``fifth epidemic wave of rabies that began in the 1990s is gaining momentum,'' the authors said. Abandoned dogs bear much the blame, they said.

``In China it is extortionately expensive to register an animal,'' the WHO's Hall said. Pets are often kept illegally and unvaccinated, she added, recommending that vaccination be compulsory and cheap.

Initial registration costs 1,000 yuan ($127) and includes the first rabies vaccination. The fee, including a booster shot, declines to 500 yuan in subsequent years.

In New York, by contrast, the annual registration costs $2.50 for a dog that has been neutered or spayed, and $10.50 for others. A rabies shot goes for about $10.

China has about 150 million pet dogs. The number has climbed 30 percent in the past five years, Euromonitor Plc said in a report last year. The market research company attributes the increase to the desire among one-child households for an extra companion and as a source of comfort for older people."


Check out the following links. I will post more as the story continues:

Bloomberg.com: click
here
IDA.org: click here
IFAW.org: click here

UPDATE: from www.animalsasia.org, a November 2006 update regarding the Chinese dog culls. Click here to read it.

I was reading my email and received this bulletin from HSUS: that yesterday's elections were friendly to the animals as well the Democrats.

For example: Arizona passed Proposition 204 (by 62%) which makes Arizona the first state in the nation to prohibit the confinement of calves in veal crates and the second state to prohibit the confinement of breeding pigs in gestation crates. These two factory farming practices are infamous for their inherent cruelty and are both already banned throughout the European Union.

Read about it here

It's a drop in the bucket but at least a step forward. Like Erik Marcus, I'd like to see the end of animal agriculture as it is.

What a swell idea. I came across this nearly 2 weeks ago and thought it was a novel and compassionate way to spend Thanksgiving. It's the annual Adopt-A-Turkey Project run by the Farm Sanctuary.

The Farm Sanctuary, which has been doing this 1986, sponsors "adoptions" of turkeys that live at either of their two locations. You may also adopt one for your home, provided you're veg*n and willing to care for the turkey for the rest of his/her natural life.

Another offering is the Celebration FOR the Turkeys, 18-19 November 2006, at both locations: Watkins Glen, NY and Orland, CA. The Watkins Glen event will cost $5 per family and offer a potluck dinner for which all guests are asked to bring a vegan dish to feed eight people. The Orland, CA event will be catered and costs $30 per person. Both events require reservations by 10 November 2006. Unfortunately, they cannot accommodate reservations made after the deadline.

Though I will not be able to attend the California celebration this year, I hope to be there next year. However, not for the vegan food as I'm sure Mark and I will a superb meal on our own. Mostly, it's for the chance to interact with the turkeys. I hope that, when they are old enough, I can take my niece and nephew to experience something like this.

Click here for more information.


These turkeys won't end up as Thanksgiving dinner!