IVU Online News
2013-03 News
Table of Contents
Malaysia Amazes in 20132014 in Ghana
The Cruelest of All Factory Farm Products: Eggs from Caged Hens
Fishes, Crabs and Lobsters Do Feel Pain
Are Farmed Animal Welfare Laws Enforced?
Veg Health Blog
Secondhand Smoke - From Meat
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
Vegan Stories - Free Copies Available
Book News 1 - Changing the Game
Book News 2 - Cooking Vegan
Book News 3 - Human-Animal Communication
Upcoming Events
Other Online Sources of Veg News
Please Send News to IVU Online News
Malaysia Amazes in 2013
Now that an IVU World Vegfest takes place annually, instead of every two years, we all need to have our favourite world maps and travel sites bookmarked on our computers, tablets, etc. As you know, in 2013, the 41st IVU World Vegfest will be held in Malaysia, 3-7 October in Kuala Lumpur, with an optional trip to Penang for 8-9 October: worldvegfest.org/index.php/malaysia-2013/overview Plus, plans are being made for other possible post-vegfest trips. That is not to mention the enticing possibility of a pre-vegfest trip to the India Vegan Festival, 27-29 September:
www.indianvegansociety.com/.../vegan-festival.html Malaysian Vegetarian Society (MVS) is hosting the Vegfest. MVS president, Dr P. Vythilingam, MD, a general practitioner, proudly estimates that as many as one million of Malaysia’s approximately 23 million people are vegetarians:
www.nst.com.my/.../more-malaysians-going-green
Dr Vythilingam is himself a vegan, and all the food at this and other IVU World Vegfests is vegan. And, in the case of Malaysia - wow! - there are some amazing vegan dishes you’ll want to try. The April issue of IVU Online News will describe some of these mouth watering dishes. In the meantime, please do be checking your world maps and travel sites.
2014 in Ghana
IVU is excited to announce that the 42nd IVU World Vegfest will be held in Accra, Ghana in October 2014 - the first ever world veg event in Africa!
Ghana has one of the strongest vegetarian associations in Africa - the Vegetarian Association of Ghana (VAG) - with several hundreds of members.
VAG was founded in 2005 by a vegan nutritionist, Nathan Adu, who runs a successful vegetarian restaurant in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. VAG’s secretary is Emmanuel Awunyo, a senior government official. Their patron is the former chief judge of Ghana.
The IVU Regional Representative for Africa, Emmanuel Eyoh, has attended three veg festivals in Ghana, in 2007, 2009 and 2011, and reports that all three events were well organized and well attended, with some participants from other African countries. Emmanuel is confident that VAG is very capable of hosting the 2014 IVU World Vegfest.
Indeed, organising efforts for 2014 have already begun, with VAG mobilising other groups in Ghana and winning government support. The Ministry of Health even has a vegetarian desk, with a banner on the wall urging people to follow a vegetarian diet. Finally, Emmanuel also reports that Ghana is one of the most peaceful and stable countries in Africa and has a low crime rate. For more information on our 2014 vegfest:worldvegfest.org/.../42nd-ivu-world-vegfest-accra-ghana-october-2014
The Cruelest of All Factory Farm Products - Eggs from Caged Hens
This article from Farm Sanctuary - blog.farmsanctuary.org/.../eggs-from-caged-hens - exposes the terrible physical and mental toll inflicted on factory farmed hens who are raised in cages.
The article provides documentation and videos. One of the videos shows a hen who was rescued after the factory farm where she was living was destroyed by a storm. The hen, named Symphony, now lives at Farm Sanctuary:www.farmsanctuary.org/.../animal-tales-symphony Fortunately, the number of sanctuaries for farmed animals seems to be growing. There is even a website that provides resources for individuals and organisations looking to offer sanctuary services: www.farmanimalshelters.org
Fishes, Crabs and Lobsters Do Feel Pain
It’s not news that the animals, even aquatic animals, whom humans eat do feel pain. What is news it that the awareness and the tools to increase that awareness continue to grow. Here are two more examples:
www.care2.com/causes/fish-feel-fear-and-pain-and-stress.html www.news.com.au/.../lobsters-and-crabs-feel-pain-when-you-cook-them
Are Farmed Animal Welfare Laws Enforced?
Unfortunately, the question arises: Are these bans really enforced? In the case of the sow stall ban by the European Union, doubts have arisen.
www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/new-figures-expose-shortfall-in-eu-sow-stall-ban-compliance/52263.article This question comes on top of the question: Why kill pigs or any other animals for food, regardless of the conditions under which they live prior to being killed?
Veg Health Blog
At no cost, you can register to have Jack’s blog delivered free to your email inbox: http://feeds.jacknorrisrd.com/jacknorrisrdcom. Titles of Jack’s recent blogposts include: 2013 Review of B12 Status of Vegetarians and Vegans, Muscle Mass in Old Age, and Vitamin A: A Neglected Nutrient by Many Vegans?
Secondhand Smoke - From Meat
Everyone knows that even people who do not smoke cigarettes suffer secondhand health consequences from the smoke from other people’s cigarettes. Now, Dr Michael Greger reports evidence that we vegetarians and everyone else suffer from the smoke produced when people cook meat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43ArkZEkjvI
Just one more reason for us to urgently convince others to stop eating meat.
