Will you be attending the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus this weekend in Nashville?

Today is Earth Day and millions of people are thinking of ways, if just for one day, to make their lives better for the environment.   The best thing that one can do is to go vegan.  The animals raised in the U.S. alone are contributing more greenhouse gases to our environment than the vehicles we drive everyday!   The land we use to raise cattle could be used ten time more efficently to raise grain to feed millions more people!  Ammonia from factory farms is a major air pollutant.   The list of reasons why going vegan is better for our world is endless.  If everyone went vegetarian for one day 100 billion gallons of water could be saved, 70 million gallons of gas would be saved,  3 million acres of land would be saved.

There is not one single thing more important to our environment than our diet.  If only for this one day, go vegan!

2009 has arrived and resolutions to go along.  Have you made a resolution to go vegetarian or vegan?  Plenty of websites, including this one, are out the to help you with that promise to yourself and make it stick.  PETA offers a free Go Veg kit and Vegan Outreach offers a Vegan Starter Guide.  Remember that if you are taking the vegan road it branches far from the food you eat.  The products you use and what you wear is also included in that, but don’t think that makes it harder, there are plenty of products out there that are free of animal products and animal testing.  The National Anti-Vivisection Society has an online database to check if the products you currently use are cruelty-free.

Going vegan or vegetarian can be one of the most rewarding changes you can make in your life and there are plenty of ways the new found energy and health will reward you back!

Happy New Year!

March is nearly here and that means it is time again for The Great American Meat Out.   Started in 1985, Meat Out is a grassroots campaign designed to spread through education and information the benefits of a meat-free diet.   Events are coordinated by FARM and held in many cities (although Nashville is not one).   The purpose, of course, is to get as many people as possible to “Kick the meat habit”.

From the website, benefits include:

Kicking the meat habit reduces our risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other chronic diseases that cripple and kill nearly 1.4 million Americans annually.

Kicking the meat habit decreases our exposure to infectious pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli, and Campylobacter, which kill several thousand Americans annually and sicken millions more.

Kicking the meat habit raises our energy level, lowers our food budget, and simplifies food preparation and cleanup.

Kicking the meat habit frees up grains and other foods that can be used to feed the world’s hungry. Animals are extremely inefficient “protein converters;” it can take up to 16 pounds of grain to make 1 pound of beef.

Kicking the meat habit preserves our topsoil, water, and other food production resources vital to the survival of our children and their children.

Kicking the meat habit protects our forests, grasslands, and other wildlife habitats from encroachment by cattle ranchers while reducing the polluting effects of methane, soil particles, manure, and pesticides on our air and water.

Kicking the meat habit saves animals from caging, crowding, deprivation, drugging, mutilation, manhandling, and agonizing slaughter. Each person who adopts a plant-based diet saves over 80 innocent, sentient animals each year. Over a lifetime, an individual can save more than 6,000 animals just by going vegan.

You can register for an event, get a meat-out packet and get pointers on getting someone you know, or even yourself, meat free at meatout.org.

The Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus is in town through the weekend at the Sommet Center. Usually when this circus shows up it is greeted by protesting from various groups, one I know of is PETA, there’s also a handful of other animal ethics groups. I have never attended a circus, have no intentions of ever attending and am fully aware of the horrors that the animals endure in the training. Of course, the circus execs always talk of how good the animals are treated, but never mention the electric prods and whips the animals face daily. Do you think the animals just naturally act this way? If you do plan on attending be sure to pay attention the demeanor of the animals, do they look happy? Are they acting with affection? Do they look threatened? Let me know what you witness.