Mylène on the Beach

One of the blogs I find myself returning to again and again is My Face Is on Fire. Mylène Ouellet is the force behind its creation – she states, “I like to poke around and see how much of the issues surrounding (the ethics of consumerism) are (mis)represented in the mainstream media.”  Watch out, media, you are being scrutinized!  A recent post blasted yet another celeb for promoting a non-vegan burger that she admitted to eating. Not only is Mylène a tremendous worker for the cause of abolitionism, she is an intelligent and dedicated human being that has deep respect for animal life as is in evidence in the following interview:

What is your vegan history?  Your abolitionist history?

I spent too, too many years — around a dozen — as a lacto-vegetarian participating in various online “veg*an” discussion forums before going vegan. Although I actually spent many of those years living animal-product-free, I only consider myself to have been vegan a little short of three years, since just after my father died.

Sometime in early 2007, I’d started listening to Bob and Jenna Torres’ Vegan Freak Radio podcast and unlearned a lot of what I’d had drilled into me about veganism the years I’d spent as a non-vegan shuffling various animal products in and out of my diet while convincing myself that I was making ethical choices. Bob and Jenna were the first two vegans I’d ever heard discussing veganism as anything other than a “personal choice.” I’d spent years hearing vegans being dismissed as “extremist” in these online communities where vegans having the audacity to talk about veganism were often chided for hurting others’ feelings by suggesting that consuming dairy or eggs (or using any other animal product) was wrong. Hearing Bob and Jenna’s podcast was an absolute relief.  It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone presenting veganism as the absolute least we can do if we’re serious about the rights and interests of nonhuman animals, and they did it in this matter-of-fact way that made veganism sound normal and the consumption and use of nonhuman animals sound extremist.

Vegan Freak Radio and the Vegan Freak Forums were also where I first learned about Gary L. Francione.  His abolitionist approach to animal rights had the sort of clarity that left me sorry that I’d spent so many years with such muddled thinking. Reading Prof. Francione’s work is what cemented my decision to go — and stay! — vegan and it convinced me that I needed to take things one step further by using my blog to talk to others about veganism.

Do you live with any companion animals? History with nonhuman animals?

I currently live with three cats.  Zeus and Sophie were adopted as kittens almost 10 years ago.  Friends were fostering them for a local shelter, along with their mother, who’d been abandoned pregnant in an apartment by tenants who’d skipped out on their rent. I had been thinking of introducing another cat to the household and when I met the kittens, I fell in love with both.  I had only planned to adopt one, but Sophie had problems with her eyes and I had been told that there was a chance that she would be killed, since it decreased the likelihood of her adoption (her eyes teared constantly — something eventually misdiagnosed as fused tear ducts).

Zeus in the Sunlight

A little over a year later, Sammy was rescued from a neglectful neighbor in my building who’d left him outside 24/7 for several months.  I spent a lot of time in my vegetable garden and he decided to starting hanging out with me.  After I’d spent an entire summer feeding him and treating his abscessed bite wounds from all of the scraps he’d get into — and after failing miserably at getting the local SPCA to do anything — I approached the neighbor about him and she told me that she’d been hoping he’d just “go away.” I’d intended to rehome him, since I was living with four cats at the time, but he was nervous and tended to snap and I was worried that I’d be unable to find someone willing to be patient with him.  As it turns out, he’s just such a really sensitive and intuitive guy and I can’t imagine not having spent the last several years sharing my home with him.

Sophie's Cave

I’ve been rescuing, fostering and rehoming cats for over 20 years now.  Every single one of them was a person to me and has had an impact on my life.  I’m grateful to have had a chance to get to know each one and to have been able to help each one.  Some, like Tarwater who came to live with me in 1994 and died just last summer, I still mourn.  So many people have this unfortunate notion that cats are aloof, and they view them as being sort of generic, when nothing could be further from the truth.  You need to get to know them, to establish relationships with them — as you would with anyone. They’re incredible individuals. I agree with what Vincent Guihan says of them.  He calls them refugees.  These cats, dogs and all the rest of the animals bred into existence to be our so-called pets and then abandoned to shelters — we need to give them homes, to let them live our their lives. People go on about open rescue — busting animals out of factory farms — when there are over 3-4 million cats and dogs (and rabbits, mice, rats, et al.) killed in shelters every year in the US alone. And why?  Because they were bred into existence for human pleasure and then tossed aside when those humans were done with them.  If you have the space, please adopt a non-human refugee from your local shelter.

Is there a viable vegan community where your live?

I live in a really small city in a tiny Canadian province that is mostly rural.  Hunting and fishing are favourite pastimes and animal agriculture is everywhere.  Veganism has entered the mainsteam and more and more people I encounter are familiar with the idea of it, however, speciesism is such a part of the culture here that I’ve only ever so briefly met one other vegan in this city (and our politics were significantly different). She very much believed that veganism was a personal choice and that it didn’t matter whether or not other people used animals.  To me, that’s like saying that you’re against child slavery so won’t enslave children personally, but that you don’t care whether or not others do. I think that some vegans, although refraining from using animals themselves, still very much need to come to terms with their own speciesism in this sense.

The very first time I was ever knowingly in a room with vegans was when I met Prof. Francione and his partner Anna Charlton early last September.  They’re absolutely wonderful people, both of them.

Sammy Relaxing

Is your family supportive of your veganism?

I grew up in a very small town in a working class family.  Both of my parents had been raised on farms and had been taught to view animals as existing for human use. I was the sort of kid who’d bring home every single stray I encountered, but my mother believed quite strongly that non-humans either belonged in the woods or in barns — certainly not inside houses.  I’d already been living away and on my own when I started changing my consumption habits, and my parents respected my choices as personal choices, but for the most part, my family members had it in their heads that I had stopped eating animals because I was a big old softy — that it was an emotional thing. My father used to say that he could relate to it since although hunting season was a very big deal when I was growing up, he refused to hunt, stating that he couldn’t bring himself to kill another living being. During his last few years, he asked me a lot of questions about my actual reasons and the ethics behind it, though, and soon expressed an interest in reducing his own consumption of animal products and in having me cook some vegan dishes for him, but he had so many dietary restrictions at the time that my mother — who did all of his cooking — was opposed to it. I’m convinced, based on our conversations, that had circumstances been different, my father would have eventually gone vegan.

