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ok, since we are down to the nitty gritty, and i think we are there if we are talking about refridgerators.
aren’t most crops fertilized by animal manure?
Katie, if you can figure out a way to avoid paying taxes and get away with it, PLEASE let me know!
stylistchick, absolutely not, veganic crops use volcanic ash and other mineral rich soils to fertilize crops, no animal products are used at all.
Many farms use petrolium products for “fertilizer.” This has lead to massive depletion in nutritional value of much of the mass produced produce adding insult to injury… someone actually eating a fruit or vegi… and then that produce is devoid of a lot of nutrition. There are studies reporting that a peach in the days prior to WWII is nutritionally equal to ~24 peaches today… 1 orange prior to WWII is nutritionally equal to ~8 oranges today. Ugh!
SocaL – Will do ;-)
As for using animal waste as a fertilizer – is this truly against veganism to do this? I thought veganism was a philsosophy /lifestyle of non-harm to animals. Animals don’t need their waste. In fact, using their waste to fertilize food that can in turn be used to feed the animal can be viewed as beneficial to the animal, and it can be viewed as negligent not to do so. Wouldn’t using animal manure (at least, herbivores) improve the nutritional quality of the food? As such, wouldn’t this be a necessary practice in the eyes of a vegan?
EDIT – I don’t mean to use the fertilizer as a big business, like to have factory farms JUST for the manure, or to even get manure from poorly treated animals – but looking at it purely as just the action of using animal waste as fertilizer.
I just found this http://www.cancerproject.org/media/newsletter/f…
It gives the numbers on how much is actually given to the factory farms, alcohol producers, sugar growers/factories, etc…and how little is given to fruits and vegetable growers. Does anybody see something wrong with this?
And as for the subject of using animal by-products even manure – if people switched to a vegan diet / lifestyle then there would be no need to have any animals held in artifical environments by humans – so there would not be any by-products available. Also once an animal has fulfilled the maximum economic requirements for the industry they are supplying (dairy, meat, agriculture, clothing, wool, whatever) they are always (not often or usually but always) killed or sent to a slaughter house. Even a sheep that is ethically kept and has it’s wool shaved in a humane way will eventually be sent to slaughter because it isn’t producing the same quality or quantity of wool as other younger sheep. It is not economical to keep an animal that is not producing just to keep it from slaughter, so it is slaughtered. This goes for most of the animals in circuses, that appear on television, Hollywood movies, and even Las Vegas shows.
Hey, I just took a cooking/info series from them!!! As a matter of fact, last class was last night. They advocate a cooked vegan diet. If you have a chance, go to their classes. It was very informative.
They don’t include tobacco growers? Shame… And yes, something is wrong with that.
Okay, this conversation is getting very deep. So I’ll add a little more.
Fruit is not really vegan. How about all those waxes that they use?
Shellac comes from an insect -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac
and then there’s beeswax -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeswax
However, I still consider myself vegan. Without growing all my own food, I can’t really control what goes on. It really comes down to the avoidable and the unavoidable, without being a fanatic.
ok. i’m here to learn. a lot of things have been mentioned here that i did not know about. ron4540- are ALL fruits waxed. i don’t think the fruits i get at the local fruit stand are since they are local and not shiny. so it is POSSIBLE to avoid wax right? also, i thought wax was mostly made of corn (which is awful too actually in my opinion).
a comment was also made about gaskets and cars and stuff. are there alternatives i should know about? we are stating a lot of problems here, so i was just wondering if someone had any solutions. veganism is something new to me, so i want to make sure i make the most educated decisions possible.
and yes, the taxes comment is like what i was saying earlier… following the money is a nasty task!
ron4540…that brings it back around to my question. how can one be such a fanatic about veganism when, clearly, there is no visible limit to the exact meaning behind the philosophy? it’s a very, very arbitrary word!
