IVU Online News
2013-09 IVU News
on 14 August 2013. Posted in IVU Online News
Table of Contents
Malaysia’s Health Minister To Open IVU Vegfest
IVU Africa Needs Your Help Again
India International Vegan Festival
Another List of Top Performers Who Are Veg
Thug Kitchen and Other Vegan Blogs
So Your Child Has Decided To Eat Vegetarian
Visual of the Month
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
The Psychology of Going Veg
Book News 1 -
Book News 2 - VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6
Upcoming Events
Other Online Sources of Veg News
Please Send News to IVU Online News
Malaysia’s Health Minister To Open IVU Vegfest
Dr Subramaniam Sathasivam, Malaysia’s Minister for Health (who is vegetarian!), will officially open the 2013 IVU World Vegfest in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Fri, 4 October: http://mvs.my/2013. The opening will be preceded the previous evening by a welcome dinner.
Here is more information of this dynamic event, which is being held in conjunction with the Asia Vegetarian Congress.
Friday and Saturday, 4-5 Oct, will be held at the Putra World Trade Centre and will include the usual mix of talks and workshops, plenaries and concurrent sessions. The plenary room holds about 1000 people. The concurrent session rooms hold at least 120. Most talks will be in English, but there will also be a room for talks in Mandarin.
One session of particular interest is scheduled for Friday afternoon, bringing together representatives of local and international veg organisations for a strategy session. On Saturday morning, in addition to the talks and workshops, there will also be a forum about vegetarianism and sports, hosted by Malaysia's Sport Ministry.
Sunday is the fest day in an outdoor venue, Lake Titiwangsa, with more than 100 veg food stalls, plus events for kids, dancing, singing, raw and cooked food demos and speeches. That event is 7am to about 4pm, ending in the handover from Malaysia to Ghana, the host of the 2014 IVU World Vegfest. Monday, 7 October is a free day, followed by a veg tour to Penang, Malaysia.
To learn more http://mvs.my/2013.
IVU Africa Needs Your Help Agai
n
Next year, 2014, will see the first ever world veg event to be held in Africa. This is mostly thanks to the work done by the IVU Africa Representative, Emmanuel Eyoh (white shirt, centre in this photo at a pan-Africa veg gathering) in Nigeria. He organised the first international African veg event in 2007, in Lagos, and has since promoted and supported several more in other African countries, such as Ghana, Togo and Kenya.
But Emmanuel has never been able to go to any of the other IVU events around the world, simply because of the cost.
We would really like to help him go to the 41st IVU World Vegfest, in Malaysia, October 2013. So this is an appeal from IVU to help raise some funds for his travel and accommodation If we can do that then the Malaysian VegSoc have offered him free registration for the event.
(Everything at the 41st IVU World Vegfest will be completely vegan as always.)
This would be valuable experience to help Emmanuel continue his work in Africa - he is already working towards another regional event in Cameroon later this year, and some inspiration from elsewhere could make a big difference.
If you can donate, even a small amount, please go to:
www.ivu.org/africa/donations.html - where you can send money to IVU via Paypal. All money raised through that page will be used in Africa.
Thanks you for your support!
Marly Winckler,
Chair of the IVU International Council
India International Vegan Festival
The India International Vegan Festival is specially timed to link with the IVU World Vegfest in Malaysia, which kicks off on the evening of 3 October.
The India event runs from 2pm Sep 27(Fri) to 7pm 29(Sun), 2013, with an excursion on Sep 30. The India International Vegan Festival will be held at the Sthitaprajna Vegan Centre, Yeljit, BYNDOOR-576 214, Udupi District, Karnataka, India. Details at www.indianvegansociety.com/vegan-festival.html
Another List of Top Performers Who Are Veg
Business Insider magazine has published a list of nine prominent male vegetarians.