Any advice for budding activists?

Read all that you can get your hands on and think critically about everything that you read and about any information you’re given by anyone.  A lot of people get into animal advocacy thinking that there’s immediate gratification to be had from it and get disappointed when they realize that we have a lot of work to do to change the status quo significantly and permanently. Part of changing this status quo involves informing yourself of the issues and arguments so that you can be a better advocate.  Part of it also involves staying focused on what we owe non-human animals and to talk to people about going vegan and about rejecting the commodification of non-human animals.   Read Gary L. Francione’s Introduction to Animal Rights: Your Child or the Dog to gain a better understanding of animal rights and Rain Without Thunder to learn why it is that anything other than an abolitionist rights-based approach falls so incredibly short in helping non-human animals. Focusing on regulating their use accomplishes nothing except to make people more comfortable with using them. Is that what we really want?

It’s also important to get to know other vegans — other animal rights activists.  Start an abolitionist vegan group in your school or city.  Start an animal rights book club.  There’s a great discussion forum online called Animal Emancipation where abolitionists come together to discuss everything from advocacy to animal ingredients — come join in the discussion.

Mylène posts frequently on Facebook, and you can follow her on Twitter, too (MFIoF).  Be sure to check out her new podcast, either on her blog (My Face Is on Fire) or on iTunes.  Her passion for ethical consumerism, abolitionist animal rights, and simple fairness are all apparent in her writings and podcasts.

Sammy Before Adoption - (Now an indoor cat!)

]]> http://veganacious.com/2010/06/07/mylene-ouellet-abolitionist-on-fire/feed/ 2 http://veganacious.com/2010/04/09/susan-voisin/ http://veganacious.com/2010/04/09/susan-voisin/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 09:58:16 +0000 veganacious http://veganacious.com/?p=5560

One of the most popular vegan food sites on the internet is Susan Voisin’s Fat Free Vegan. With so many people searching for low-fat cuisine, her site gets a lot of traffic from non-vegans, too.  ”I’m happy to be able to expose them to vegan food that’s delicious and good for them.  One less animal eaten is one less animal suffering, whether that comes about from someone turning vegan or someone cutting back on the amount of meat they eat. I try to maintain a welcoming tone because almost all of us were non-vegetarians at some point,” Susan relates.

Sharing Vegan Resources on Fat Free Vegan

Susan became a vegan in 1994 and joined an email list called Fatfree. Several years later, the list had been discontinued and Susan was missing the support and all those great recipes; she decided to develop a new group, and from that her website grew so the group’s recipes would be available for others and be easily searchable, too. With a background in web design that she has since abandoned, she was off to a good start, adding a blog to the site after another year and a half (see Fat Free Vegan Kitchen).

Keeping her eyes open for inspiration, Susan peruses cookbooks, magazines, and stays open to “wild ideas.” Sometimes she will find a recipe that might be good if rendered fat free or vegan; other times she creates something new by using what is left in the refrigerator when dinner time is beckoning. Maintaining a family while busy with so many projects is a balancing act; luckily for Susan, she can combine dinner preparation with a post for her site.

Susan Voisin – More to Follow!

With a successful website and blog, an online forum, a marriage and a child, what is left for Ms. Voisin? “I’ve beeen planning to write a cookbook, but all those other things you mentioned keep me very busy. I’ve also just started a big photography project, taking the photos for Nava Atlas’ next cookbook, The Vegan Holiday Kitchen. Eventually you’ll see the Fat Free Vegan cookbook in the booktore (though it probably won’t be called that).”

Susan's daughter with a feline friend

Susan lives with a husband, a child, four cats, and a dog. A life-long lover of animals, she’s been vegetarian for over twenty years. What is next for this busy, creative woman? Her website is under construction, being redesigned to make it more interactive, so that readers can submit their own recipes and interact with others on the site.

Like many fans, I owe Susan Voisin a debt of gratitude for the resources she has made available for so many people around the globe.  If you have not yet searched her site, you are in for a pleasant surprise. It is easy to find any type of recipe and offers many other features that are not easily found on other food sites. And be sure to check back soon to see that newly designed website!

All photos courtesy of Susan Voisin and Fat Free Vegan.

While listening to one of my favorite podcasts, NZ Vegan Podcast, I was amazed at the solid, logical sound of a very young man, 13 years old at the time, who was on fire for animal rights and veganism.  Not only was he intelligent and well-spoken, he was doing something about the injustice he was witnessing.  Sam Tucker is that young man, now 14, and he is already an enterpreneur (having owned a tee-shirt business), a radio host (Food for Thought), a public speaker (at Animal Rights assemblies and on podcasts), and a successful animal rights advocate.  He is also a snowboarder and a musician.  Sam, as you can tell, does not let any moss grow under his feet.  He is part of a growing number of young people who are making enormous contributions to changing the way people think about animals, about food, and about the earth.  Below is a recent interview done with Sam:

Do you have many vegan associates where you live?
I think in total there are less vegans in New Zealand than other places, but I do know several nearby and I am on an email chatroom with about 120 local vegans.

What are your academic interests?  Where do you see this leading you?
My favorite subjects are English, Business Studies and Social Studies. I would love to get involved with things like political science, sociology and philosophy. One day I would like to set up a vegan/fair trade business or do marketing and graphic design.  I would also like to teach philosophy, especially ethical philosophy.

Who do you admire or look up to? Who is the example you most want to follow, in your family or in the movement?
Vincent Guihan, Gary Francione, Elizabeth Collins, Jordan Wyatt and Roger Yates, among many more.

What are your hopes for the future for animals? For yourself?
I hope that animal exploitation and their status as property will be made illegal.  Obviously, that is a long way from where we are now, but I think it is definitely a possible goal to aim toward. In the more immediate future, we need as many ethical vegans as possible.  The more vegans we have, the less animals are exploited. For myself, I hope to become a more effective advocate and convince as many people to go vegan as possible.  Before vegans have any political power, we need to increase our numbers.

