The other day I saw an ad for a new model of Audi. In it, a woman enters a butcher shop, and the butcher, a female, knowing that this woman is looking for something more “red blooded,” ushers her into the back room, where we find the new Audi Q8. “Dig in,” the butcher says. …
Through a Vegan Studies Lens: Textual Ethics and Lived Activism, edited by Laura Wright, is part of the series “Cultural Ecologies of Food in the 21st Century” from the University of Nevada Press, bringing attention to the ways in which our food choices “produce ecologies of effects, environmentally and otherwise.” I am thrilled to see …
The cover of Ethical Vegetarianism and Veganism, a collection of essays edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey, features a photograph of a rescued chicken taken by Jo-Anne McArthur. Rescued is an optimistic word because the life of a chicken freed from a factory farm is often all-too-brief. Chickens bred for food are pumped so …
We want to believe that cows live happy lives. From our childhoods of Old MacDonald and his farm, field trips and cartoons and stuffed animals, we are raised to believe they are happy. The dairy industry tells us they are happy. The advertisements we see on TV reinforce the illusion. But it is only an …
The Animals’ Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, and Coexistence in the Human Age by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce is an important and timely book that examines the human relationship with — or, more accurately, examines the many ways in which humans use — animals and how this relationship needs to evolve. This book asks readers to rethink …
I am forever wondering what my dog, Galen, is thinking. Sometimes I go nose to nose with her, stare into her brown eyes, and ponder what’s happening in that little brain of hers. In those moments, I presume she thinks either, “Why have you thrust your face in mine?” or “How about you give me …
After finishing Wolf Haven I went straight to the Internet and looked up Wolf Haven International. I had been aware of the California Wolf Center, located outside San Diego, but was not aware of Wolf Haven, located just south of Mt. Rainier. And now I can’t wait to visit. But make no mistake; this is no petting zoo. In …
When I read a New York Times story about a New York City neighborhood grappling with a rare animal-borne disease that killed one resident and left at least two others seriously ill, it was, for me, a tragic case of life imitating art. You see, I’d recently finished Neil Abramson’s Just Life, a fast-paced fictional …
Donald Watson is widely credited with having coined the term “vegan” in 1944, when he and others founded the Vegan Society. Since then, the word has become so heavily loaded with cultural and emotional baggage (both pro and con) that an increasing number of vegan restaurants and food brands I come across now use the words “plant-based” instead. But I like …
The Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics has issued an important report that calls for the “de-normalisation of animal experimentation.” The report is backed by numerous scientists, scholars, theologians and writers, such as Coetzee. You can view the report here. According to the report: The deliberate and routine abuse of innocent, sentient animals involving harm, pain, suffering, …
The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food, by Ted Genoways, is an important work of reporting. Based on years of interviews and tireless research, the book spans the length of our food system, focused largely on Hormel Foods, the makers of Spam. It covers the tragically interconnected plight of the workers and of the animals. …