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
Some people worry that going veg will hurt them when they eat with others, whether the others are family, colleagues or potential business associates. In part, the fear is that non-vegetarians will view vegetarians as weird, and if we’re weird as to what we eat, we are also likely to be weird in other areas of our lives, therefore making us a bit dangerous to have as friends, colleagues and business associates.
The good news is that being veg, including being vegan, has become increasingly mainstream (or at least accepted in the mainstream). The above url is for the article, ‘7 Reasons To Choose a Plant Based Diet’, from Business Insider. The article represents just one more sign of this growing trend. So, let’s go ahead and proudly proclaim that we’re veg; that declaration may even help us land a job or secure a business deal.
Vegan Stories - Free Copies Available
Vegan Stories, published by the Vegan Society - www.vegansociety.com - is a joyful collection of more than 80 stories featuring vegans of all ages from 2-year-old children to a 92-year-old lecturer and sometime hot air balloonist.
Vegan poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, had this to say about the stories, "Read them and find out why the butcher's son went vegan; why Lucky the chick did not live up to his name; what the vegan hospital patient was given for dinner and how two very special ladies fought cancer and won major fitness championships by going vegan".
The Vegan Society has very kindly offered to ship, while supplies and postal budget last, up to ten copies of Vegan Stories for FREE to any organisation or individual in the world. If you are interested, please send your postal address to .
Book News 1 - Changing the Game
Changing the Game: Why the Battle for Animal Liberation Is So Hard, and How We Can Win It, by Norm Phelps, to be published as a Flashpoint ebook by Lantern Books, April, 2013. ISBN: 9781590563793. List price: US$9.99.
Note: This blurb is excerpted from a press release from the publisher.
Changing the Game begins by examining the five reasons why “the struggle for animal liberation is the greatest challenge any social justice movement has ever faced.” While honestly acknowledging the challenges faced by the animal rights movement, Changing the Game is unabashedly optimistic. In a style accessible to the general reader, Changing the Game makes a compelling case that the animal liberation movement must:
1) pursue a two-track strategy that embraces both abolitionist and more moderate tactics;
2) prepare for the coming era of global pre-eminence by China, India, Brazil and other nations of the East and South, as well as a new America in which women and people of color predominate economically, politically and socially;
3) join with other movements for social, economic and environmental justice to create a genuine universal rights movement; and
4) practice nonviolence by refraining from militant direct actions apart from rescues that save lives.
Book News 2 - Cooking Vegan
Cooking Vegan by Vesanto Melina and Joseph Forest, 2012, ISBN: 978-1-57067-267-5, 264 pages. List price: US$20.
This dietitian and chef duo’s new cookbook includes extensive nutrition information, 12 menus, a chart of foods grouped according to six tastes, a shopping list, and kitchen equipment list.
Among the many recipes for amateur chefs are Carrot, Lemongrass and Basil Soup, Vietnamese Salad, Sushi Rolls, African Chickpea Stew, Sweet and Sour Tofu, Tamarind-Date Sauce, Rosemary Gravy, Lemon Roasted Potatoes, Chocolate-Orange Cake, and Lime Pie.
Book News 3 - Human-Animal Communication
www.routledge.com/..
This edited book explores the subject of human-animal communication from a Communication Studies perspective. Other perspectives brought to bear on the topic include animal studies, biosemiotics and environmental communication. This book provides a point of entry for future scholarship on animal-human communication, as well as the whole range of communication possibilities among the more-than-human world.
Here are some of the chapter titles:
Perspectives on Human-Animal Communication: An Introduction, Emily Plec;
Animals as Media: Speaking Through/With Nonhuman Beings, Tony E. Adams;
Framing Primate Testing: How Supporters and Opponents Construct Meaning and Shape the Debate, Joseph Abidaid;
Absorbent and Yellow and Porous is He: Animated Animal Bodies in SpongeBob Squarepants, Shana Heinricy;
Stepping Up to the Veggie Plate: Framing Veganism as Living Your Values, Carrie Packwood Freeman.
India Vegan Festival 27-29 September, 2013 -.Details of the venue and programs will be soon available at www.indianvegansociety.com 6th Asian Vegetarian Congress and 41st IVU World Vegfest – October 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - http://vegetariansocietymalaysia.org
5th China Xiamen International Vegetarian Food Fair,
Oct 10-13 - www.whatsonxiamen.com/event3235.html
Other Online Sources of Veg News
In addition to IVU Online News, there are many other places to go online for general veg-related news, rather than news mostly about one country or one organisation. Here are some.
- European Vegetarian Union www.evana.org
- Meatout Mondays www.meatoutmondays.org
- Vegan Outreach www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter
- VegE-News www.vege-news.com
- VegNews www.vegnews.com
- VegSource www.vegsource.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi
- AnimalConcerns.org doesn't have a newsletter, but they post stories daily at www.animalconcerns.org/categories.html?do=shownews
- Vegan.com www.vegan.com
- IVU-Veg-News E-Mail List www.ivu.org/news/veg-news
- Vegetarianism in the New www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=928