IVU Online News
Table of Contents
Making Some Noise in Copenhagen
Vegetarian Union of Paraguay Launches e-Newsletter
Vegan Life Centre Opens in India
Middle East Veg Group at Natural & Organic Products Exhibition
Updates on IVU World Vegetarian Congress - Oct 2010
Thanks for a Great Decade
Interview with the Founders of Vegan Outreach
New Video from PETA
Interview with the Founder of ‘Vegetarians at Microsoft’
New Associate Member Society
Upcoming Events
Welcome to Organisations That Have Recently Registered with IVU
Other Online Sources of Veg News
Please Send News to IVU Online News
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Making Some Noise in Copenhagen
Veg voices were booming our message at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.
Here’s just an example, Marly Winkler, president of The Vegetarian Society of Brazil, in a video made in Copenhagen and seen on the website of ‘The Guardian’ newspaper:
http://tinyurl.com/ydekfmt
Also, on the same webpage are videos by such noted vegetarians at Dr RK Pachauri and Dr Vandana Shiva.
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Vegetarian Union of Paraguay Launches e-Newsletter
The Vegetarian Union of Paraguay - http://www.uvpy.org - has launched an electronic newsletter. The initial issue contains articles on health, animal welfare, the environment, recipes and events. If you’d like to subscribe, please contact . And, even if you don’t speak Spanish, UVPY’s colourful homepage will put a smile on your face.
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Vegan Life Centre Opens in India
The Vegan Life Centre, an international vegan centre for yoga, meditation, relaxation and rejuvenation, was declared open on Sun, 1 Nov (World Vegan Day). The centre is located near Byndoor, Karnataka in a picturesque locality, on the footsteps of Western Ghats, a world hotspot of bio-diversity. Declaring the Centre open was vegan Dilip Bafna, Managing Trustee, Animal Rights Fund, Bangalore. A number of dignitaries from both India and abroad participated and witnessed the occasion.
Full report & photos: http://www.ivu.org/swasia/vegan/
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Middle East Veg Group at Natural & Organic Products Exhibition
The Middle East Veg Group Stand drew great interest with an attractive photo exhibition at the Middle East Natural and Organic Products Exhibition - held from 7-9 Dec at the World Trade Centre Exhibition Halls in Dubai, UAE.
Full report & photos: http://www.ivu.org/swasia/meveg
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Updates on IVU World Vegetarian Congress - Oct 2010
The 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress, 1-6 Oct, 2010 in Jakarta, Indonesia, with an optional event 7-9 October in Bali, is moving forward. Susianto Tseng, IVU Regional Coordinator for East/Southeast Asia and Oceania, informs us that he and other organizers recently met with various Indonesian government officials to enlist their support. Also, Indonesian universities are looking forward to sending students and lecturers to participate in the Congress. The Call for Speakers is at
http://www.wvc2010.org/speakers.html
For more Congress updates, please join http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/ivu-congress.
Send enquiries to
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Thanks for a Great Decade
As the first decade of the 21st century closes and the second begins, IVU can say indisputably that 2000-2009 was a time of unprecedented advance for vegetarianism.
There are so many people to thank for that: the volunteers at all the veg organizations, the (underpaid) staff at those organizations, all the people at the veg eateries and food products companies and everyone else who helped people understand and do vegetarianism.
At the same time, 2000-2009 was a decade of escalating meat consumption and escalating damage due to that consumption. Thus, we need to expand our numbers and increase our efforts.
Here at IVU, we would especially like to thank the following volunteers and to warn them to prepare for an even busier, but even more fruitful, next decade:
Website Development: Ashish Purmanund, Mauritius
Italian webmaster and Coordinator for Italy: Franco Tedaldi, Bologna, Italy
Chinese webmaster: Genggeng Ye, Beijing, China
French webmaster: Gilles Chatras, Paris, France
Postal Renewals Secretary: Bronwen Humphreys, UK
The technical work on the IVU Database is provided by Spirit Quest
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Interview with the Founders of Vegan Outreach
Vegan Outreach has been promoting vegetarianism since the 1990s. Their strategy centres on distributing a range of short booklets to people on university campuses.