Podcasts are a unique medium that can be tremendously beneficial, are available at no cost, and cover a wide array of topics.  After moving to Texas and working from home, the isolation and intellectual void became mind-numbing. Podcasts helped me to go vegan (Colleen Patrick-Goudreaux, Vegan Radio, Vegan Freaks), to learn about what was going on with animals (Animal Voices, Elizabeth Collins, Jordan Wyatt), learn about abolitionism (Gary Francione, Roger Yates, Vincent Guihan).  Bloggers are also a saving grace; I am a fan of too many to mention here, but Animal Emancipation and the We Other Animals podcasts are high on my list of must-read, must-hear.  Vincent is so multi-faceted, it is hard to get it all in a brief article.  He is a published poet, a pirate, a playwright and a podcaster.  He is an academic, an abolitionist, and animal activist.  He creates beautiful AR posters. He kayaks. He works on his dissertation. He has eight cats all with unique histories, all of whom he treats with great respect. He cooks, and is a cookbook author, with his New American Vegan book recently published by Tofu Hound Press. He is innovative and is not content to veganize traditional fare, but to explore an entire new vista of tastes, textures, and something called “flavor theory.”

Here is the interview with Vincent in its entirety:

You have been a vegan for ten years.  How did that happen?

Like a lot of people, I wasn’t entirely sure why I went vegan.  I knew that my lifestyle was harming nonhuman animals. I didn’t have all of the details worked out.  But I wanted to stop harming nonhuman animals and I knew that veganism was the simplest, most meaningful way for me to do that.  It wasn’t until a bit later that I learned about abolition, understood that provided a simple and effective way for me to think about my moral intuitions and organize my work.

About the pirate and poet? (on your blog)

The piracy is just an internet meme joke.  But I’m also a published poet.  Mostly small stuff.  One of my one act plays was also performed when I was in college as an undergraduate many, many years ago now.  Some pirates also represent some of the earlier forms of democratically organized labor.  That and I enjoy the sea (and water in general) and saying ARRR!

How did you get into blogging and podcasting? You mentioned starting with food blogging; is there another blog out there?

I started with my first blog a handful of years ago now, VeganImprov.  The blog is mostly about improvisational vegan cooking (cooking without a strict recipe) – mostly about getting in the kitchen and trying out complementary flavors, colors and textures and seeing what happens.  When I read Francione’s books, particularly Rain Without Thunder, they made a huge impression on me.  And one of the perceived impediments to adopting veganism is knowing what to cook and how to cook it.  So, I thought, this is a small contribution I could make.  Why shouldn’t I? If it helps just one person make the transition to abolitionist veganism, then it’s worth it.

I started my second blog, We Other Animals, in part to blog my dissertation, but I decided that wasn’t necessarily all that useful.  So, I turned it into a general commentary blog.  Mostly, I blog about what interests me: nonhuman animals and their ethology, the political economy of animal slavery, the rights of animals not to be used as property and our responsibility to go vegan in light of those rights, and so on.  The podcast stems largely from the blog, trying to make the message of the blog even more accessible, but also to expand on some topics for which a blog article is just too long.

But again, I thought, well, I have a $15 headset with a mic, and a little netbook with a mic-in port, why not give it a try? It will probably be an ungodly distaster, but why not?

Loved your open letter to Gary Francione; background?

Gary and I haven’t seen eye to eye on everything always. We’re both passionate and committed advocates who take animals very seriously.  It’s only normal in a movement like abolition where there is no absolute party line, where advocates are encouraged to think critically, where there’s no propaganda machine, and so on, that disagreements occur.  All I can say is that I was wrong here and there (not always politely), but that he was always magnanimous about it.  I issued the letter because he’s often a target of harassment especially from the larger animal advocacy community, and I find that very disappointing.  I find it disappointing because it’s both wrong and intellectually problematic, and because it’s often very, very boring.  Most of the criticisms I’ve seen directed at Francione and his work have been little more than cut and paste, underinformed personal attacks, and it’s very unfortunate that this passes for ‘critical thinking’ among some animal advocates.

The doctoral is in what area? How is the dissertation coming along?

The area is called Cultural Mediations, but it’s largely a cultural studies degree.  My research focuses on the contemporary Canadian novel, its focus on representation of nonhuman animals and the politics that follow out of those representations.  So, for example, Timothy Findley has a whole novel, Not Wanted on the Voyage, about Noak’s Ark and one calico cat’s attempts to stay alive during the flood aboard the Ark.  Barbara Gowdy has a novel about talking nomadic elephants, the White Bone, who are looking for sanctuary in Africa.  Yann Martell has a novel, the Life of Pi, about an East Indian boy (Pi) who ends up on a lifeboat with a number of nonhuman animals from his family’s zoo, including a Bengal Tiger name Richard Parker.  The novel is all about Pi reexamining his relationship with Richard Parker.  All of these novels ask very serious questions about what we owe nonhuman animals and tend to pose nonhumans as agents of change to whom we owe moral duties.  It’s a curious post-WWII tendency and my work asks: “what exactly does this mean and how does it suggest the way we perceive the human/nonhuman animal relationship to be changing?”

I rarely talk about my academic work on my blog and podcast, but it still tends to make its way into my more practical work there.  My work with (mostly) sociorealist literature and moral realism go hand in hand. When advocates are faced with a complicated moral problem, for example, I think there’s often a tendency to do a bit of hand-waving and oversimplification and then to rationalize a decision based on their inclinations. My work with (mostly) sociorealist literature  and moral realism go hand in hand. The strong support for welfare reform in the animal advocacy community is a good example; it privileges what makes activists feel good, but it neglects to take into account all the realities of what nonhuman animals face in slavery today and how the property status of nonhuman animals and speciesism makes welfare reform morally problematic as well as strategically and tactically unhelpful to nonhuman animals.  In contrast, I prefer to look at the reality of a given moral situation in depth and suss out what it means in terms of its complexities. Abolition, in contrast to welfare reform, works from empirical data and soundly reason in that suggests that welfare reform has correlated with a rise in use historically. So, even if there were no moral problems to promoting reforms, I would never advocate welfare reforms because they don’t work in reality. Furthermore, abolition works from a soundly reasoned view that if we want people to stop using animals, we should tell them to stop using animals, go vegan and educate others about veganism and abolition. And although I am not a philosopher, that makes good sense to me!

