IVU Online News
2014-01 IVU News
on 20 January 2014. Posted in IVU Online NewsTable of Contents
Visiting Ghana for IVU World Vegfest 2014MEVEG 2013 Conference
Update from Turkey
Veg Bobsledder Headlines Winter Olympics
Veg Pledges: They May Work Vegan Radio
Veg Food Is Not More Expensive
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
10 Affirmations for Animal Advocates
Book News 1 - The Cry of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights
Book News 2 - Power Foods for the Brain
Book News 3 - Never Too Late To Go Vegan
Book News 4 - The Global Guide to Animal Protection
Book News 5 - Veganism: Its Ethics, Politics and Struggle
Upcoming Events
Welcome to Organisations That Have Recently Registered with IVU
Other Online Sources of Veg News
Visiting Ghana for IVU World Vegfest 2014
Visiting Ghana for IVU World Vegfest 2014
The 2014 IVU World Vegfest will be held in Accra, Ghana in 1-6 October, 2014. If you are thinking of attending what is sure to be an exciting event, you can find lots of useful information about Ghana at the Ghana Tourism Board website, including where to look for good airfares: http://www.touringghana.com/airlines/airlines.asp
Other sources of information are the IVU World Vegfest site at http://worldvegfest.org, and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/595768793773435. Plus, you will find more details in future issues of IVU Online News..
MEVEG 2013 Conference
Middle East Veg Group (MEVEG), an IVU member organisation, takes this opportunity to thank you for all the support in making the 4th Meveg Congress a grand success. Our 18 speakers and panelists shared their gems of knowledge and learning with over 200 attendees on the 3 December at the Hall 4 World Trade Centre.
The opening address by Sandhya Prakash (see photo) –Founder of MeVeg urged the Food and Ingredients industry to listen carefully to consumers an-d natural/organic product manufacturers for better health of the people of Middle East.
Dr Sreedharan of Vedanta Academy dwelt on what drives the mind and how choices are made by individuals. Dr Mohammad Al Oun, an expert on organic farming from the Ministry of Environment and Water, highlighted the UAE's local Organic Vegetable Market. Dr Nandita Shah from Sharan Auroville, speaking on All about Fat, scared the audience with the video showing plasma thickened by fat.
Dubai Health Authority's Dr Wafa Helmi Aish congratulated MEVEG for its role and spoke about the healthy plate for UAE. Dr Maria Reynold - a Diabetes Nurse from RCDR, Ministry of Health, highlighted the need for prevention and lifestyle modifications in addition to treatment.
The Nabati Cake, a vegetarian cake specially designed and prepared for the occasion courtesy of Brownie Point, was cut by Patrons and Speakers of the day. Lovely Ranganath from Health Trendz advised How to Build Muscle with a veggie meal pack.
The lunch, courtesy DWTC Health Trendz, was delicious and enjoyed and appreciated by all. Dr Forrest Beck highlighted the efforts of Al Mansoori Engineering's corporate efforts in keeping his company employees motivated to stay fit and healthy.
Post Lunch speaker Zaufyshan Haseeb brought power to the audience with her talk on the Power of Thoughts to heal the body, and Ramamoorthy Thevar enlightened us about Fusion Healing. Sujyot Sakhrani, a Senior Nutritionist from Singapore, spoke about the body clock and the need for us to keep a close eye on it with food intake.
The closing ceremony began with audience bathed in relaxation with a wonderful Gong Meditation led by Zarine Dadachanji followed by a talk Passion for Compassion by Mohanji - Founder - ACT Foundation.
For photos of the event: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152434892349502.1073741829.260283294501&type=3Update from Turkey
Ebru ARIMAN () sends the following from the Vegan Vegetarian Association of Turkey.
The Turkey Vegan and Vegetarians Association (TVD) came together at the same time in the squares of three large cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir at 14:00 on Sunday October 27th, 2014 in joint celebration of October 1st World Vegetarian Day and November 1st World Vegan Day and in order to bring attention to the rights of our animal friends who we share this planet with.
Carrying banners and signs with slogans against animal cruelty and specieism, the demonstrators also distributed flyers with information on and encouraging vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. All participants held hands to form a chain, emphasizing unity for the sake of animals.