incidentally, i will never, ever consider myself vegan. why? there are too many of these ‘fanatics’ out there who insist upon putting a fixed definition on such an easily arguable term. furthermore, i DO NOT plan on rallying at fast food chains, helping PETA in any fashion (including but not limited to thrashing fur-vending businesses, throwing red paint on opera-goers sporting fur, and smearing the name of jennifer lopez or any other fur-supporting celebrity for that matter), going around informing people that they’re not vegan, or feeding my carnivorous pet a vegan diet. i suppose it’s fair to say that i believe people should live their own lives and that ways of life and beliefs should never, ever be peddled. i believe this is where brainwash comes into play.
i do, however, feel a lot more guilt now for things i never did before- i can’t even bring myself to FINISH the giant jar of honey in my cabinet just to get rid of it so i can begin my existence honey-free. i may still buy leather shoes, but i will not buy wool (although i will not throw out the wool i already own!), i don’t think i’ll be able to use cosmetics anymore that aren’t cruelty-free, and i will never buy fur again (i’m ashamed to say that i totally have a fur coat in my closet which i SWEAR was a $900 coat i paid $100 for because it was on clearance! so i didn’t FULLY support fur when i bought it!)...
no matter how ‘vegan’ i become through the future, the vegan label has now left a bad taste in my mouth. i’ve thought about yesterday’s interaction all day today, and it’s not something i want to be associated with any longer. so, i guess it’s back to taking 10 minutes to explain my eating habits again despite the ease of saying ‘vegan’ to people who probably don’t know the difference anyway…lol
I make a distinction between a vegan diet and a vegan lifestyle. It’s relatively easy to acheive a vegan diet. Many or most of us on this site are probably doing just that: eating, drinking, or injesting through the skin no animal products. Yet it’s exceedingly difficult to fully acheive the vegan lifestyle due to the many unavoidable products like, um, public bathroom soap. So probably very few, if any of us who are reading these words on our computers, live a vegan lifestyle.
I really dislike the idea of “all or nothing” espcially amongst people who have so much in common. Anybody reading or posting to these message boards is obviously interested in a more healthy and/or humane lifestyle. To begin to belittle people because they call themselves “vegan” and still wear wool is really a waste of time. I think it’s more important that people have begun to make steps to improve their lives as well as the world around them. Maybe someone touched base on this but espcially when we’re the minority to begin with (even with the vegan/vegetarian community), why would we want to start categorizing each other and breaking up a potentially very strong movement? If any of us in the vegetarian/vegan/raw community really want to be heard and treated with dignity from the rest of the US, it’s more important to recognize the tremendous steps we’ve already taken together instead of getting into more “vegetarian/vegan/raw” than thou debates. This has always disappointed me about these communities. ..not that people’s lifestyles and beliefs aren’t important, they are. And I don’t think that these issues should be tip-toed around, but when they become such a big deal that people are getting angry with each other, it becomes counter productive.
Shane – I was just thinking that today: making the distinction of vegan diet and vegan lifestyle. I no longer tell people “I am vegan”, but if they ask I would probably still say “I eat a primarily raw vegan diet.”
It’s not a matter of saying one person is superior to another because they are vegan or vegetarian or Greek or whatever…it’s all about education. Many of the readers on Gone Raw are relatively new to eating raw and vegan. The reasons why readers are going raw or vegan are very diverse. Some for health, some for ethical reasons, religious reasons, spiritual reasons, etc. etc. The idea behind this forum is to educate people and hopefully they can read the many ideas that people post and then do their own thinking and homework to find out if the new ideas make any sense and then maybe they will change their behavior or maybe they wont. Most readers here were brought up on a standard diet and are learning a lot by reading this forum. To understand how our daily lives can cause harm to animals and to the planet simply by what we choose to eat, wear, drive, etc. is an important education for those who don’t know of this or who have never thought about it. They can then decide if they want to believe what they read and if they want to do something about it.This entire forum is a big Gone Raw University – except that the tuition is free for those who have an internet connection.
