Intensive pig farming

There's a particularly awful report in today's Guardian about intensive pig farming, both in the UK and Europe. It outlines the horrible conditions many thousands of pigs endure throughout their short lives - bred as they are, for the plate.

A sow stall is a narrow metal cage, on a bare concrete and slatted floor,
in which pregnant sows spend all three months, three weeks and three days of
their gestation. They can move a few inches back and forwards, but not turn
around. Lying down and getting up is difficult, too.
...
If they're lucky, the animals may get a chain or a plastic football to play
with. But since there is rarely enough light to see by (pigs are quieter in the
dark), fighting and biting are more common than playing. To minimise the effects
of this, the vast majority of piglets' tails are routinely docked soon after
birth, and their teeth clipped, again in breach of EU rules.
...
If it matters to us that our morning rasher or chop or pork pie does not
comes from a genetically engineered fat-free pig that spent its brief life in a
dark, bare, windowless shed stuffed full of antibiotics and reduced to attacking
its pen-mates for entertainment - a pathetic parody, in short, of a pig - we're
going to have to reach deeper into our pockets. Right now, that seems
increasingly unlikely.

There are so many compelling reasons to go vegetarian. And it's easy!
More info and the full article, The price of bacon here.

More reasons

I keep finding ever more reasons to go completely vegan (I don't have milk or yoghurt but have recently started eating eggs, and icecream again - as wll as chocolate and cheese*).

After eating an egg salad sarnie for lunch I came back into the office to read this Guardian article about activists saving 'spent' egg producing chickens from the chopping block when the 72 weeks of their useful egg laying life come to an end.

The free range chickens mentioned in the article start producing eggs, which are gathered up for human consumption, at just 18-22 weeks. The chickens are killed around a year later because they are no longer economically viable.

An egg laying chicken's 'useful life' amounts to about an year and a half. A living thing classified as uneconomic. That really turns my stomach, the lingering taste of egg in my mouth is turning really sour.

If that wasn't enough to put you off animal products, a friend recently told me that something like 25% of a carton of milk is puss. That sounds pretty implausible, right? But some amount of puss, coming from infected udders of over milked cows, that's a whole lot more plausible.

This 'fact' has stayed with me, and today I decided to verify its accuracy. Google Answers to the rescue. In summary - milk has a measured amount of puss in it, some puss, but too much and it's not saleable.

The worst thing about this is the thought that cows can (and are) overmilked to the point of infections in their udders. I kind of feel that if you could still sell infected milk some dairy farmers would, and the cow would have to suffer for it.

Ultimately, selling live animals, flesh or animal products must exploit animals - by the very nature of the relationship. I've heard this described as speciesism, or the hierarchy of powerful over vulnerable. It's the type of power relationship that underpins capitalism and is replicated across human behaviour too; rich:poor, male:female, young:old.

* I buy organic says the little voice that feels bad about eating animals products. Is that the liberal curse? If you can't make yourself do it, at least make yourself feel bad about it instead.

Live and learn

I learnt yesterday that there is a mu-hassive loophole in legislation that allows fox hunting to carry on practically unchanged in the country since the ban in 2004. (some info about this here)

Basically it is fully legal to hunt a fox with dogs, as long as you kill the fox before the dogs get to it. This could be with a gun i.e. shoot the fox and then giving it to the dogs to rip apart before dousing yourself in it's blood, or sometimes a bird of prey is used to kill the fox (I found this quite hard to believe).

Frankly, I find fox hunting abhorrent, and cannot begin to understand the motivation of people who consider this a spot (and a tradition worth preserving).

Why anyone should be able to kill another creature in the name of 'sport' or 'entertainment' is beyond me. This goes for deer stalking, grouse shooting, fishing, trapping and all manner of different ways we as humans have found to waste life and interfere with nature.

I was happy to read that the proposed cull of badgers to halt the spread of bovine TB, which was thought to be linked to them, has been abandoned. There is scientific evidence that badgers do not exacerbate bovine TB, and that a cull could actually lead to worse conditions. The Woodland Trust provide a good summary to the background of this.

Vegetarian and Vegan products

This is kind of a difficult post to write without seemingly to plug something - but I find it really useful when someone recommends a good veggie/vegan cosmetics, toiletries, cleaning products company that I thought I might list a few that I use. A lot of the ones listed below are also organic GM free.

If you can't buy direct you can get most of the products (in the UK) from Honesty Cosmetics (who are super) or the Vegan Store (who are also great).

Cosmetics

Barry M - fantastic colours, (some) vegan products, inexpensive. My favourite. Available online from their website (quick delivery reasonable postage costs) and in some shops.

Beauty without cruelty - nice liquid concealer, their translucent pressed powder is a bit pink though (I'm really fair). Not much colour choice - one for the neutral classics.

Lush - a bit more expensive, but nice packaging! Available online - the makeup's not usually available in store.

Toiletries

Shampoo & Conditioner - I have curly hair and LOVE Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose. Super moisturising and smells lush. My local health food shop has just decided to stop stocking the conditioner though, so I'm using their GPB one instead, but this has milk in so it's no good for vegans.

Colour shampoo - Jason do colour enriching shampoo, I tried the red which worked well to bring out the red in my hair dye at the time, but didn't really bring out the red in my natural hair colour. The one is used is discontinued now, but they do some henna ones on their website. It wasn't as moisturising as the Aubrey Organics so I swapped back.

Soap - Co-op's own Oatmeal soap is great - I use it to wash my face. Shock horror! She uses the dreaded soap on her the face!

Shower gel - Jason do massive pump action bottles which are great and smell nice. I'm using Rose at the moment - which is from the health food shop again, but you should be able to get it online.

Serum - Daniel Field Smooth & Shine serum is really nice, non sticky and makes my hair feel soft.

Curl booster - Daniel Field again, their Curl Hold & Shine, pump action spray that I've just started using. Seems good so far, not sticky or heavy. And it doesn't dry out your hair like moose does.

Intensive Conditioner - Daniel Field, again! The Plant Re moisturising Treatment is good, but don't put too much on otherwise it's heavy. I use it on wet hair and leave it on.

Cleaning products

I like Bio-D and use their concentrate for just about everything from kitchen surfaces, to the guinea pig hutch, to the bathroom sink. I'm still using up my bottle of Ecover toilet cleaner, but I don't think I'll get it again since discovering they use rabbit blood in their product testing.

I also use Bio-D washing up liquid.

Eco balls for the laundry. We got a great deal on these from a shop in Manchester and they last for years before needing new balls. Clothes come out smelling nice, you can wash at 30, and they get stains out (we're mucky).

Supplements - some people say take 'em, some say don't. However current training for nutritionists is everyone should be taking multi vitamins, whether veggie, vegan or not since intensive farming methods rob our veg of its nutrients.

I take:

Omega 3 6 9 by Vertese

Glucosamine + MSM and CMO by Deva

and I need to find some new vitamins - I think I'll try Deva.

Do you have any good recommendations?