The press release, read simultaneaously in three cities, read:
“We are here today to remind everyone that animal are not our to treat as a product to buy, sell or use as we see fit and to say stop animal cruelty! The meat industries demote living creatures with emotions and feelings to items with economic value and thus support the maximum exploitation of everything that can be used for a profit and the ideology that being powerful means being right. We are here in the squares to say stop the murder by human hands of select living creatures that can feel pain like humans, who have a nervous system, eyes and ears, who have offspring through birth, who run, who walk, who fly, who slither away and can to some degree socialize!
We cannot claim a species is smarter compared to another until we decide to what criteria we measure intelligence according to.
We can not claim a species feels more pain compared to another until we decide to what criteria we measure pain according to.
We can not claim a species has more right to live compared to another until we decide to what criteria we determine the right to live according to.
The freedom of individuals is possible through the freedom of animals.
We invite everyone who believes in the notion of freedom, the end of the rule of social humans over animals and the right of animals tol ive to join us in this cause!”
The Association will continue to raise awareness and provide information with various different events organized throughout the month.
For more info www.vejetaryenkulubu.com; www.tvd.org.tr
Veg Bobsledder Headlines Winter Olympics
Russia is not a country known for vegetarians, at least not since Tolstoy. That may be changing, as one of the best known Russians at the 2014 Winter Olympics, being held in Sochi, Russia, is a vegetarian. Alexey Voyevoda won a silver in bobsledding at the 2006 Olympics and a bronze in 2010. He will be competing again in 2014.
Furthermore, Voyevoda is a three-time World Champion in arm wrestling. Read more about this remarkable person here: http://olympictalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/16/russia-bobsled-alexey-voyevoda-arm-wrestling-world-champion/ and here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/raw-vegetarian-professional-arm-wrestler-oh-and-also-olympic-bobsledder/492882.html
Veg Pledges: They May Work
This article reports a study in which those people who were asked to make a commitment were more likely to change their behavior than those who weren’t asked to make a commitment. Even after the pledge period ended, those who took the pledge were still engaging in more pro-environmental behaviors than those who didn’t pledge. It appears that pledges are an effective tool for behavior change, both in the short- and long-term, and are worth the extra effort.
http://www.vegfund.org/blog/?p=734
Vegan Radio
If you know of other veg radio shows - in any language, please send them to for listing in the next issue of IVU Online News
Veg Food Is Not More Expensive
Price is a frequently heard objection to going for a whole food veg diet. Such arguments are based on counting calories, and meat and junk foods are often cheaper per calorie. However, if we compare based on nutrients, a whole food, plant based diet is cheaper.
For details, see these two free blog posts by Dr Michael Greger: http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/11/26/best-nutrition-bang-for-your-buck and http://nutritionfacts.org/video/eating-healthy-on-a-budget. The latter is a video.
And, Dr Greger’s new DVD is now out: http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/12/05/all-of-dr-gregers-dvds-now-downloadable, and he is offering it free to all IVU member organisations. Just email him at and specify if you would like the new DVD as a video download or physical DVD (or both).
This Month’s HCYKTASEM
This month’s How Can You Know This And Still Eat Meat (HCYKTASEM) piece is from a satirical website, The Onion. http://www.theonion.com/articles/factoryfarmtotable-restaurant-proudly-serves-local,34673/?ref=auto
Sometimes, satire can uncover reality in surprising ways.
ST. Helena, Ca - Promising cuisine made from the “freshest, most inhumanely treated ingredients,” new factory-farm-to-table restaurant Cage announced this week that it is proud to serve the meat of locally tortured animals. The restaurant, which boasts that it only uses meat raised and slaughtered in abhorrent conditions within a 100-mile radius of its premises, confirmed that it works exclusively with a network of corporately owned factory farms to ensure its suppliers adhere to the highest standards of cruelty.
“We offer a different kind of dining experience, one that preserves the link between the food on the table and the industrial plants that make each animal’s short time on this earth a living hell,” owner and head chef Mason Keflani said. “We want our customers to understand that the steak they’re eating not only originated nearby, but came from a cow who suffered immensely from the moment it was born to the moment a conveyor belt moved it into place so that men with hooks and knives could tear it to pieces.”
10 Affirmations for Animal Advocates
The following very positive guidance was written by a Singaporean animal activist and distributed at the January 2014 Asia for Animals conference.
1. I celebrate animals and portray them not only as victims but as beautiful and sentient beings who are our teachers and healers.
2. I celebrate my efforts for the animals, regardless of the outcomes. I may not see some results in my lifetime. I still enjoy the journey.
3. I share and am inspired by stories of success, transformation, failure and resilience. Stories are memorable and are soul food.