What keeps you going when the work is so discouraging at times?

I’m never discouraged. There’s probably some sort of  personality disorder for that, but my sense of solidarity with the oppressed is enough to keep me going. I never have doubts about veganism or the rights of animals. I believe in the prospect of social transformation. Reform and violence are not shortcuts; they are steps backwards. In the meantime, every new abolitionist vegan who demands a different future is one brick removed from the foundation of slavery in the present. Every domesticated nonhuman animal who is adopted and whose personhood is restored by love and care is another. In some respects, I don’t feel like I have the option to be discouraged when I see change already happening all around me.  But even if that weren’t the case, there only has to be one abolitionist vegan in the world and the system of animal slavery will always have to answer to someone’s criticism, someone’s demand for change, someone’s insistence on an end to that slavery.  The system’s collapse is inevitable so long as we keep working and building a movement that turns our opponents into our colleagues, and that’s a powerful thing.

What do you do to keep in balance, for fun, to make sure you have time for your family?

I like to run, cycle, swim, kayak, camp, cook, listen to music, read, play Scrabble, bake, dance, chat, talk about ideas and other things. I also make AR posters and outreach/education materials with my partner and we run a discussion forum (animalemancipation.com), which is mostly fun. Pretty standard stuff.  My life is pretty quiet and average, but I find it enjoyable and that’s what really counts.

Background on the cats, how they found you, their personalities, etc.

This  would be a very long story, since I live with eight cats. They’re all very unique.  Azrael, Thor and Jasmine were all rescued by my partner when she lived in Montreal from a cat colony there.  Jasmine and Thor are brother and sister, both white long-hairs.  They both like to bite my toes, Jasmine especially when I’m recording a podcast. Azrael is a small, long haired Maine coon mix. Fred was adopted from a friend. He lost the tips of his ears when someone thought it was a good idea to let him out in a Montreal winter and he was lost.  Julius and Harriet were adopted from our local shelter.  Julius is a remarkably friendly, but also remarkably sneezy, blue cat.  Harriet is a very surly tortie who growls at everyone. Wade and Seymour were both adopted from a no-kill shelter not far from us.  The two were very close after a four year stint together in the shelter.  Wade only has one eye, and both of them were a little skittish, but now they’re both very well-adjusted and very happy.  I want to thank everyone who saves the lives of nonhuman animals daily with shelter and rescue work.  I know there’s not a lot of thanks and glory in it, but each life is precious.

Lots of info on the cookbook? Do you cook? Did you before becoming vegan?

I do! I was vegetarian for a decade before becoming vegan and I cooked almost that entire time as well. Of course, I’ve gotten a lot better with practice, and veganism is a great way to learn how to cook.  You really get to know the proper flavors of a very wide range of foods cooking plant-based meals.

The cookbook, New American Vegan, focuses primarily on common ingredients, techniques and recipes from the Americas, less on Asian or fusion styles of cuisine. It’s coming out this spring from Tofu Hound Press.  There will be 150 recipes, give or take, and they’ll range from very simple sauces (e.g., kiwi and jalapeno coulis) to much more complicated dishes (e.g., acorn squash stuffed with lentils, wild rice and greens with both a white and a red sauce).  The purpose of the book is to help vegan cooks get comfortable with flavor theory, understand common building blocks, and how to really understand what makes a plate flavorful, inviting to the eye and so on.

The cookbook, I find that many vegan cookbooks focus on imitating meat-based cuisine or on fusion.  I find the former fairly boring and although I like the latter, I think it’s been overdone. I like kitschy imitations sometimes myself, but serious innovation tends to interest me more.  I also think there is no strong sense yet of what vegan food should really taste like, how a primarily plant-based cuisine will express itself visually and in terms of its flavor or how the vegan palate should be properly cultivated.  My book is an attempt to advance that dialogue into a more public discussion.

Part of the world where you are?

I live in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.

Hope for the future?

Yes, today, I hope everyone who reads this article and is not yet vegan will take the rights of animals not to be used as property seriously and go vegan, help to educate others and work to end the property status of nonhuman animals and cultural speciesism as quickly as possible. Tomorrow, I hope we can fix all of the other problems of the world.  Whether we will be successful, it’s the right thing to do, and we will certainly be unsuccessful if we give up before we start.

Here are links to some of Vincent’s work:

VeganImprov

We Other Animals

I love the idea of planting peace; one of my favorite photos is of guerilla gardening – it is like a crafty kind of quiet urban relandscape that appeals to my mischievious side. When I first hear about Plant Peace Daily, a website linked to VegFund.org and UnitedNonviolence.org, I perused it over several sessions. Following the publishing of a recent article on Examiner.com, I received a kind letter from one of the contributors of Plant Peace Daily.  He had forwarded to me a link to a couple of videos, one of which I had on my blog already (see above).  I watched the other video, also very informative, and promptly shared it on the Veganacious fan page on Facebook.  When time permitted, I perused their website and found it to be tremendously affirmative and helpful, full of wonderful essays, positive ideas, and excellent resources.  I bookmarked it for later viewing.

Since that time, I have returned to Plant Peace Daily many times.  Their ethical consumer printout is a great thing to have on hand before any shopping trip; it is a handy reminder to consider the consequences of your purchases.  Print it out, stick it in your wallet; it may help you to make more conscious choices when you consume. I have had an article titled Like A Caged Animal on my desktop for some time. It is a great article, beautifully and sensitively written, but I did not remember where I found it and thus could not refer to it or incorporate it into a post. I just found out that it came from Plant Peace Daily and it is only one of several excellent articles and essays on the site (see below).  Their blog allows you to enjoy their travels, too; the amazing photographs give you a close up of what is going on in different parts of the world that you may be missing: fairy doors, telephone poles adorned with hearts, dogs awaiting slaughter – all the good, the glorious and the hideous that life has to offer.

