Gaia Community Group — Vegetarian Food for Thought

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Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, vegan chef, animal rights advocate, and podcast host of Vegetarian Food for Thought , offers a unique perspective that leaves listeners feeling supported, motivated, and inspired. Celebrating a way of life that encompasses compassion for everyone, this

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podcast addresses all aspects of eating a compassionate, healthful, whole foods, plant-based diet and advocates a sustainable food system that supports organic, local, seasonal fare. Each episode addresses commonly asked questions about being vegetarian/vegan, including those regarding animal rights, food, cooking, nutrition, and debunks the myths surrounding these issues. Colleen's podcast can be subscribed to on iTunes - subscribing helps to bring more awareness to veganism and animal rights.

Please feel welcome to make comments on each podcast topic thread and/or introduce yourself and tell your story of why you are curious about veganism, are interested in becoming one, or are vegan.
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“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.” Abraham Lincoln

“Our task must be to free ourselves … by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”

“Flesh eating is unprovoked murder.” Albert Einstein

“The thinking man must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another, even the lowliest creature; to do so is to renounce our manhood and shoulder a guilt which nothing justifies.”

“It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered foolish to suppose that black men were really human beings and ought to be treated as such. What was once foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it is considered as exaggeration to proclaim constant respect for every form of life as being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is in its unqualified form extended responsibility to everything that has life.” Albert Schweitzer

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” Alice Walker

“Nothing's changed my life more. I feel better about myself as a person, being conscious and responsible for my actions and I lost weight and my skin cleared up and I got bright eyes and I just became stronger and healthier and happier. Can't think of anything better in the world to be but be vegan.” Alicia Silverstone

“Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. …Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering.” Andrew Linzey

“When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why then should man expect mercy from God? It is unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.” Ben Franklin

“All beings tremble before violence. All love life. All fear death. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?” Buddha

“Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.” Charles Darwin

“He was not only, I soon discovered, a water drinker, but a strict vegetarian, to which, perhaps, he owed a great deal of the almost?preternatural clearness, volubility, and sensitiveness of mind.” Charles Kingley

“I take vitamins daily, but just the bare essentials not what you'd call supplements. I try to stick to a vegan diet heavy on fruit, vegetables, tofu, and other soy products.” Clint Eastwood

“The person who is afraid to alter his living habits, and especially his eating and drinking habits, because he is afraid that other persons may regard him as queer, eccentric, or fanatic forgets that the ownership of his body, the responsibility for its well-being, belongs to him, not them.” Dr. Paul Brunton

“You ask people why they have deer heads on the wall. They always say, “Because it's such a beautiful animal.” There you go. I think my mother's attractive, but I have photographs of her.” Ellen DeGeneres

“If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth – beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals – would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?”

“While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?”

“Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.” George Bernard Shaw

“I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect…always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished.” Henry David Thoreau

“In all the round world there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughterhouses.” H.G. Wells

“Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.” H. H. Dalai Lama

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.” Howard Lyman

“To be a vegetarian is to disagree-to disagree with the course of things today. Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars-we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.”

“There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.”

“In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” Isaac Bashevis Singer

“If man is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.” Immanuel Kant

“What is it that should trace the insuperable line? …The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”

“Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds? It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless,tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.” Jeremy Bentham

“American children are the heaviest worldwide, and they are getting heavier at a faster rate than other children around the globe. This spread of obesity foreshadows an explosion in degenerative diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer waiting to erupt in our children's future. Together we can stop this tragedy from ever happening.”

“Every day a parent asks, “When is your pediatric nutrition book coming out?” Parents are eager for information. They don't know what to feed their kids. They know that the diet of their household and of their community are unhealthy, but they don't know what to do. They are stumped because they want to make changes, but they don't know how to get their kids to like healthy foods. This book has the answers. Not only will it explain what a healthy diet is, it will show you how to implement the best diet for your children in such a way that they will love it, eat it, and adopt a healthy approach to nutrition that will last a lifetime.”