4. I stay inspired by continually learning and growing, not just as an animal advocate but also as a person. My personal growth affects my contribution to the animals.
5. I make time for restoration. I play. It invigorates me and adds freshness to my work for animals. I enjoy stillness and silence.
6. I develop the wisdom to know when to keep going at something and when to let go, step back and try something new.
7. I strive to be joyful. My joy affects my creativity, collaborations and quality of my work. My joy draws more people towards caring for animals.
8. I forgive and am compassionate to people who have different views than I do. They are doing their best with what they know. Like me, they are striving to increase their happiness and reduce their suffering.
9. I use peaceful means and dialogue to create a peaceful world for animals.
10. I see connections between the oppression of animals, humans and the destruction of the environment. I am open to collaborating with kindred spirits from other movements so that we can create a more just and compassionate world for all.
https://facebook.com/ForThoseServingAnimalsBook News 1
Review of The Cry of Nature: Art and the Making of Animal Rights by Stephen F. Eisenman, Reaktion Books, 312pp, pbk, 98 illustrations; ISBN 978-1-78023-195-2, £18
The Cry of Nature “reveals for the first time the significant role played by artists in the development of animal rights from the eighteenth century to today”. At least that is what the back cover of the book claims. However, Fierce Friends: Artists and Animals, 1750-1900 by Louise Lippincott and Andreas Blühm (Merrell, 2005), the lavishly illustrated catalogue of an exhibition held in Amsterdam and Pittsburgh in 2005/6, has already covered similar ground, and in considerably more attractive format. In contrast, all 98 illustrations in The Cry of Nature are rendered in black and white, lending the book little visual appeal. This, together with the tight binding and uncompromising subject matter makes the book a difficult and uncomfortable read.
The book’s title is taken from a radical, indeed revolutionary, animal rights manifesto written by the Scottish soldier, vegetarian and Jacobin John Oswald in 1791, two years before his death defending the French revolution against monarchists in the Vendée. Here, Oswald is linked with the French painter Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), whose paintings of animals, especially horses, displayed a sensitivity and sympathy for their plight that was unusual for the time. There is no doubt that Géricault, best known for his macabre masterpiece The Raft of the Medusa (1819), was a great painter, and his paintings must have had considerable impact on the viewer, but whether he and the other artists featured in The Cry of Nature can be said to have played a part in the development of the animal rights movement is questionable. Artists reflect but rarely shape the ideas and morality of their times. Furthermore, the choice of artists (mainly painters and writers) featured in the book is surprising and idiosyncratic. For example, considerable space is devoted to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whereas the poet and pioneering vegetarian Percy Shelley (1792-1822) barely receives a mention and the abstract painter and vegetarian Franz Marc (1880-1916), who devoted most of his work to animals, notably horses, none at all.
The Cry of Nature is dry and pretentious in parts, erudite but hardly easy reading. Stephen F. Eisenman, Professor of Art History at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, has written a book that is unlikely to satisfy either art lovers or animal advocates, and it is hard to see it making any sort of impact beyond academic circles.
Paul Appleby
January 2014
Book News 2 - Power Foods for the Brain: An effective 3-step plan to protect your mind and strengthen your memory
by Neal D. Barnard; with recipes by Christine Waltermyer and Jason Wyrick. published by Grand Central Life & Style, ISBN 9781455512195.
Here are excerpts from Dr Barnard’s blurb for the book.
Power Foods for the Brain, a new book by noted nutrition researcher and New York Times best-selling author Neal Barnard, M.D., reveals how simple diet changes can shield the brain from memory loss, stroke, and Alzheimer’s.
Power Foods for the Brain presents the latest and most compelling research on nutrition’s surprising effects on the brain. Dr Barnard also lays out his simple three-step plan to protect the mind and strengthen the memory: Put power foods to work, strengthen your brain and defeat memory threats.
“Every minute, our brain cells are bathing in the nutrients—or toxins—we take in through food,” says Dr Barnard. “Just as we put money in a retirement account to ensure a secure future, we can put foods on our plates today to help keep the brain in high gear well into the future.”
Research overwhelmingly shows that “bad fats”—such as the saturated fat found in red meat and butter—greatly increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s and reduce brain functioning in the short term. But conclusive evidence demonstrates that eating foods rich in vitamin E—such as almonds and sunflower seeds—may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by as much as 70 percent.