Plant Peace Daily is a crew consisting of JC Corcoran, Rae Sikora, Tikvah and Bean; the first two are bipedic and the last two are quadripedic earthlings. They travel together spreading the good word about peace, conflict resolution, the environment, conscious consumerism, veganism, health and nutrition.  They are a sort of mobile fitness team – fitness for the body, soul, planet, mind; a team that teaches living in harmony.  I love one of the cartoons on their blog. It shows two diverging roads: on the left there is a sign that reads, “Truth, Justice, Wisdom” and on the right is a path that reads, “99 cent burgers,” on which all the people are lined up.  This is such a good graphic of what faces us on a daily basis, but with the left-sided path often hidden.  Rae and JC and their canine pals travel throughout the country, giving workshops and speaking at universities, retreats, schools, and anywhere else that beckons them.  Go to their website if you are interested in having them speak for your organization.

Rae has been speaking on behalf of animals for over twenty-five years. She is co-founder of the Center for Compassionate Living, the International Institute for Humane Education, and VegFund.org, a new organization that provides vegan food for fundraisers and events.  JC co-founded VegMichigan (largest veg organization in the state) and VegFund.org, along with Rae. Their diverse educational backgrounds (cultural anthropology and environmental education for Rae, emergency medicine and fitness for JC) make them uniquely qualified to provide inspiration and incentives to help people live in harmony with their values.  Their speaking programs and workshops include titles such as “Human Billboards,”  ”Despair Repair, and “In Their Skin,” programs sure to increase awareness and compassion.

Do not overlook their essays page.  The articles are wonderful and will draw me back time and again for inspiration. Like A Caged Animal touched me, but Despair Repair caused tears to flow that stayed with me all day; I doubt the imagery will ever leave me.  It so graphically revealed the individuality of our shared journeys on earth, if only we weren’t so very blind and disassociated from them.  Then there is JC’s article, Ingrid Newkirk and Al Gore in the Same Leaky Boat – it is spot on and well done.  It is hope-inducing to know these two are out there, creatively working for a better, more peaceful world. Whenever I need an affirmative shot-in-the-arm or a bit of activist encouragement, I will return to Plant Peace Daily — you should, too.

Elizabeth and Buda

Elizabeth Collins inadvertently witnessed two slaughter videos in 2007 while watching television (MNN).  Although she was not eating flesh nor drinking milk, she had not yet understood the breadth of animal commodification. She had also decided to avoid leather, and searching for vegetarian shoes led her to animal websites, including a link to Earthlings.  While it took her awhile to build up her courage to actually watch the film, she quickly bought it.  She was sobbing just from watching the trailers for the film, and in conjunction with the slaughter films, she knew it would be horrific.  To gather information, along with her courage, she went on the forums for the film, and started hearing more and more about veganism.   She felt compelled to watch the film, although there was a corresponding dread to doing so, something most sensitive people may well understand.  In the interim between the purchasing and the viewing of the film, she began buying “free range” eggs, thinking it would eliminate suffering.  Her education was about to begin.

One night, she finally got her courage up and watched the entire film.  Again, she went back to the forums, because the experience of watching the film was so devastating.  The vegan advocacy on the Earthlings forum helped her to take her first step towards becoming vegan.  After learning as quickly as she could about animals and their suffering, she decided she needed to dedicate herself to non-violent vegan education, which led then her to podcasting.  Being alone in her struggle to understand the enormity of what was being done to animals and how she could change the current status quo, she realized there was a need for education and support for others who were learning the same things.  Living in New Zealand, she became aware of the lack of vegan education there, and NZ Vegan Podcasts began.

Buda's vista

One of the things I mentioned to Elizabeth, having listened to her podcasts from Day One, is the steep upkick of her learning curve and interviewing abilities.  On her first podcasts, I was immediately intrigued by her gentle voice and her authenticity.  She seemed so completely guileless, honest, and sincere, that I became a fan.  Then, after only a few podcasts, she became something a bit more: she became an accomplished interviewer that could captivate us all with her intriguing array of guests, from a 13 -year-old activist to the writer and distinguished Professor Gary Francione (Abolitionist Approach).  Elizabeth is one of the most genuine and compassionate people in the animal rights movement.  One of the things I most admire about her is that she is so undeterred. She told me (see full text) that she is a “ fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” kind of podcaster, but I would say she is flexible and engaged.  Her humility, openness, kindness, and willingness to approach all others in the quest is helping her build a large base of eager listeners.  She is hoping to increase her presence in the New Zealand community but has meanwhile received much support from those of us overseas.

When I approached Elizabeth with one of those questions about vegan cats, she made a very good point that I had not heard elsewhere: as more and more vegans begin putting pressure on the manufacturers of cat cuisine, there will be more options, healthier options for our cat refugees; meanwhile we need to take proper care of them.  I think she is right; I just noticed that Wysong, a manufacturer that is sold in health food stores, is now making vegan dog food; hopefully, cat food will not be far behind. She called it “Sophie’s Choice,” and it is something very confusing to many of us animal lovers.  She also noted that we are facing these dilemmas because of our domestication of animals, creating dependencies and issues which, in nature, would not exist. (See Vegan Cats: What’s for Dinner and take the poll.)

Beautiful New Zealand

Elizabeth keeps going by turning to other people in the movement and reading the positive stories of the Peaceful Prairie Blog.  “We need to give ourselves hope and encouragement,” she told me.  But what really keeps her coming back for more, no matter what, is the thought of the suffering of the animals. It keeps her own grief in check, as it pales in comparison to theirs. She remains optimistic because of her own experience, shifting from non-vegan to veganism with the right information; she believes that when other people learn the truth, they, too will change.  ”I feel lucky to have received this information, not special or superior – lucky.  I want to spread the luck.  And spread the love.”

I want that peaceful world she is working so hard to give us; I want it for all of us. I especially want it for my little grandson and the world he will inhabit with all his fellow creatures.  But one thing I do have now, thanks to the Internet, iTunes, and Elizabeth Collins, is the beginning of an international community of compassionate people, working to end suffering.  One blog, one article, one podcast at a time.