“Yesterday I saw a child wearing a T-shirt that said, “If you love me, don't feed me junk food.” I was delighted to see this, but I also know how difficult it can be to feed our children well, particularly when the foods that are most convenient and the most heavily advertised are often the ones we should avoid. Joel Fuhrman's new book is a blessing, because it makes it so much easier. It is excellent, and full of clarity, wisdom, and guidance you can trust. It can indeed give you the power to shape your child's health destiny.” Joel Fuhrman, Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right

“An important fact to remember is that all natural diets, including purely vegetarian diets without a hint of dairy products, contain amounts of calcium that are above the threshold for meeting your nutritional needs….In fact, calcium deficiency caused by an insufficient amount of calcium in the diet is not known to occur in humans.” John McDougall

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.” John Muir

“Studies indicate that vegetarians often have lower morbidity and mortality rates… . Not only is mortality from coronary artery disease lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary artery disease. Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer.”

“Forests
* Number of acres of U.S. forest which have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet: 260 million
* How often an acre of U.S. trees disappears: Every 5 seconds
* At present rate of deforestation, number of years before not a single tree will remain standing in the United States: 50
* Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to a pure vegetarian diet: 1 acre
* Driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit
* Amount of meat imported annually by U.S. from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: 200 million pounds
* Amount of meat eaten by average person in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: Less than the average American housecat consumes
* Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests and related habitats: 1,000 species a year”

“Water
* Of all water used for all purposes in the United States, more than half goes to: livestock production
* Enough water goes into the production of the average cow to: float a U.S. Naval destroyer
* Water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25 gallons
* Water needed to produce a pound of meat: 2,500 gallons
* Cost of common hamburger meat if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by U.S. taxpayers: $35 a pound
* Current cost for pound of protein from wheat: $1.50
* Current cost for pound of protein from beefsteak: $15.40

“Waste
* Production of excrement by total U.S. human population: 12,000 pounds per second
* Production of excrement of U.S. livestock: 250,000 pounds per second
* Sewage systems in U.S. cities: Common
* Sewage systems in U.S. feedlots: Nil”

“Environmental Impacts
* Number of acres of U.S. forest which have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet: 260 million
* How often an acre of U.S. trees disappears: Every 5 seconds
* At present rate of deforestation, number of years before not a single tree will remain standing in the United States: 50
* Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to a pure vegetarian diet: 1 acre
* Driving force behind the destruction of the tropical rainforests: American meat habit
* Amount of meat imported annually by U.S. from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: 200 million pounds
* Amount of meat eaten by average person in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and Panama: Less than the average American housecat consumes
* Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests and related habitats: 1,000 species a year”

“Natural Resources
* Principal historic cause of demise of great civilizations: Topsoil depletion
* Percentage of U.S. cropland lost each year to soil erosion: 4 million acres (size of Connecticut)
* Percentage of U.S. topsoil loss directly associated with livestock raising: 85
* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last if all human beings ate meat-centered diet: 13 years
* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last if all human beings ate vegetarian diet: 260 years
* Principal reason for U.S. military intervention in Persian Gulf: Dependence on foreign oil
* Barrels of oil U.S. would have to import to meet present demand if 10% of population became fully vegetarian: None”

“Human Health
* Number of U.S. medical schools: 125
* Number of U.S. medical schools with a required course in nutrition: 30
* Training in nutrition received during 4 years of medical school by average U.S. physician: 2.5 hours
* How frequently a heart attack strikes in U.S.: Every 25 seconds
* How frequently a heart attack kills in U.S.: Every 45 seconds
* Risk of death from heart attack by average American man: 50%
* Risk of death from heart attack by average American vegetarian man: 15%
* Amount you reduce your risk of heart attack by reducing your consumption of meat, dairy products, and eggs by 100%: 90%
* Rise in blood cholesterol from consuming 1 egg per day: 12%
* Rise in heart attack risk from 12% rise in blood cholesterol: 24%
* Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries even if your blood cholesterol is “normal”: over 50%
* Your risk of dying of a disease if you do not consume saturated fat and cholesterol: 5%
* Leading source of saturated fat and cholesterol in American diets: Meat, dairy products and eggs
* Hollywood celebrity paid by Meat Board to tout beef as “Real food for real people”: James Garner
* Medical event experienced by James Garner in 1988: Quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery” ~ John Robbins, http://www.foodrevolution.org

“You're only as vegan as your next choice.” Joshua Warchol

“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”

“One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.”

