Vegan Info
Vegans take personal responsibility for making the world a better place by giving up meat, dairy products, eggs, and other animal-derived items. By doing so, vegans don't contribute to the needless suffering of animals.
Living a vegan lifestyle is the best thing you can do to help animals. On average a person switching from the standard American diet to a vegan diet will prevent the abuse and killing of about 100 animals per year.
If you are not already vegan, please work to cut all meat, egg, and dairy products out of your diet. If you don't feel you can go vegan "cold turkey," you may want to try reducing your animal product consumption by a set amount every week, until you are completely vegan. Remember, it's not an all or nothing. Every time you choose vegan food over animal products you are making a difference. If going vegan seems too difficult right now, start simple. Eat veggie dogs, use soy milk on your cereal, increase the portions of the vegan foods you already eat.
For more info on veganism please see our literature page.
What is Veganism?
The following is an exerpt from Vegan Vittles written by Joanne Stepaniak, M.S.Ed.
Simply stated, veganism is the conviction and practice of compassionate living. Although this way of life has been followed by a number of individuals and groups throughout history, it wasn't until 1944, when the first Vegan Society was formed in England, that the term vegan (pronounced VEE-gan) was coined to differentiate vegans from vegetarians. This was the beginning of the vegan movement.
By definition, a vegetarian is one whose diet consists of vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts, and sometimes animal products such as eggs, milk, or cheese. A total vegetarian is someone who lives solely on the products of the plant kingdom without the addition of eggs or dairy products.
The term "vegetarian" refers only to what one eats and does not pertain to any other aspect of one's life. The impetus for becoming a vegetarian may be based on ethical, religious, health, environmental, or economic concerns, or any combination of these. The motivation for becoming vegan, however, is fundamentally rooted in a compelling set of ethical beliefs. Both total vegetarians and vegans abstain from eating all meat, fish, or fowl, as well as any other foods of animal origin such as butter, milk, yogurt, honey, eggs, gelatin, or lard, and any prepared foods containing these ingredients. But veganism encompasses far more than just diet.
The Vegan Society in England defines veganism as follows: "Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverance for life. It applies to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives, and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or in part from animals."
Therefore, in addition to adopting a total vegetarian diet, vegans make a conscious effort to avoid all forms of exploitation, harm, and cruelty to animals regardless of any "beneficial" end result or any perceived "value" to society. Thus, vegans do not hunt or fish and abhor the unnatural confinement, cruel training, and degrading use of animals in circuses, zoos, rodeos, races, and other forms of "entertainment." Vegans oppose the unnecessary and barbarous testing of cosmetics, drugs, and household products on animals. They also denounce experiments performed on animals. The use of animal products for adornment such as pearls, ivory, or tortoise shell; or clothing including items made from silk, wool, leather, or fur is also shunned. Furthermore, vegans do not use soaps, cosmetics, or household products which contain animal fats or oils, perfumes which are made from animal products, brushes made of animal hair, or pillows, comforters, or parkas stuffed with feathers.
Although this may appear to be a lengthy list of "don'ts," it illustrates the extent to which human beings have come to rely on animal-based products and will advocate animal exploitation when it involves making a profit.
Some people might argue that it is impossible to be totally vegan in today's modern society, and technically, they would be right. The use of animal products and the byproducts of meat, dairy, and egg production are, sadly, tremendously pervasive. For instance, animal fats are used in the production of steel, rubber, vinyl, and plastics. Hence, cars, buses, and even bicycles are not vegan items. Animal products are used in bricks, plaster, cement, and many home insulation materials. They can also be found extensively in everyday products including over-the-counter and prescription drugs, glue, antifreeze, hydraulic brake fluid, videotape, photographic film, tennis rackets, musical instruments, and innumerable other items. Even wine may be clarified with fish meal or egg whites.
Vegans acknowledge that purity in an industrial country is not only unattainable but unrealistic, and to maintain the impossible as an objective may very well be counterproductive. Participating in a society which is founded on animal exploitation places vegans in a continual ethical dilemma. The goal, in effect, becomes trying not to capitalize on, promote, or in any way contribute further to this anthropocentric perspective. Vegans are, at times, inevitably forced to choose between the minutia of ethical consistency, and a realistic approach. Embracing veganism compels practitioners to confront their attitudes towards all forms of life. According to the American Vegan Society, founded in 1960, the primary motive behind veganism is dynamic harmlessness, the tenet of doing the least harm and the most good. This philosophy encourages vegans to search for options which will protect and improve the lives of all living beings on this planet, eliminate suffering, bring about the responsible use of natural resources, and inspire peace and harmony among people. Consequently, veganism is not passive self-denial. On the contrary, it instills active and vibrant responsibility for initiating positive social change by presenting a constant challenge to consistently seek out the highest ideal.
The Reality of "Free-Range" Eggs
There are very few places that have truly free-range eggs. If a farm produces enough to package their eggs and put them on a store shelf, you can be fairly certain that it is a small farm. A small farm would have fewer then 100 hens. Once hens number over 100 or so, they are unable to establish a pecking order, so they fight constantly. When that happens the farm usually cuts off the hens' beaks, their primary weapons, with a hot knife [see picture below]. This is very painful and crippling procedure. The beaks do not grow back, and the pain and mutilation from de-beaking [see picture below] causes many hens to not to be able to eat or drink, resulting in death from starving or dehydration. Fewer hens die from de-beaking than would die from the stress-induced fighting, so the industry looks at de-beaking as a money saving procedure. The majority of "free-range" eggs come from de-beaked hens.
If a small farm gets a lot of support and does well, it often intensifies its production and therefore is no longer a small farm. Also, realize that only females lay eggs, so any farm that has layers has either killed or sold off the males (if the farm hatches its own eggs). It is more likely, however, that the farm bought its hens from a hatchery. All hatcheries that hatch egg laying hens kill the males at a few days of age [see picture below], or, as investigators have repeatedly discovered, they dump the male chicks in a dumpster alive [see picture below]. Males do not lay eggs and are of the wrong stock to be profitable for meat production.
Once a hen is no longer producing profitably, she will be killed. Most free-range hens, like chickens killed for meat and all other hens no longer profitable for egg production, are transported to the slaughterhouse crammed into small cages on the back of a semi truck [see picture below]. They are hung upside down and have their throats slit [see picture below]. If a hen misses the whirling blades that are intended to cut her throat, she will be scalded to death in the feather removal tank. There are, I am sure, small family farms that have a dozen or so chickens that do not kill the hens, but those farms barely produce enough eggs for themselves and perhaps a few neighbors. If you find a farm like that then I will not take the effort to dissuade you from eating those eggs - that is if you do not care that eggs have three times the cholesterol your body can excrete in a day, meaning 200 mg of the 300 mg of cholesterol in the egg sticks in your arteries.
There is another reason to go 100% vegan and stop fussing with trying to find that one farm in a thousand that might have truly cruelty-free eggs: animals are here for us to use. As long as the idea persists that non-human animals are commodities, we will not achieve animal liberation.
A final reason it is better to just go vegan then to try to search out eggs that might be truly free-range is that eating ANY animal products can be a Pandora's box. If you eat an egg from a farm that is truly humane, it's much easier to let other eggs slip back into your diet. It's much easier to just go vegan. It's healthier, it supports the vegan market, it shows you have taken a stand against all exploitation of animals, and it is much healthier.
More information:
What's Wrong With Dairy and Eggs?
The "Free-Range" Myth
The Reality of Organic and Free-Range Animal Products