To read the full text of my interview with Elizabeth, go here.

To download her podcasts, go to NZ Vegan Podcast or iTunes

To read her blog, go to NZ Vegan Podcast here.

To follow her on Twitter, go here.

]]> http://veganacious.com/2009/08/31/nz-lifesaver/feed/ 5 http://veganacious.com/2009/08/30/elizabeth-collins/ http://veganacious.com/2009/08/30/elizabeth-collins/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:45:23 +0000 veganacious http://veganacious.com/?p=3169 1.  What led you to veganism?  (something about your evolution and awakening to what is really going on with the animals)

I became vegan in 2007, having previously been a non vegan who didn’t eat some things, like the flesh of land animals and birds, but ate and used all other types of animal products. It was very superficial, and I was still completely ignorant of the truth about the inconsistency between my personal beliefs and my personal actions.  I saw my very first ever slaughter video in the 1st half of the year 2007, about pigs.  It was completely unplanned, I just turned on MNN one late night and it was on.  Then I a couple of months later I accidentally caught a documentary that aired on another random channel, about the dolphin slaughter in Japan.  I still hadn’t made the connection though, even after these two videos.

While watching them I had experienced true grief, outrage and overwhelming guilt, but had no one to guide me, no one to talk to about it.  Neither video advocated veganism as an option, neither even mentioned veganism.  None of my friends were vegan, none had seen nor would be willing to see these videos.  So I was kind of lost and hurting with no real way of dealing with it at that point. It culminated in me actually coming to a realization that I would no longer eat seafood, and that I would no longer buy leather—but this was months after seeing these things.  I guess it was lying dormant in the back of my unconscious.  So when I realized I needed a new pair of boots for winter I finally clicked that I wanted to buy vegetarian leather, after having just bought about 3 pairs of leather sandals for the current summer.  As I was moving back to NZ I looked at NZ vegetarian leather options and of course this lead to other animal websites, one of which featured a link to the movie Earthlings.

It took me ages to build up the courage to actually watch the film after I had bought it.  I saw the trailers for the film and I was sobbing on the floor just from that, plus since seeing the pig and dolphin slaughter documentaries I knew what I was in for.  During this interim period I went on the Earthlings forum, before even seeing the film, and there are some people on that forum really advocating veganism.  Their solution to this horrible guilt and agony was to go vegan, and remove yourself from the exploitation.  What a concept!  I WISH I had been opened up to that sooner, but never mind.  So I thought, well, I wonder if I can go vegan, but I still hadn’t made the full transition, and I also somehow knew I had to see the film.  For some reason I knew it was something I had to watch, that I owed it to myself and all the animals whose suffering I had been contributing to my whole life, to see it.  In this period between purchasing the film and watching the film I started buying “free range” eggs for myself, through being misguided by the majority of mainstream animal advocates that this was a good thing to do.  I had given up diary products 3 years before because of my skin, otherwise I may very well have gone and bought “organic” milk.

Well one night I finally watched the film Earthlings.  I cannot describe it.  The only thing that helped me get through was to go on the Earthlings forum.  Veganism is not advocated by the film either, it was like the other films I had seen, which showed you the footage but didn’t say “hey, guess what, you can go vegan!”  I had no one in my life to talk with about it as I mentioned before.  I was in a very dark place.  Thank goodness for those people on the forum.  After seeing the film I could no longer hide behind supposed ignorance.  The forum members who advocate veganism helped me to see how easy and necessary it was to go vegan, and I immediately began educating myself about what that meant as a practical matter.  I learned about silk and honey and that animal testing of make-up and household products STILL EXISTED (I really thought they didn’t do that anymore, I will be my bottom dollar most people don’t realize it still), and I just learned and learned and learned.

I also was guided to Gary Francione and the Abolitionist Approach and realized that not only did I myself want to be vegan, but I wanted to educate everyone I possibly could about veganism, to not deprive them from the truth as I had been deprived of it.  So not only am I a vegan, I make it my life’s work to engage in creative non-violent vegan education, and that leads me to my podcast.

What led you to podcasting?

After going vegan I realized I wanted to do more to help others like myself, who have these thoughts in their mind, or who maybe have seen some footage or photos or read something, and were very guilty and confused and felt helpless, not realizing that there is actually a solution to all of this!  We can stop doing it!  We are so conditioned to our use of animals that it doesn’t even enter our heads most of the time.  We need someone to point it out, and help us.  I didn’t have that until almost a year later, and I wanted to be a person who was reaching out to people with this message.

I loved the Vegan Freaks podcast, but it was all for America and there was nothing for New Zealand. I thought, hey, I can do that down here!  I was living in NZ and the lack of vegan education is astonishing and terribly worrying, so I decided to do a podcast from the NZ perspective.  Ironically the majority of my listeners are still from overseas, but I am sure it will just take a little more time before we have enough people advocating veganism down here to start making a real difference.  I only started in January so we are just getting going.

You don’t need a lot of money or fancy equipment to do a podcast, just a usb microphone, some free software like audacity, or if you have a macintosh you can use Garageband or even the basic Quicktime recorder, and of course an internet connection.  The blogs and podcast hosting sites out there like Blogspot and Feedburner are so user friendly, they spell out every step and do all the complicated stuff for you.  I know nothing about web stuff, it was all done by these programs, I just had to follow directions.

3.  I have noticed a very steep improvement in your podcasts but have loved them all. When I first listened to you, I thought your voice was so easy to listen to and appreciated your honest struggles with this rather overwhelming topic.  How have you learned to be such an eloquent interviewer and presenter while “live” so quickly?

