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Detox Your Life: How to Responsibly Get Rid of Your Non-Vegan Crap

leather beltsSooner or later on your road to veganism you’ll wonder, “what on earth do I do with all of these frozen steaks / leather shoes, purses and belts / non-vegan alcoholic beverages / pints of ice cream / wool blankets / non-vegan household cleaners and personal hygiene products / etc. in my house?”.  Parting with your non-vegan stuff can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be.  The good news is there are a bunch of options for you to get rid of your non-vegan junk.

Have a yard sale

Yard sales are a great way to quickly get rid of non-vegan items like furniture, clothing and even jewelry.  It’s also nice to have some money left over afterward that you can use to buy some new awesome vegan stuff.

Sell to friends and family

Friends and family are the easiest people to sell to.  Just make sure they’re actually buying it and not just going to try to give it back to you as a gift.

Sell online

Websites like eBay, Amazon and Craigslist are great ways to turn your old, gross non-vegan stuff into cash, but they need a bit of setting-up.  You might need to set up a PayPal account if you don’t already have one.

Pawn

You definitely won’t get a fair price, as pawn shops need to turn a profit to stay in business, so this should be a last resort.  Pawn shops can be rather picky too, so stick to your safe bets: jewelry, valuable trinkets and really, really old stuff.

Give gifts

Unless you’re giving away something terrible, most people are happy to get free stuff regardless of how little they may actually like it. Read more of this post

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Go Vegan, Save the World: 8 Similarities Between Animal Rights Activists and Superheroes

marvel and dc superheroesWe admire superheroes for their unwavering belief in the power of compassion and the inherent goodness of humanity.  We look up to them, idolize them, and champion them as role models for youth to emulate and aspire to.  In the face of adversity, superheroes never give up, they never give in, and they never compromise their ideals.  Superheroes have taught us that “with great power comes great responsibility” among many other valuable lessons for treating each other with kindness.  But have we actually learned anything from them?

We need to see the connection between villains using their power to harm humans, and humans using our power to harm animals.  The following are eight similarities between animal rights activists and superheroes and how you can help save the world by adopting a vegan lifestyle and becoming an animal rights activist.

1. Superheroes use their power for good

“With great power comes great responsibility.” ~ Voltaire (and later, Uncle Ben from Spiderman)

animal man, dc comics

Animal Man (aka Buddy Baker) is a vegan animal rights activist superhero of the DC Universe. He has the power to assume the abilities of animals, such as the flight of a bird, the wall-climbing of a spider, the color changing of a chameleon, and the regenerating of a worm, among many others.  Although he has been a long-time minor character in the DC universe, Animal Man’s story has recently been relaunched to much critical acclaim.  Other vegan and vegetarian superheroes include Beast Boy, Aquaman, and in some depictions, Superman.

The most basic difference between superheroes and villains is that superheroes use their power for good, while villains use their power for evil.  Superheroes believe in truth, justice and compassion while villains believe in chaos, violence and greed.  Though certain villains may believe they are fighting for truth and justice, their version of justice and their means of obtaining it are twisted and immoral.

Superheroes believe in standing up for the underdog and use their power to speak on behalf of those without power.  Unlike villains, they don’t view those without power as inferior beings and they don’t use their power as a reason to inflict pain to others just because they can’t fight back.

While a villain sees people without powers as a massive herd to dominate and rule over, a superhero sees people without powers as individuals to protect and care for.

Animal rights activists remove themselves from all avoidable acts of cruelty done to other sentient creatures on their behalf.  When they learn of injustices to animals, they empathize, inform others and fight for justice.  Animal rights activists are compassionate to all sentient life forms because they believe that treating others with respect is simply the right thing to do.

“I decided early that I would never take a life. Right around the time I decided that I wanted to live. It wasn’t an arbitrary decision and it was more than moral. It’s about identity. As long as you can choose that, choose who you are in the world… you can choose to call yourself sane.” ~ Batman

2. Superheroes dare to dream

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us. And on my soul I swear… until my dream of a world where dignity, honor and justice becomes the reality we all share… I’ll never stop fighting. Ever.” ~ Superman

Superheroes aren’t afraid to dream of a better world.  While others are content to accept things as they are, superheroes dream of something better.  Villains dream as well, but they don’t dream of a better world the way superheroes do.   Villains’ twisted dreams of a better world are ones in which they are the ruler of a slave race (the human race) or even suicidal dreams of total annihilation of the universe and apocalyptic destruction causing the death of all life, including even themselves.

Superheroes are idealists and dreamers, but they are not delusional.  They understand perfectly well the hard work, the sleepless nights, and the shed tears it will take to make their dream a reality.  But they understand that some of the biggest ethical leaps forward society has taken throughout history at first didn’t seem possible.  They all started with that one person who thought “but what if it is?” Read more of this post

I’m Quitting Veganism To Be a Level 5 Paleo

vegetarian indian word for lousy hunter, philosoraptor Everyone, I have a confession to make… I decided that I don’t want to be vegan anymore.  It’s boring to me now.  It was fun for a while, but ultimately just a phase.  I had a realization the other day while watching my meat-eating co-workers eat lunch.  They all got McDonalds and it looked and smelled so good.  They were all laughing and having a good time without me.  I started wondering, “why do they get to have all the fun?”.  It just didn’t seem fair.  So I finally made the decision to quit being vegan.

