No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)
I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...
I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Sunday 15 October 2017

HUMANE KILLING? IT DOESN'T EXIST!

There are three reasons one should adopt a vegan, whole food, plant-based (WFPB) - lifestyle:
For the sake of your health - vegans live longer and healthier than other populations;
For the sake of our planet - raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined; and,
For the sake of the animals.

The most immediate of these is, of course, Animal Welfare. Every day millions of innocent beings - earthlings, just like us - are being mutilated, tortured and murdered, for no good reason.

Have a look what happens (albeit heavily censored) in a slaughterhouse. Don't watch this if your intention is to eat meat regardless of the suffering caused!

Here's the view of a farmer's daughter:
"Dairy is an Everyday Dystopian Horror"

To my undying shame, for 64 years I was a full participant in this. I was an avid meat-eater - every meal had to have some meat with it. Any veggies were just an adjunct.

In 2001, at the height of the CJD (Mad Cow) scare, I decided to give up meat and become a vegetarian. Over the next 2 years, as I became aware of the horrors and animal abuse in the dairy industry, I gradually gave up all dairy. About that time there was a graphic film on the BBC showing how male chicks are simply discarded shortly after birth - by gassing, or simply being tossed into a grinder. So I gave up eating eggs.


Unbeknownst to me at the time, becoming vegan was the best thing I could have done - in terms of my health and the health of the planet. But more than that, it was better for the animals. No animals have been abused or killed on my behalf, since I took that decision. 

James Aspey, an Australian, is a leading animal right's activist - IMO, the best advocate for animal rights I have come across. Certainly one of the most committed.

Here's an extract from his speech, "This speech is your wake-up call:"

"You were lied to, so was I. You probably love animals or at the very least, you're against animal cruelty. Yet, on the other hand, you probably pay to have animals mutilated, tortured and killed. You probably think you need meat for protein and cow's milk for calcium. You probably think animals are treated "humanely" before they become a neatly wrapped package on the supermarket shelf. You've probably never wondered what is cruel about eating eggs or dairy. You probably think vegans are extreme. I was the same.

I want to talk to you about what we are doing to this planet, ourselves and our fellow Earthlings. I want to ask you some questions that might make you feel defensive but will also make you question things you've always considered to be 'normal'. I want to ask you to listen to this speech and hear a new perspective. Perhaps it will change your life, perhaps it won't, but I believe you deserve to know the truth. I know I'm very grateful to have learned it and now I want to share it with you. I think you'll be grateful, too." -James Aspey

(Unfortunately, the video insists on starting 7 minutes in - you'll need to slide the cursor back to 00 to get the beginning of the speech.)

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of videos online showing the cruelties and horrors of livestock raising and slaughterhouses. 

Here's a recent documentary, filmed here in the UK, "Land of Hope and Glory."

"But bacon..." you say. But us vegans, we're too polite. Here's what we should say.

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