shane and katie- you are both absolutely right in my opinion, and it’s funny, because i was thinking about that last night…i sort of grew up thinking that people were omnivores, vegetarians, or vegans. and i’ve always said, since becoming more vegan in my eating habits, that i ate ‘a primarily raw and vegan diet’. the one time i said i was vegan instead of an ‘eater of a primarily vegan diet’ someone caught it, took it literally, and i was chastised for it…lol
elizabeth- you are absolutely right also. i brought up the issue of people arguing and turning against each other on a website such as this earlier on in the thread. i think it’s sad. i mean, we’re humans, and sometimes humans disagree whether we like it or not. my main issue WAS the issue, not the idea of how vegan or not i happen to be. i just don’t think it was handled in a manner conducive to progress. but sometimes that happens.
i don’t eat anything that’s not raw- and i would never go around telling people that ate 80% raw that they weren’t ‘raw foodists’. it’s all a journey and a frame of mind. we all operate on different levels and everyone’s on a different lesson all the time.
and what you said about us recognizing the tremendous steps we’ve taken instead of arguing supremacy harkens back to the wise words of ‘pianissima’...focus on the positive instead of focusing on what you, she, or he doesn’t do. and i think that’s wisdom we should all take to heart and strive to live by.
these issues definitely shouldn’t be tiptoed around…but we should all discuss them peacefully, try to help each other as much as possible, and open up so we can learn and grow. when we set up walls we become afraid of what’s on the other side that we didn’t see coming from a distance…if you know what i mean. ;-)
Back to the comments about taxation earlier in this thread. I keep hearing that USA law is more ambiguous than everyone thinks in the subject of taxation. It may be possible for people to opt out of funding their governement. Here’s one article I just looked up:
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/tax.htm
I have a good friend who gradually went raw vegan with the help of a dehydrated salmon recipe I got from one of the threads on this site. He had a lot of blood sugar issues and his sugar would bottom out on a strictly raw vegan diet. He used the dehydrated (raw ) salmon everyday and then a few times a week until his body cleansed and adapted to the raw vegan diet. I am very grateful to whoever it was who was open enough to mention that recipe in one of the threads. As many have mentioned in this posting, it is all about the journey and there are many paths that lead to the same destination.
SocaL- Well said.
Zoe – ... sweet… I need to seriously look into this now. Most laws are ambigous. Unfortunately if you point that out and find a way around them, it will only work once. Then they change the law. :( ... However this article is from 2000. I’ll have to read the 16th amendment and find out for myself (if I can figure out their horrible law-wording…) They state that “no law makes anyone liable for taxes.” ... This could probably be argued pretty efficiently, but I’ll have to look into it. (I didn’t read the whole article yet so maybe they go more indepth…)
Going back a little bit, but I thought of this today…
Pianissima – You said: “ani phyo feeds her dog a completely raw vegan diet and he thrives on it. her vet. apparently thinks this is wonderful. i would LOVE to do this next time i have a dog.”
I’m pretty sure that dogs are closer to being omnivores than most carniverous pets. I’ve read that cats are more strictly carniverous than dogs. The same goes for ferrets. What about a snake? A bird of prey (for falconers, which may not even be allowed in a vegan lifestlye)? My point is that although feeding a dog a vegan diet might be okay (personally I have some qualms about it, but I can see the virtue of it much better than I can any other pet), but what about other pets who are more strictly carniverous?
What about the ownership of typically wild animals? Are snakes, birds of prey, deer, skunks, and other more wild animals not allowed? What if they are injured in some way? Personally I would think that wild animals would not be allowed for a vegan (unless they were for some reason unable to survive in the wild), but domesticated ones would be different (if you’re ignoring their past of wild-ness). What if it is a wild type of animal, but the individual had been bred in captivity?
Of course I doubt there are surefire answers to these, just trying to stir debate.
The word vegan, usually pronounced was originally derived from “vegetarian” in 1944 when Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson, frustrated that the term “vegetarianism” had come to include the eating of dairy products (lacto vegetarianism). The founded the UK Vegan Society. They combined the first three and last two letters of vegetarian to form “vegan”, which they saw as “the beginning and end of vegetarian”.