I’m going to start my paleo diet today with a big steak, not even cooked, and I’m going to eat it like the cavemen did, with my bare hands.  And I’m not even going to wash my hands before I eat.  Or brush my teeth after.  And what are you gonna do about it?  Then probably about a week or so later, I’m going to crap that steak out in the woods like my caveman ancestors did.  I won’t even wipe with a leaf.  I’m an animal — RAWR!  I’ll just rub my butt on a tree trunk ’cause that’s how tough I am.

And for all you who are going to write your hateful blog posts about me, I’ll have you know that our bodies are different.  Maybe yours doesn’t need meat but mine does, okay?  I have these canines for a reason, you know.  And these sweet hunting skills I learned from playing Call of Duty, knifing noobs and stuff.  And lions eat cows so why can’t I?  It’s not like it’s illegal or anything.  Come on. Read more of this post

People For the Ethical Treatment of Plants: 4 Reasons Why the “Plant Sentience” Argument Doesn’t Work

plants have feelings too, carrot, eating, plant sentience, pain, murder

Right… because cows don’t eat plants. [image credit: lerms]

Whether you’re a vegan who has been called a “plant murderer” by a non-vegan, a non-vegan who is trying (and failing) to be funny, or just someone with an affinity for plants, this is information you need to read.  The issue of plant sentience is being brought up more and more as a reason to justify the continued consumption and use of animal products.  There are, however, a few things wrong with this argument.  Here are four reasons the “plant sentience” argument doesn’t work:

1. Plants are not truly sentient

Though certain scientific studies have shown that plants can react to stimuli, these reactions do not point to sentience because they lack three basic qualifications for requiring sentience:

  • Sensory organs — Plants don’t have organs which enable them to see, hear, taste, etc. like animals do.
  • Variability of response — Animals have a conscious perception which acts as an intermediary between their environment and their many different behavioral responses to it.  Plants lack this variability in that they will react in the same manner regardless of different scenarios (ex.: growing toward the sun).
  • Appetite and locomotion — Nature has enabled animals to be sentient because they have the ability to move around.  As I discussed briefly in my post about “ethical meat”, pain exists to teach sentient creatures what stimuli to avoid in the same way that pleasure exists to teach sentient creatures what stimuli to seek.

Plants do not feel pain the way animals do because they have no reason for it.  If a plant had the means to get up and walk away from an area that was too dry, wet or cold, it would make sense for nature to enable the plant to feel pain.  Enabling a living organism to feel pain without the ability for that organism to alleviate that pain is not something done by nature unless by some sort of mutation (i.e.: a creature being born without limbs or with mental or physical disabilities).

For more information on the science and philosophy explaining why plants are not sentient, click here and here.

2. Logical fallacy: Tu Quoque

A person who uses the “plants have feelings too” argument is guilty of using the Tu Quoque (You Yourself Do It) logical fallacy.  This fallacy has to do with accusing your critic of being guilty of doing the same thing they accuse you of, even though the two situations being compared are not identical.  For example:

“If a vegan can kill plants, then I have the right to kill to animals.”

As I have illustrated above, plants are not sentient and comparing plant’s reactions to stimuli and animal’s proven sentience is not the same, and this renders your argument fallacious. Read more of this post

Getting The Very Best From Your Vegan Diet

— This is a guest post by Lily Drayton —

Many people assume that unless you are consuming animal protein on a daily basis that you are not getting a nutritionally complete diet, that has all the necessary vitamins and minerals needed for good health and wellness. This is a notion that really needs to be addressed and challenged. It’s completely possible to get all the nutrients you need from non-animal sources and is much easier than you might first imagine.

A varied and abundant diet of fresh food

assorted vegetables chartThe best way to make sure that you get all the vitamins and minerals you require is to make sure that your diet is plentiful in fresh fruit, vegetables, legumes, pulses, grains and nuts. The fresher and less processed your food is, the better chance your body has of being able to digest the nutrients they contain.

However, many people still worry that nutrients commonly more associated with animal protein sources will be missing from their diet.

Protein

quinoa, cooked, vegan, vegetarian

Quinoa [image credit: t-dubisme via flickr]

Protein is easy to find in many food sources and need not come from meat at all. In fact, it’s fair to say that over consumption of protein is one of the biggest problems, both with weight and overall health in the western world. Plant based protein is easily digestible and very good for you and can be found in such foods as lentils, beans and grains like quinoa. These foods also have the added bonus of being high in fiber, keeping you full and sustained for longer and also will help to keep blood sugars stable.

Examples: lentils, beans, quinoa, tofu, seitan, tempeh

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

flax seeds

Flax seeds [image credit: Sean Dreilinger via Flickr]

More commonly found in oily fish such as sardines, mackerel and salmon, the best way to include this essential nutrient into a vegan diet is to incorporate Flax Seeds or Flax Seed Oil into your eating regime. Omega 3s are vitally important for the function of the brain, the cardiovascular system and our sight. The seeds themselves can be incorporated into salads or sprinkled into breakfast cereals for added crunch and texture. However, it is worth noting that they need to be crushed a little before consumption, otherwise the valuable Omega 3 they contain can’t be as easily digested. Using Flax Seed Oil in salad dressings is another good way forward too. If none of that appeals, there are Flax Seed supplements that come in vegan approved capsules which can be taken.

Examples: flax (seeds, oil, or vegan gel-caps) Read more of this post

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