Power Foods for the Brain identifies these and the dozens of other brain-trigger foods that are consumed on a daily basis and offers tips and insights on how to build back up brain health.
The book includes 75 power-food recipes developed by chefs Christine Waltermyer and Jason Wyrick. The all-inclusive program includes sample mental stimulation exercises, guides to choosing aluminum-free foods and medicines, and a guide to physical exercise.
Watch an interview with Dr Barnard at http://www.happycow.net/blog/?p=6139
Book News 3 - Never Too Late To Go Vegan
By Carol J. Adams, Patti Breitman and Virginia Messina, MPH, RD. Published in New York by Experiment publishers. ISBN: 9781615190980. Here is the book’s Table of Contents.
Preface: With Age, Wisdom; with Wisdom, Vegan
Part One: It Really Is Never Too Late to Go Vegan
Chapter 1: Why Now? Positive Aging the Vegan Way
Chapter 2: How to Go Vegan: Your Next Major Life Decision
Chapter 3: Why Vegan? Veganism Is a Simple and Effective Response to a Series of Complex Contemporary Issues
Part Two: Nutrition for the 50+ Body
Chapter 4: Why and How We Age
Chapter 5: A Healthy Diet for 50+ Vegans
Chapter 6: Vegan Diets for Lifelong Health
Part Three: Eats Well with Others
Chapter 7: Relationship Dynamics: Family and Friends and Veganism
Chapter 8: Vegan in the World
Chapter 9: Veganism and Caregiving
Part Four: Let’s Eat!
Chapter 10: How to Veganize
Chapter 11: Recipes for Everyday and Festive Eating
From the preface:
“We wrote this book to reassure you, bust your notions of what aging looks like, show you how to prepare scrumptious food, and help you rediscover one of the most precious, life-affirming parts of yourself.
We hope it will be a successful introduction to a lifestyle that brings you renewed energy, better health, a new sense of purpose, and a new experience of power to affect change. That is what it has done for us and for countless others who choose a vegan way of life.
[…]
According to popular folklore, wisdom comes with age. What could be wiser than choosing compassion, vibrant health, and a vast, delicious cuisine to be the guiding principles in our life?”
Book News 4
Review of The Global Guide to Animal Protection, edited by Andrew Linzey with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (pictured here). University of Illinois Press, 324pp, pbk; ISBN 978-0-252-07919-1, $27.
(£17-99 from the UK distributors at http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/26583-global-guide-to-animal-protection.html)
The Global Guide to Animal Protection is a compilation of more than 180 articles arranged in seven sections describing the abuse and exploitation of animals worldwide, the animal protection movement, philosophical issues surrounding the treatment of animals and the principles of a compassionate, animal-friendly lifestyle. The list of contributors reads like a Who’s Who of animal advocates and includes such prominent figures as Jonathan Balcombe, Marc Bekoff, Jasmijn de Boo, Jan Creamer, Joyce d’Silva, Juliet Gellatley, Jane Goodall, Alex Hershaft, Gill Langley, Philip Lymbery, Jill Robinson and Richard Ryder. Surprisingly perhaps, animal rights theorists such as Tom Regan and Peter Singer are conspicuous by their absence: this is a practical rather than a philosophical guide.
Pride of place among the contributors must go to the editor and compiler of the Guide Andrew Linzey, Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, for whom the work took on something of a labour of love during the lengthy gestation period. In his introduction to the Guide, Professor Linzey calls for the establishment of an International Cruelty Tribunal to judge cases of cruelty to animals and specifically to access the culpability of governments in failing to prevent the systematic abuse of animals. Subsequent to the findings of the tribunal, an International Cruelty Register would “name and shame countries whose governments fail to participate in the hearings or fail to take action against cruelty (and) alert people to those countries whose record on cruelty is outstandingly poor”. Idealistic - yes, unrealistic - probably, but as the editor points out, “new initiatives are necessary if we are to be serious in pursuing the possibility of a cruelty-free world”.
The inclusion of a foreword by Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu adds considerable weight to the publication. In his first major statement on animal welfare, Archbishop Tutu points out that “our dominion over animals is not supposed to be despotism … we do not honour God by abusing other sentient creatures”, and calls on churches to “lead the way by making clear that all cruelty - to other animals as well as human beings - is an affront to civilised living and a sin before God”.