The word “veganism” denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude
Sorry, mygreenmojo – very late reply to your message! Anyhow, it was Essene texts I was referring to. Also, raw milk (apologies as this is a vegan forum, but just answering your question) is a very different thing from pasteurised milk. (In fact, The Essene Gospel of Peace says Satan loves the smell of heated milk!) Studies have shown that a lot of the bad things we associate with milk come from heated rather than raw milk (and goats is better than cows). Norman Walker, who lived to around 110 years, depending on what you read, also wrote on this.
In Jamaica they say that humans can eat the same things that a goat can. I also read somewhere that cows milk is not healthy for us and it is normal to be lactose intolerant but it did say that if we wanted milk then goats milk is best for us. So debbietook has a good point.
Thanks, debbietook,
I’ve always thought goats are pretty cool animals and I might like to keep one someday so that’s good to know. I was thinking just for a cool goat friend and maybe for fiber, but raw milk might be an added bonus. It’ll be a number of years before this would be possible, though, just thinking aloud. (Apologies again to vegans for discussing animal use.)
katie- yeah, i suppose i said that, about dogs, because i LOVE the idea that it could work. i think if i had a dog again though, i’d probably make friends with my local cattle farmer and ask if my dog could come around for scraps or something??? take it hiking in the woods and hope it catches a squirrel? the thing is, if you are feeding your dog kibble or the ambiguous pate in cans, then they are getting damaged protein anyway. most dogs live a pretty great life on damaged protein (well, as do we… there is so much MORE). theoretically, don’t you think feeding them veggies mostly and the occasional uncooked “hunted” (where they would be doing the hunting) treat would be enough? animals, us included, don’t need to eat quite as much as we think anyway…
i’ve never owned a wild animal (as in snakes, turtles etc…). it breaks my heart to see something brought up in a cage.
about goats- i read in gabriel cousens book that he had earlier assumed only cow’s milk to wreak havoc on our cells (he examines raw vegan diets through the microscope), but then noticed something funny when he was looking at a particular blood sample of one of his clients. it was that the client had incorporated goat’s milk (unpasteurized) into his diet. asked to give it up, the cells returned to normal in a few weeks… that said, i have no experience with the GOAT DIET… but that might make someone a nice fortune. =) they are always looking for the next fad diet book. !!!!
Isn’t the usual transition something like this?
Meat eater, cut out red meat, then chicken, then fish, then eggs, then dairy, then leather/wool/silk, then household products, then honey, and maybe raw.
It may not necessarily be in that exact order, but the idea is that once a person becomes more conscious, there is a gradual opening up. More exposure through reading, web forums, and self-exploration leads to more refinement.
Even if a person only comes part of the way, that’s a great thing! But I think that once the process starts, it tends to continue.
Pianissima- Indeed, just about ANYTHING is better than that supposed pet “food” they sell at stores. As far as feeding them veggies with the occassional hunted food item… It sounds good, but you need to be able to let your dog hunt. That requires an area to hunt, the confidence that your dog won’t run away while in the heat of the chase (I know my dog will run after anything that moves, and this will eventually lead him pretty far away from home… in other words, he’s never off the leash anymore), and something for him to hunt. The dog also needs to be able to hunt, know what is food and what isn’t, and you have to hope that if your dog happens to kill a stray cat that it wasn’t the neighbors. Stuff like that.
Scraps from a local cattle farmer sounds like a GREAT idea, in my opinion. Well, mostly. If you can get organ meat, thats the best. But I’m also of the opinion that feeding cows to dogs isn’t good. It just seems like a big animal for a dog, or a pack of dogs, to take down. But scavenging, I guess anything’s game…
Having your dog hunt is definitely ideal, but not easy to actually do. I feed my dog veggies and fruit (he loves it), but also chicken flesh (with supplementing livers and gizzards, and other organs if I can find them). Sometimes I even give him raw bones. Whatever you can do to mimic a whole animal is best.