Well, I don’t really know, thank you for the compliment!  I am blushing.  I just started doing the podcast because, well, I felt like I was going crazy!  I had no one to talk to about my feelings and about doing vegan education, and so I thought well, I just have to do in on my own!  I did the podcast in order to try to reach out to New Zealanders and also for therapy.  As you mentioned, when you finally wake up to the reality of what is actually going on and you realize that we can actually stop it if we want to, yet we are not stopping it, it is so overwhelming! Unless you have a lot of close vegan friends it is hard to find people to talk to who can relate.  I had just arrived back in NZ after many years away so I had no friends at all, let alone vegan friends.  And then I found that the vegans I met locally did not want to engage in vegan education.  As I say, most of my listeners are from overseas, and the vegan groups down here don’t want to advocate veganism as a moral baseline to animal rights, they are heavily involved in campaigns for promotion of cage free eggs and the like, so I sometimes still feel very isolated and alone.  There is good news though—I am not alone!  I have some other people who are interested in helping me promote veganism, so we help each other practically and support each other emotionally when it all gets too much.  Things are better than they were with regard to my peace of mind – I think that shows in the podcast as well, and may have something to do with what you mentioned about the content of the show.  I do get a lot of support from my lovely overseas friends, but I am still determined to bring this vegan education down here, I am still learning how to do it.  It can only get better!

With regard to the podcast itself I owe a lot to the support I have received from people who are also engaging in vegan education, some of whom I have interviewed.  They have guided me and helped me so much and I am very grateful to them.  I think it takes many of us a while to fully grasp the enormity of what is happening and I wouldn’t have been able to express myself without learning from all the other people in the world who are engaging in activism, especially those who have been doing it for a long time.  I think I am kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of presenter, but that is just the way I am, so although it may not be as planned out and organized as other shows, it is genuine and I do my very best, and I think that if people can see that you are sincere and doing your very best, they forgive you the bumblings and mumblings along the way!

4.  Do you have employment outside of vegan activism? How does veganism integrate with the rest of your life?

I am starting my life all over again from scratch basically, so I am in the process of trying to get a new career going as a translator and interpreter in Spanish and English.  I have been supporting myself by temping, mostly office work, I am going to AUT University in Auckland for a Diploma in Interpreting and Translating, and I am currently anxiously awaiting the results of the NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters) Interpreting Exam that I sat in June, which if I pass will certify me as a NAATI Interpreter and greatly help my chances for employment!

In the meantime it is a bit of a struggle financially, but the podcast and the other activism does not cost much at all, and my voice is free!  I live my life as a vegan, which is very easy to do as we all know, and the food is cheap, so that is good.  I do wish I had a car so I could carry things and go more places, but that will come in time, and if it doesn’t no matter.  I can walk and get the bus.  I have my flipbooks that I made from the slideshows from the Abolitionist Approach website and I have pamphlets from Peaceful Prairie, Abolitionist Approach, Vegan Abolitionist and others, and they are cheap to print out in black and white.  I am still looking for a table I can carry on the bus actually, it is one of the things on my to do list for this week!

Any time I feel like complaining I just remember the non-humans and what they are going through and how lucky I am to be free, also I think of other humans in places of starvation and war and how wealthy I am compared to them, and I am determined to do what I can to help all of them, and therefore help myself.  I would be much happier in a peaceful world, as we all would.  We can make it happen, and that knowledge gives me strength and determination and helps me survive on no sleep!

5.  I have a cat and wrote an article about vegan cats – do you have an opinion on that topic? It is a tough one I think. (What to feed them.)

I love the fact that incredible, creative, loving people have invented such wonderful vegan cat food.  I see absolutely nothing wrong, nor do I understand why anyone would see anything wrong, with a healthy, happy cat that thrives on vegan cat food!  It is fantastic!  However, not all cats can.  Some cats do not thrive and therefore must eat the non-vegan food.  This is a good reason why domestication is not a good idea.  This Sophie’s Choice-like dilemma should not exist and would not exist if we did not breed animals to have as our property.  Most people are not vegan, so most people don’t even think about feeding their pets vegan food, so we have even more demand for animal products.  I think that if more people were vegan, there would be a higher demand for vegan cat food, and maybe there would be the means for more creative people to make further advances in the kinds of vegan cat food out there, so that every cat could be vegan.  But this is not the case.  If anyone has a cat that is unable to thrive on vegan food, they obviously have an obligation to care for their little refugee, and therefore must participate in the horrific torture slaughter of non-humans.  The only other choice is to torture and probably eventually cause the death of the cat, which is unacceptable.  So this dilemma exists because of our domestication of non-humans and is very tragic.  As it seems we will not see the end to the domestication of non-humans for a while, I am always hopeful more creative people will come up with more and more vegan cat food, so that all cats can thrive on a vegan diet.  In the meantime it’s Sophie’s Choice.  Of course one must choose the cat’s life, just as you would choose your own child’s life over another child’s life if put in such a terrible dilemma.  So it is hard for vegan cat owners who must participate in the slaughter and suffering of other non-humans in order to properly care for the cat they have adopted and to whom they owe a healthy existence.

6. Do you see a trajectory for your own future involvement in the cause?

I sincerely hope to make a difference in NZ, to make veganism more mainstream, to open up more dialogue on a local level about animal rights and the abolition of animal use.  We should each work in our own communities, because that is how we will change the world.  I would love it if people in NZ started to hear of the concept of veganism as a moral choice, rather than as some weirdo hippy thing, which is what they think about it now, and if we could bring this dialogue out in the open, and really wake people up to the wonderful truth of non-violence, and the fact that each one of us has the ability to choose non-violence in our own life and go vegan, and that we can end so much suffering and take the shadow off our souls.  I want to help my country and the animals in my country, and doing so, help the world.  It is a grass roots movement aiming towards a paradigm shift, a change in consciousness and I live here, so I aim to bring it out into the open here.  Well, I will at least try.  It is all I can do.

7.  How do you maintain your sensitivity in light of so much horror and ugliness? What keeps you going?

I wouldn’t be able to do anything without the love and support of all the other people who are also spreading this message of non-violence, who feel the same way, and who also suffer grief over the situation.  Without them to talk to and learn from, I honestly don’t know what I would do.  What keeps me going is the knowledge that billions and billions of animals are suffering unnecessarily, and they need us.  We are the only ones who can help them.  I will not let them down, I will do it every day because it is the right thing to do.  I can only hope to make a difference, that is not guaranteed, but I must try.  I owe it to them to do this, I want to do this, and I will do this for the rest of my life, because I know the truth and cannot hide from it any more.  When I have a bad day because I missed the bus or someone was rude to me or whatever highly trivial thing affecting me in that moment, I think of what their day is like, and it puts it all into perspective. I will also add that I do not watch any footage of slaughter or horrific treatment as it renders me useless.  I go to the Peaceful Prairie Blog and read their stories instead.  We need to give ourselves hope and encouragement.  The slaughter videos are to open the eyes of people who have never been confronted with the truth, but along with those videos we must also give the right message, and the right message is veganism.