Although the Guide does not claim to be comprehensive, it provides a wide-ranging introduction to animal welfare issues. As such, it is best dipped-into rather than being read from cover to cover. The Guide is most likely to be of use to academic institutions and hopefully also to legislators, brief selected bibliographies at the end of each article pointing the way to further reading for those requiring a deeper understanding of the issues. The tiny font size and absence of illustrations are likely to discourage the casual reader (this is no ‘coffee table’ book), but anyone with an interest in animal protection should get themselves a copy in order to see and better understand the bigger picture. In summary, The Global Guide to Animal Protection is a landmark publication that deserves to become a standard reference work for the animal protection movement.
Paul Appleby
(contributor to the Guide of an article on Vegan Living)
January 2014
Book News 5 - Veganism: Its Ethics, Politics and Struggle
By Zulal Kalkandelen / Can Başkent
Propaganda Press
September 2013
http://propagandayayinlari.net/vegan.html
(Available on all major ebook retailers)
In a country whose name is identified with “kebab”, defending animal rights is usually seen as being “Don Quixote”. Quixote’s fight against the windmills reflects his desire to make the world a better place. In this manner, it would be right to define veganism in Turkey as being Don Quixote as vegans have an ideal of a better and more peaceful world. In pursuit of this ideal, vegans reject the system that has built itself as a tradition in centuries.
However, there is an important difference between vegans and Don Quixote: Quixote experiences his adventures in his imagination while the system that vegans object to is real. In the world that vegans live in, animals are slaughtered each and every day, their milk which they were supposed nurse their babies with is confiscated, their meat and skin become a commodity, they are experimented on, used in entertainment; in short they are abused and exploited continuously.
It is not a coincidence that animal rights movements have gained a momentum in the 21. century. The populations increased, technology advanced, industrialism has spread all over the world, and as a consequence, animal slaughter has reached to tremendous amounts. However, at the same time, in Information Age, tools that can expose the depth and the extend of this exploitation have been developed. Raised awareness in the society naturally helped the animal rights movement gain strength. Just as the people who once approved of slavery later objected to it, more and more people started to raise their voices against the animal slavery.
Unfortunately, written materials on animal rights in Turkish are not easily available. It will not be easy to change the cuisine as the consumption of animal products are very widespread. Nevertheless, animal right activists exist in Turkey, and they raise their voices more and more, protests and marches are getting more common, and increasing number of people get interested in the subject.
In the light of all these developments, the first book on veganism in Turkish has been published this year! Journalist and author Zulal Kalkandelen and researcher Can Baskent’s e-book “Veganism: Its Ethics, Politics and Struggle” is an easy-read written in a dialogue style. The two authors, who have chosen veganism as a life style, answer the questions on veganism’s ethical and economical aspects, and its political stand and struggle. An important point made in the book is that veganism is not only a dietary preference. As the authors underline, ethical veganism which advocate animal liberation, is a holistic philosophy that reaches out to every aspect of life.
In order to partake in the discussions, and make them more lively and elaborate, we believe it is very important for vegetarians to read this book. We think, discussions on veganism should go beyond the point of “How do you get our protein?”. Putting together the scientific facts and the philosophical aspects of the subject, one should answer the following question: “Am I, or am I not against the animal exploitation?”. This is the central point of our discussion. We are faced with, not windmills, but a system that oppresses animals who experience pain the way we do.
College Art Association conference - Theme: Unbecoming Animals – 12-15 February, 2014, Chicago, USA - www.collegeart.org/conferenceThe Science of Animal Thinking and Emotion – 17-18 March, 2014 - Washington, DC, USA - www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1213795 Why Do Animal Studies? - 3-4 April, 2014 - Chicago, USA - animalstudiesgroup.wordpress.com
Viva’s 20th Anniversary Celebrations, as part of Vegfest UK - 23-25 May, 2014 - Bristol, England - www.viva.org.uk
Reading Animals: An International English Studies Conference - 17-20 July, 2014, School of English, University of Sheffield, UK. The Oxford Summer School on Animal Ethics - 121-23 July, 2014 - Oxford, England - www.oxfordanimalethics.com/what-we-do/summer-school-2014/
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.
6. AnimalConcerns.org doesn't have a newsletter, but they post stories daily at www.animalconcerns.org/categories.html?do=shownews
7. Vegan.com www.vegan.com 8. IVU-Veg-News E-Mail List www.ivu.org/news/veg-news 9. Vegetarianism in the News www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=928IVU Online News is non-copyright. Readers are encouraged to share the contents elsewhere. If you do so, please consider including a link to www.ivu.org/news as others may wish to subscribe to this free publication.