Included in the list are Biz Stone of Twitter, Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records, Joi Ito of the MIT Media Lab (pictured here) and Bill Clinton. We look forward to a list of prominent female vegetarians.
businessinsider.com/... /successful-men-who-are-vegetarians
Thug Kitchen and Other Vegan Blogs
The blogosphere has much to offer to vegetarians. Here’s an article about some vegan blogs, including one called Thug Kitchen, which is described as “a food blog with a penchant for profanity (motto: “Eat like you give a [expletive]”) and healthful vegan dishes. And since the blog started last September, vegans and non-vegans alike seem to be eating it up. In April, Gwyneth Paltrow name-dropped the blog on an episode of “The Rachael Ray Show,” a syndicated talk show.
http://thugkitchen.com
So Your Child Has Decided To Eat Vegetarian
You may have met young people, teens or younger, who have decided to go veg. The reaction of the young people’s non-veg family members can vary widely. Thus, it is often best if veg organisations try to educate the entire family. Here is one article that seems reasonable in that regard:
www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20130728-LIFE-307280312
Visual of the Month
From dawnofanewera.wordpress.com. In case you have trouble reading the words below the five symbols, they are, from left to right: compassion, non-violence, for the people, for the environment and for the animals.
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
This month’s How Can You Know This And Still Eat Meat (HCYKTASEM) piece is about food writers advocating veg food. These are people who make their living talking about food, and most food available is not vegetarian. Below, in Book News 2, you can read about how a food writer for the New York Times handles this.
Joe Yonan (right in the above photo), the food editor of the Washington Post, one of the U.S.'s leading newspapers, describes his experience announcing that he's vegetarian and compares it to his earlier experience announcing that he's gay.
Another leading food writer, one in Israel, is also veg. Here is her blog talking about that: http://vegansontop.co.il/trip-to-vegan-land - It’s in Hebrew, but you can try Google Translate. The blog links to this famous video http://vegansontop.co.il/gary, a speech on why to be vegan by Gary Yourofsky. The speech is in English with Hebrew subtitles.
The Psychology of Going Veg
If you're interested in the psychology of how people think about whether to switch to veg, this article might interest you. The article reports a study of people’s reactions under two conditions to learning about the cruelty of factory farming.
Here’s a summary from The VegFund of what can be learned from the study:
How can we apply these findings to our outreach? While further research is needed, this study suggests that before giving people information about farm animal cruelty, we should first encourage them to express their pre-existing caring about animals and engage in a dialogue that allows people to vocalize their belief that unnecessary animal suffering is wrong. Then, when given information on the truth about animal agriculture, they’ll be more likely to consider making changes to bring their actions in line with their values. Of course, it’s always important to present information in a positive, professional, and non-confrontational manner, and to keep the tips on effective communication in mind.
www.vegfund.org/blog/?p=634
Book News 1 - Monkey
Review of Monkey by Desmond Morris, Reaktion Books, 208pp, pbk, 104 illustrations, 75 in colour; ISBN 978-1-78023-096-2, £9-99.
Monkey is zoologist, artist, writer and broadcaster Desmond Morris’s second title in Reaktion Books’ Animal series. If Owl, published in 2009, was a surprising choice for the first, Monkey sees the author of The Naked Ape and The Human Animal on more familiar ground. From his introductory anecdote, recalling the time when “a monkey had bitten off my nipples” (fortunately the sort that direct water onto a car’s windscreen) to the final appendix listing some common uses of the word monkey in English slang, this is Morris at his most articulate and entertaining.
There are 173 species of monkey, listed in an appendix, including no less than six species discovered in the last thirty years. Although the latter are described in a chapter of their own, the author wisely treats monkeys as a whole, naming the species only when necessary to pick out specific traits. For example, the slender patas monkey is the undoubted athlete of the monkey world, capable of reaching speeds of 55 kph across the African savannahs, whilst the small capuchin monkey of Central and South America is probably the cleverest, having been observed using heavy stones to crack open hard palm nuts with a degree of intelligence that would put many chimpanzees (and some humans) to shame.
In thirteen short chapters, Morris describes how monkeys have been and still are revered in some cultures (in India, langur monkeys are considered sacred and allowed to roam where they please), despised in others and, inevitably, exploited in many. As well as being kept as pets (Mae West’s infamous instruction to her maid to “peel me a grape” was for the benefit of her pet monkey Boogie who refused to eat unpeeled grapes) and exploited as street and circus performers, monkeys are used to collect coconuts, were unwitting pioneers of space exploration, are trained as working companions for the disabled (those clever small capuchins again) and, most controversially of all, are used in their tens of thousands every year in laboratory experiments.
