HOW WIDE IS YOUR CIRCLE OF COMPASSION?

"Our task must be to free ourselves...by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein

Dear reader, 

I've no doubt you're a compassionate person, most people are. But I'd like to ask you, just how far does your circle of compassion extend?

70 billion animals are slaughtered, unnecessarily, every year. Unnecessarily, because both the British Dietetics Association, the American Dietetics Association - and the WHO - have stated that you can live healthily on a whole food, plant-based diet - at any age. And there are vegan alternatives for every food you can think of.

Could you go vegan, and leave animals off your plate, so that you no longer play any part in this suffering? 

If you don't like the word 'vegan', 

Would you go vegan to improve your health and thereby be less of a burden on the NHS?

Would you go vegan for the environment?

It's time to stand up for our planet - Chris Packham

Would you go vegan to help feed the 800 million people suffering from malnutrition in this world?

Would you go vegan out of concern for the slaughterhouse workers? 

“Most of us who do or did that job are irrevocably messed up….Ptsd is real. The nightmares are real. The drink and drug abuse that many end up with is real. Some people I know committed suicide cause of working in a slaughterhouse and if you bother to look into it you see it’s extremely common for slaughterhouse workers to take their own lives, and considering male suicide is an epidemic, buying meat doesn’t do the the workers any favours.” (My italics.)

Would you go vegan to prevent the overuse of antibiotics?

Would you go vegan to help save the Amazon - and all the other rainforests under threat?

Would you go vegan so you aren't contributing to climate breakdown?

Would you go vegan to help prevent future pandemics? Given that, in the view of many, Covid-19 is just a dress rehearsal.

But it's the animals that are my main concern - would you, could you, go vegan for the animal's sake?

Tell me, just how wide is your circle of compassion?

My loves,

This post is not meant to be judgemental, it's not an opportunity to debate, it's only about love and awareness Since I went public with being vegan in my stories, I experienced amazing reactions from you, who open their hearts and minds. Some of you started listening to the screaming of the voiceless and started questioning their habits which we've been taught by the industry and society. I grew up eating animals and their secretions, because my parents learned that this is how it has to be. They love me and never would harm me purposely. But that's the problem, we get taught, that it's ok to exploit animals. We get taught, that it's ok, to eat tortured, abused and killed living beings and we get taught, that it's even healthy.

It's a lie. Our bodies and souls are not even made for meat. Humanity will never live in anything near harmony on this planet as long as we eat other individuals. We must stop this injustice. Stop supporting the exploitation of other species and of mother earth. For other species and for the future generations! The strong have to protect the weak instead of harming them. They trust us and we betray them in the most cruel ways. Pigs are smarter than dogs, in fact a pig is as intelligent as a 5 year old child. A cow is pregnant for almost 9 months and she cries and is mourning when her baby is stolen from her just because we want to drink another species mother's milk. It's wrong. When you open your heart, you'll know. Please think about it and start to value life more than taste. Start to accept, that we don't have the right to do this, just because we're humans. There's no such thing as a humane way to kill a living being, who does not want to die, for your 15 minutes meal. It's 2020 and we're destroying our habitat, we're causing pain and death everyday. Millions of animals die every day, it's mass murder. They're sentient beings, it's not about "can they think like us", its about "can they suffer like us"... And they do, they are aware of their lives and they suffer greatly. We cause this cruelty by not going vegan. Please, don't ignore it, listen to the voiceless, thank you

(Nathalie Rieder)

For help in going vegan, there is help and support on Veganuary.com, or visit vegan22.com.

Thanks for reading.

Love and Peace, Paul

Tuesday 20/10/20

[By Ronnie George, from Facebook]

Bacon. Ham. Pork. Hot dogs. Sausages.

~

I ate the flesh of pigs from as early as I can remember. I only stopped in 2018. Shortly after stopping I decided to learn more about the pigs I'd eaten all my life up to that point. I learned that pigs aren't naturally dirty animals (colour me surprised), that they're more intelligent than dogs and that they're incredibly gentle and emotionally complex animals. I also found out that 60% of the pigs killed in the UK were killed in gas chambers. This sounded horrible, so I decided to find out what it looked like. Unfortunately it looked and sounded even worse than what I'd pictured. The industry said the animals just peacefully fall asleep, but the footage only ever shows animals thrashing and screaming in agony before passing out. It turns out that the CO2 burns and acidifies the liquids in their bodies, starting with their eyes before quickly spreading to the moisture around their brain, causing the pigs to feel as though they are burning in fire while they suffocate to death.

That was 2018. Now in 2020 the percentage of UK pigs killed in gas chambers has risen to nearly 90%. There are over 10 million pigs killed a year in this country, almost all of whom are still babies at only 5-6 months old. The industry claim to use gas for pigs as it's "humane" but the truth is it's just an efficient way to kill lots of large animals quickly. The Nazis knew this, the meat industry does too.

All this means that if you're going to be tucking into a bacon sandwich this week then you can guarantee that you're eating the flesh of a young innocent being who suffered immensely. The flesh of an animal whose mother was most likely forcibly impregnated by humans then made to spend the majority of her pregnancy trapped in a metal cage too small to turn around in, before then having to watch her babies be stolen and go through the whole process again.

If the pig whose body parts are in your frying pan was one of the few that are not gassed, perhaps he or she was electrocuted, shot, drowned in boiling water or stabbed to death instead. Those are the only options.

I'm sorry to be so upsetting but the truth isn't always pretty.

Do you want this to stop? Does doing this make no sense to you at all? All this cruelty for the things mentioned above. Bacon, ham, pork, hotdogs, sausages... but not even that, becuase you can have all those things vegan anyway! So what is it really for? Why are we so cruel?

It's not for our health, as bacon, ham, hotdogs and other processed meats are known carcinogens, and animal products are high in saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein, all leading attributors to our most deadly diseases such as heart disease. Not to mention that exploiting animals causes pandemics such as bird flu, swine flu and covid-19, and the majority of antibiotics that are produced are given to farm animals, increasing the rise and prevalence of antibiotic resistant infections and diseases.

It's also not for our convenience, as raising animals for slaughter takes up huge amounts of land, water and food while also producing a massive amount of waste, so it's many times easier and more efficient to just produce plants.

So what's it for? At the end of the day is it purely just to make money for these industries? Is that really the only reason we continue to tourture and murder billions of innocent animals, so certain businesses can keep making profits?

If that doesn't sound like a good enough reason for animal abuse, you already know what to do. #GoVegan

~

I want everyone who still eats meat to stop viewing animals as products and start viewing them as individuals.

Scientifically speaking we know they are our cousins. We know they experience pain and distress similarly or in some cases identically to how we do. Shouldn't that be reason enough to give all animals respect, morally speaking? Shouldn't we need tremendous justification for tremendous cruelty?

If you're against animal abuse then do what I did and look into how your lifestyle is responsible for things you don't agree with.

You can start here

www.landofhopeandglory.org

Free documentary about UK animal agriculture

www.vegan22.com

22 days of free support transitioning to a plant-based diet

www.veganlinks.co.uk

Links to videos, documentaries, books, recipes and other useful resources