Here, courtesy of Veg News - http://www.vegnews.com - is an interview with the organisation’s founders.
http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter/VegNewsInt.pdf
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New Video from PETA
PETA’s video ‘Meet Your Meat’ is a well-known tool of veg activists with its graphic description of the horrors of factory farming. Now, PETA has sort of an update of ‘Meet Your Meat’, titled ‘Glass Walls’ and narrated by Paul McCartney, a long-time veg who has recently been promoting Meat Free Mondays - http://www.supportmfm.org
The title ‘Glass Walls’ is from a McCartney quote, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian”. Glass Walls extends Meat Your Meat buy adding such topics as fishes and the environment. View and download Glass Wall (also available in 3D), Meet Your Meat and other videos at http://meat.org
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Interview with the Founder of ‘Vegetarians at Microsoft’
Mark Aggar is the founder of ‘Vegetarians at Microsoft’ at the corporation’s main campus near Seattle, USA. Approximately, 40,000 people come to the campus on a daily basis. Below, Mark answers some questions.
1. How long have you been vegetarian?
I became vegetarian over 15 years ago, and officially declared myself as vegan in 1999, coincidentally just before I started at Microsoft.
2. What is Vegetarians at Microsoft? When did it form?
MSVeg (as it’s known informally) is a group for vegans, vegetarians and anyone looking for veg-friendly food choices at Micrososft. I formed MSVeg in 2004, but didn’t start promoting it until 2005. After an article in our weekly internal ‘newspaper’, we grew to about 350 members. We now have about 650 active members, but I estimate that at least a couple thousand people have been part of the group over time.
3. What was it like to be a vegan at Microsoft 10 years ago?
Very hit and miss. I got to know the café staff very quickly, and even had some folks making special items just for me. But if I needed to eat at another café, there was no guarantee I’d find something to eat. And don’t get me started on food preparation practices!
4. How did the idea arise to form the organisation?
It was formed out of frustration of not having very good or consistent vegan choices in the MS cafeterias and the suspicion that there were a lot of folks at MS who felt the same. Basically I formed it to create a loud voice for better food choices for veg*ns.
5. Do you receive support from Microsoft?
Initially it was purely grass roots. However, after a particularly vociferous discussion on the DL (Distribution List, similar to a Listserv) following an incident involving a mislabelled soup, our VP of Human Resources instructed our food service provider (Eurest, part of Compass Group) to ‘fix it’. She apparently understood the significance that one places on being veg*n. After that. things started getting a lot better, and Eurest were very good about reaching out to us to understand our needs and concerns. They now hold a quarterly meeting with members of the MSVeg where we discuss issues, suggest improvements and review progress and upcoming changes.
6. Tell me about the types of changes you’ve seen since meeting with Eurest.
Change has been significant and very much appreciated. Aside from increases in choices (the primary goal), there is a much greater awareness of veg issues among all levels of the dining staff. Food preparation is much better: there are green handled serving spoons and spatulas, green cutting boards and training for the staff on how to use these. Additionally, there are many specialty items such as vegan cheese and mayo. The most recent highlight has been a Eurest operated vegetarian ‘café’ that serves items such as mushroom and root vegetable flatbreads and oven baked sweet potato ‘fries’.
7. Have you tried to reach out to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to encourage
them to promote vegetarianism in the charitable work in health and education?
No. Thought about it, but frankly, being at Microsoft doesn’t make it any easier for me to do this than anyone else outside the company. There are two very distinct organizations.
8. What types of people are members of Vegetarians at Microsoft?
Everyone and anyone. We have everyone from committed vegan raw foodists to folks are who looking for help in becoming vegetarian.
9. Do you sense that more people on your campus are moving towards vegetarianism? If so, why?
Having veg choices out there in plain view is definitely moving people to eat less animal products. I’ve had lunch with many omnivores that eat a lot more veg food now than before, because of the choices that are available. Some are even on a journey to becoming completely veg.
10. Has there been any kind of backlash, for example, a ‘Carnivores at Microsoft’ organisation?
Funny you should ask. When MSVeg was first getting broad exposure, I think someone did create that very group. It didn’t last long though. However, there is a ‘Bacon Fans at
Microsoft’ group. We even had an on-going thread about ‘bacon bits’ that had both groups on the to: line. Some good natured banter between the two groups but nothing really adversarial.