8. Are you affiliated with any animal rights organizations?

I am not affiliated with any organizations.  I don’t know of any animal ‘rights’ organizations – only animal welfare organizations! I promote the Abolitionist Approach as created and developed by Gary Francione, but it is simply a matter of the philosophy making sense to me and going out there myself and promoting the abolitionist theory of animal rights in my own activism.  There is no membership or anything.  I use a lot of material from the site Abolitionist Approach, but also other proponents of abolition have great material, and now in NZ we have two websites that I use as resources also, http://nzdairy.webs.com/ and http://www.nzeggs.webs.com/

I also use Peaceful Prairie’s resources a LOT.  Again, this is not membership or affiliation as such, just a spreading of the same idea – the abolition of the use of non-human animals through creative nonviolent vegan education using veganism as a moral baseline.  I can’t claim to have invented this approach – Gary Francione did, but I certainly use it and fully agree with it fundamentally and philosophically.  Luckily Gary doesn’t demand donations like the other groups.  Peaceful Prairie is a sanctuary that needs donations to continue to exist so if I donate any money I donate it to them.

9. Is there anything else you would like to say or that you would like people to know about you?

Just that less than two years ago I was as blissfully unaware of the realities of this situation (non-human slavery and exploitation) as they are and that if I can see it for what it really is (an abomination) and make the change to veganism, anyone is capable of doing the same.  I remember what it was like to not be vegan, and it was not deliberate cruelty or because I was a “bad” person.  I remember – in fact I was the same person as I am now, just not awake to the reality of the situation!  Not facing the truth about the consequences of my actions as an individual.  This was not because I was stupid or bad or immoral, but I just hadn’t been given the correct information.  So I want people to know this is not about judgement or elitism.  We are, most of us, inherently the same with regard to our innate compassion and our desire for peace and therefore we are all capable of digesting the information and going vegan.  If we as a species want peace on earth well for a start we must take animal rights seriously and go vegan.  Tolstoy was absolutely correct in saying “as long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields” and I believe that from the bottom of my heart.  Most people want peace, but they are not being given the correct information.  It is our job to share this information we have been lucky enough to receive – it is not about judgement it is about spreading the truth in order to help ALL of us, we can all only benefit from a nonviolent world.  I feel lucky to have received this information, not special or superior – lucky.  I want to spread the luck.  And spread the love.

10. You mentioned earlier about absorbing the enormity of what is going on for animals.  Are you hopeful for animals and our planet?

I am hopeful, and one of the reasons I am is because of my own example. I was 34 years old when I went vegan.   I use myself as a living example that anyone can see the truth of the matter and go vegan at any stage in their life.  Young or old, rich or poor, it is an individual decision and that is very powerful knowledge to have.  I know that the overwhelming majority of human beings are simply not exposed or are not exposing themselves to the truth of the situation, and some are resistant to it at first, but all are capable of making the decision to go vegan.  I am a glass is half full thinker about this – rather than lament how bad things are for women or black people or children (I know they are) I think of how bad things were and how far we have come and how much further we can go.  We are evolving in our thinking for the better, it is just a matter of never giving up hope.

11. One of the difficulties, in my experience, in being passionate about a cause is that you can receive negativity, even hostility, from other people in the movement who view things a little differently. How do you keep your head above water?

From people like you!   If I am having a bad day I can pick any number of places to go and read about other people who are doing the same things and who feel the same way, about a place like Peaceful Prairie or other sanctuaries, about other vegans who are compassionate and who are fully committed to helping non human animals.  I love reading about people and how they went vegan, the stories are wonderful and all involve them finding the compassion in their heart that they always possessed but were never given the chance to act upon.  Now is the time to ignite that spark in the consciousness of all people in all nations, and that is what so many people are doing, it is truly wonderful.  We must NEVER give up we must NEVER lose hope.

Right in Austin, Texas, the heart of cattle country, barbecue, and obesity,* have come these five fire guys with their new vegan diet plan. Rip Esselstyn, the author of The Engine 2 Diet, had been a vegan for over twenty years when his co-fire guy James Rae (JR) tested 344 on a routine cholesterol screening.  That news, coupled with a family history of early heart disease for JR, led the  other four men to support his quest for health and go vegan in the firehouse.  In the process, JR lowered his cholesterol 150 points while the rest of the crew lost weight – some as much as 20 pounds! Esselstyn had been a pro tirathlete and swimmer before joining the firefighters; his father, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of Cleveland, had been doing research for over a decade with heart disease and had noted that a very-low-fat, plant-based diet along with cholesterol-lowering medicine could bring striking improvement in what otherwise would be considered terminally ill patients. Rip is aptly name – he is one ripped, healthy, athletic looking guy.

Specialist Rae tried eating vegan at the firehouse and then flexing to other foods on the outside. This failed to lower his cholesterol, so he expanded his veganism to a global eating plan which lowered his cholesterol under 200.   Matt Moore, Derick Zwerneman and Scott Walters are the other three firemen who go vegan at work.  Check out the  Engine 2 website here, which allows you to register, get diet and exercise tips, and join a community of other health-conscious folks. Rip Esselstyn takes all the hoopla in stride and admits some folks thing he is daft.  ”For compassion reasons and for environmental reasons, it’s the best way to go,” Esselstyn said of eating a vegan diet. The vegan firemen of Austin’s Firehouse 2 won the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA)  Animal-Friendly Firehouse of the Year Award in 2005.  These five men have demonstrated that firemen can indeed be heroes to the entire community, including the four-legged kind!

*   Nearly two-thirds (64.1 percent) of the state’s adult population is overweight (Texas).  See state report for more information.