“As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love.” Leonardo da Vinci

“As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.”

“What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.”

“A human can be healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore if he eats meat he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.”

“If he be really and seriously seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the use of animal food, because …its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to the moral feeling - killing.” Leo Tolstoy

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

“To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being.” Mahatma Gandhi

“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't…The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.” Mark Twain

“The standard four food groups are based on American agricultural lobbies. Why do we have a milk group? Because we have a National Dairy Council. Why do we have a meat group? Because we have an extremely powerful meat lobby.” Marion Nestle

“Ultimately, living with compassion means striving to maximize the good we accomplish, not following a set of rules or trying to fit a certain label. From eating less meat to being vegan, our actions are only a means to an end: decreasing suffering. What we choose to eat makes a powerful statement about our ethics and our view of the world – about our very humanity. Whenever we choose not to buy meat, eggs, and dairy products, we withdraw our support from cruelty to animals, undertake an economic boycott of factory farms, and support the production of cruelty-free foods. Regardless of any other beliefs we hold and however else we choose to lead our lives, each of us can decide to act with kindness and compassion. Making humane choices is the ultimate affirmation of our humanity.” Matt Ball, http://www.veganoutreach.org/

“How pitiful are sentient beings in Samsara …
How foolish and sad it is to indulge in killing;
How sad to commit an act that in the end will hurt oneself;
How sad to build a sinful wall of meat, made of one's dying parents' flesh; How sad to see meat eaten and blood flowing!” Milarepa, http://www.hermitary.com/articles/milarepa.html

“If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this -the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible in the extreme. I call upon you to be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated. If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not.” Moby

“The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind.” Paul McCartney

“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.” Paul and Linda McCartney

“Vegetarians always ask about getting enough protein. But I don't know any nutrition expert who can plan a diet of natural foods resulting in a protein deficiency, so long as you're not deficient in calories. You need only 5 or 6 percent of total calories in protein… and it is practically impossible to get below 9 percent in ordinary diets.” Nathan Pritikin

“About 2,000 pounds of grains must be supplied to livestock in order to produce enough meat and other livestock products to support a person for a year, whereas 400 pounds of grain eaten directly will support a person for a year. Thus, a given quantity of grain eaten directly will feed 5 times as many people as it will if it is eaten indirectly by humans in the form of livestock products….” Neal Barnard

“As a matter of strict logic, perhaps, there is no contradiction in taking an interest in animals on both compassionate and gastronomic grounds. If a person is opposed to the infliction of suffering on animals, but not to the painless killing of animals, he could consistently eat animals that had lived free of all suffering and been instantly, painlessly slaughtered. Yet practically and psychologically it is impossible to be consistent in one's concern for nonhuman animals while continuing to dine on them. If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end. In time we will come to regard pigs, cattle, and chickens as things for us to use, no matter how strong our compassion may be; and when we find that to continue to obtain supplies of the bodies of these animals at a price we are able to pay it is necessary to change their living conditions a little, we will be unlikely to regard these changes too critically. The factory farm is nothing more than the application of technology to the idea that animals are means to our ends. Our eating habits are dear to us and not easily altered. We have a strong interest in convincing ourselves that our concern for other animals does not require us to stop eating them. No one in the habit of eating an animal can be completely without bias in judging whether the conditions in which that animal is reared caused suffering.” Peter Singer, Animal Liberation

“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” Pythagoras

“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People get offended by animal rights campaigns. It's ludicrous. It's not as bad as mass animal death in a factory.” Richard Gere

“To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.” Romain Rolland

“Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude toward those who are at tis mercy: animals. And in this respect, human kind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.” Sri Aurobindo

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.” Thomas Edison

“It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.” unknown

“Heart attacks… God's revenge for eating his little animal friends.“ unknown

“Only when lions have historians will hunters cease being heroes.” unknown, African Proverb

“There were no Slaughterhouses in the Garden of Eden.” unknown

“How can you eat anything with eyes?” Will Kellogg

“When we kill animals to eat them they end up killing us because their flesh…was never intended for human beings, who are naturally herbivores.” William C. Roberts, M.D.

“I've been vegan for about 10 and a half years. It's been all good. I'm obviously much healthier.” Woody Harrelson

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