11. What are the purposes of the group? What ideas do you have for the future of the organisation?
The group has achieved its initial goal (getting the food service company to provide better options), so we’re generally in ‘maintain and improve’ mode. On the improve side, I’m trying to drive the notion of ‘vegan by default’. That is if only one veg dish is available at a catered event, make sure it’s vegan so it is suitable for everyone.
12. Do you know of similar organisations at other IT companies?
No, but maybe with this article we can start a coalition of corporate veg groups and drive the food service industry everywhere to cater to vegans.
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New Member Organisations
Vegetarians at Microsoft - Mark Aggar,
Cooking for Vegans - animal-free cooking made easy -
http://www.cookingforvegans.co.uk/
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Upcoming Events
To view a listing of international upcoming events online, visit http://www.ivu.org/congress
1. Congreso Internacional Crudivegano En Bolivia (International Raw Vegan Congress) -
4-7 Jan, 2010, La Paz, Bolivia.
The Congress will be held in a rainforest location approximately two hours drive from La Paz. For more information: http://encuentrocrudo2010.blogspot.com (in Spanish) or contact Victor Maceda at .
2. Southeast Asia Vegetarian Congress, Tour & Expo, 19-21 Mar 2010 in Medan, Indonesia. Details at http://www.seavc2010.org
3. Taipei International Vegetarian & Organic Food Festival, at the Taipei World Trade Center, 7-10 May 2010
3. South & West Asia Regional Vegetarian Congress - 13-14 Aug, 2010 (dates to be confirmed - Bangalore, India. Contact the IVU Regional Coordinator for South & West Asia, Shankar Narayan -
4. Middle East Natural & Organic Foods Expo 2010 (including an exhibition by the Middle East Vegetarian Group (MEVeg) - 5-7 Dec - Dubai, UAE. Contact IVU International Council member, Sandya Prakash -
5. IVU World Vegetarian Congress - 1-9 Oct, 2010, Jakarta and Bali http://www.ivu.org/congress/2010/index.html
The 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress will be held in Indonesia in two places, Jakarta, the capital (and the economic centre of the country) and Bali, the country’s most famous tourist destination. An outline of the programme is available at the congress website.
6. East Africa Vegetarian Congress - 3-5 Dec, 2010, Nairobi, Kenya. Contact the IVU Regional Coordinator for Africa, Emmanuel Eyoh -
7. 13th International Vegan Festival - 2011 (exact dates to be announced) - Turin, Italy
7. 5th Asian Vegetarian Congress - Oct, 2011, Hangzhou, China
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Welcome to Organisations That Have Recently Registered with IVU
AUSTRALIA
Hippy Heaven Natural Beauty - http://www.hippyheavennaturalbeauty.net
CANADA
Calgary Vegan Meetup Group - http://www.meetup.com/allveg
CZECH REPUBLIC
Vegetarianske stranky - http://www.veg.cz
ROMANIA
Protectia si Drepturile Animalelor - http://protectiaanimalelor.ro
TAIWAN
Forever Health Food Co. Ltd. - http://www.foreverhealth.tw
UKRAINE
Vegetarian Diet - http://vegetariandiet.com
USA
Alaska Vegetarian Society - http://alaskaveg.org
Shoals Vegetarian Fellowship, Alabama - http://www.shoalsveg.com
VegRecipes4u.com - http://www.vegrecipes4u.com
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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.
1. Dawn Watch - http://www.dawnwatch.com/alerts.htm
2. European Vegetarian Union - http://www.euroveg.eu/lang/en/news/newsletter.php
3. Farmed Animal Net - http://www.farmedanimal.net
4. Vegan Outreach - http://www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter
5. VegE-News - http://www.vege-news.com
6. VegNews - www.vegnews.com
7. AnimalConcerns.org doesn't have a newsletter, but they post stories daily at http://www.animalconcerns.org/categories.html?do=shownews
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Please Send News to IVU Online News
Dear Veg Activist
Please use this newsletter as a way to share your knowledge, ideas and experiences with fellow veg activists.
Thx. -–george jacobs -
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