Here the author briefly presents both sides of the argument before concluding that “scientists would do well to limit their use of monkeys to studies that have special merit for human health”. The problem with this ostensibly reasonable position is that no scientist would admit that his or her use of laboratory animals was in anything other than the best interests of human health, and so the use of monkeys in medical research continues relatively unhindered.
The chapter on “Monkeys and Artists”, in which the author, himself an accomplished artist, describes some notable paintings of monkeys and the stories behind them, is my personal favourite. It is here that the use of colour illustrations really enhances the text, making this an attractive and informative guide to the world of monkeys and the way we perceive them. As the author says, “We owe a great debt to our monkey ancestors. They set us on the right path, the path that would take us from the treetops to the moon and, one day, beyond”. In Monkey, Desmond Morris goes some way towards repaying that debt.
Paul Appleby
July 2013
Book News 2 - VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6
VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6 by Mark Bittman, with foreword by Dean Ornish, plus 60 recipes, published in New York, 2013 by Clarkson Potter, 276pp.
We can see this book as a transition book for meat reducers, but the book, by New York Times food writer, Mark Bittman, is further along toward vegan than most meat reducers. Plus, his columns in NYT go beyond health and taste to include the horrors of factory farming and the environmental damage caused by animal based foods.
You can read and watch lots more about the book, plus view some of Bittman’s other work at http://markbittman.com. Here’s something from the blurb for the book:
Six years ago, an overweight, pre-diabetic Mark Bittman faced a medical directive: adopt a vegan diet or go on medication. As one whose professional and leisure time revolved around cooking, eating, and enjoying a wide variety of fine foods, neither choice was appealing, yet it was clear something had to give.
His solution? Shift the focus of his diet to vegetables, fruits, and grains, following a strict vegan diet (no meat or dairy) and eliminating processed foods for most of the day, then eat the foods he simply couldn’t give up forever only after 6 p.m.—and (mostly) in moderation.
Beyond that, his eating plan involved no gimmicks, scales, calorie-counting, or point systems—and there were no so-called forbidden foods. Just wholesome, all-natural, mostly home-cooked meals that were as varied and satisfying as they were delicious. The results of this dietary recalibration were swift and impressive. Best of all, they proved to be lasting and sustainable over the long haul.
11th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics - ‘The ethics of consumption’ - 11-14 September, 2013, Uppsala, Sweden - www.slu.se/eursafe2013
World Weeks for the Abolition of Meat - 21-29 September, 2013 - various locations - www.meat-abolition.org/en/wwam
India International 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 – 3-7 & 8-9 October 2013, Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia - http://vegetariansocietymalaysia.org
5th China Xiamen International Vegetarian Food Fair, 10-13 October, 2013 - www.whatsonxiamen.com/event3235.html
British Animal Studies Network meeting - Theme: Winged Creatures - 11-12 October, 2013 - Glasgow, Scotland - www.britishanimalstudiesnetwork.org.uk
VegSource Healthy Lifestyle Expo 2013 October 18-20, CA
Featuring icons in the plant-powered lifestyle world T. Colin Campbell, Phd, and Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, in addition to an impressive array of other presenters. This year the expo is giving away two unique written programs to take away.
Healthy Lifestyle Expo.
Eating America: Crisis, Sustenance, Sustainability – 23-25 October, 2013, University of Wroclaw, Poland - http://paas.org.pl/2013-paas-conference%EF%BB%BF%EF%BB%BF
Peace as a Global Language conference [includes a talk+ on veg] - 16-17 November, 2013 - Tokyo, Japan - http://pgljapan.org
College Art Association conference - Theme: Unbecoming Animals – 12-15 February, 2014, Chicago, USA - www.collegeart.org/conference
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. European Vegetarian Union www.evana.org
2. Meatout Mondays www.meatoutmondays.org
3. Vegan Outreach www.veganoutreach.org/enewsletter
4. VegE-News www.vege-news.com
5. VegNews www.vegnews.com
6. VegSource www.vegsource.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi
7. AnimalConcerns.org doesn't have a newsletter, but they post stories daily at www.animalconcerns.org/categories.html?do=shownews
8. Vegan.com www.vegan.com
9. IVU-Veg-News E-Mail List www.ivu.org/news/veg-news
10. Vegetarianism in the News www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=928
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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