As far as feeding veggies mostly, I think that this is something the dog would only supplement in the wild, or would depend upon in times that meat wasn’t available/couldn’t be caught/what have you. But hey, if an animal thrives on it… then its got to be good.
About goats – My family keeps them. They breed them and sell them for meat. My uncle was telling me how I could make a ton of money selling their cheese as organic. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wouldn’t do that in a million years, cause he seemed pretty into it. But yeah, goats are kinda cool. They eat EVERYTHING, so to say a human can survive on their diet doesn’t surprise me… I’m sure a LOT of things could survive on their diet. Seriously. I remember stories of them eating like cans and stuff. Just cause its there.
But I’ve never seen them eat anything crazy. Just grass, grains, and hay. They make funny noises too. One time I hear this:
Baby goat: “Meow”
Second baby goat: “Cat”
Me: ... wow they’re smart.
They always say funny things >D
I’ve heard raw goats milk is good, but I still wouldn’t drink it. I only tell that to people who are like: I could never give up dairy but I want to do whats healthy! (My cousin said this to me recently)... so I said: Raw goats milk is your best bet, if you don’t want to make your own almond milk (she didn’t seem thrilled with making almond milk).
Thats interesting with Gabriel Cousens… I just a book of his (not sure if he has more than one?). I’m actually about to start reading it.
i think his remarks about the cons in drinking raw milk were in ‘rainbow green live food cuisine’. he said one of his subjects had ‘clean blood’ (meaning, very few or no bacteria/microorganisms, whatever, observed under a dark-field microscope) for a while, and suddenly, the blood was ‘dirty’ with these little germs. when asked if any dietary changes had recently been made, the subject replied that he had added raw goats’ milk to his diet. when asked to omit the goats’ milk in the future, he did, and the future tests again ran ‘clean’.
he also is really big on limited sugar intake…things like pineapple, mango, dates, bananas, and other sweet fruits are eaten in strict moderation. this was too hard for me at this point in life! although, if in a rut in the future, i will most likely try his teachings again. they make quite a bit of sense.
The truth is we live in the world of cruelty and it is personal responsibility to know the source and make assessments what is important. To me honey is not a sweetener it is healing and most nutritional part of diet. I will be most attentive to the fact what the source is. Thank you for detailed description
I moderate on several forums with several thousand members, and I don’t have a problem with conforming in a site that doesn’t belong to me, ha-ha. I visited here for quite a while and lounged around before I joined and never saw anyone condemning anyone else. I love these folks ability to create beautiful, healthy meals, and their willingness to help nourish others by providing recipes and advise, and well, I’m just astonished at their love. Again, this is a site created to teach and share with raw foodists and if they prefer vegan meals, then I’ll do the best I can to be a good member, even if I sneak off here and occassionally devour a plate of sashimi(I love it too).
Sorry, but reading about hunting lobsters and killing them to eat just creeps me out. I never liked cooked lobster because the thought of boiling them alive always seemed wrong to me. It just seems serial killerish to stalk and kill animals for food. Obviously very vegan here.
As for synthetic vegan replacements for clothes made of animal products, i’m all for it. Synthetics are natural, i believe. Oil is a vegan product, making plastic a vegan product, i think. The fact that oil is unsustainable? Anything becomes unsustainable when you use it too much and it is made too slowly, i think. I bet there are ways to grow oil faster. We can have oil farms. :) I’m all for scientific research into vegan products. I don’t agree with scientific experimentation on animals. I wanted to be a plastic surgeon up until 6th grade when they made us dissect animals and insects in biology and i hated it so much that i decided that i’d rather not be a plastic surgeon if it involved killing life so i could study their body. This was before i even went vegetarian. Maybe if they found more ways to research plastic surgery in a vegan way, i would have done it. Even dissecting dead humans seems better than euthanizing animals for research, i think.