I love elephants…more than people.

I love elephants. I don’t know why but they have always been my favorite animal. Always. I’m obsessed with them. In love with them. So naturally I don’t like to think about them in the circus. I don’t think they should be trained against their will to do stupid ass tricks for dumb people to sit and watch them. I’ve always hated the circus, even as a kid. But now, there’s a real reason to hate the circus. Not only are the animals trained without a choice, but they aren’t trained the way you train your dogs. They aren’t rewarded with treats and praise. And they aren’t given time to learn their tricks either. They are forced to quickly learn their acts as soon as they are born. How? Well let’s beat them,torture them and punish them…then they’ll learn.

What we don’t see is the behind the scenes crap that goes on. Like how frightened and still-nursing baby elephants are captured rodeo-style, tethered neck-to-neck with an “anchor elephant,” and dragged away from their mothers. Then they go on to endure year-long intense and violent training sessions that last for several hours a day. On top of it the elephants struggle during training as they are wrestled, stretched out, slammed to the ground, gouged with bullhooks, and shocked with electric prods. Thanks to my friend B for sharing this with me… I would have never known just how terrible the circus really is. As if the clowns weren’t bad enough…

Please go to this site to see more pictures. There has to be at least 100 more pictures and information.

Ringling Beats their Animals

Lady Gaga Decides to Offend Everyone

I love Lady Gaga’s music, seriously. Just Dance is pretty much the anthem of all the nights I don’t remember. Her often psychotic approach to everything, usually appeals to me but last night? Not so much. Gaga came out to accept her award in a freaking meat dress. This is disgusting on so many levels. Let’s start with the obvious question, WTF? Seriously, WTF Gaga?! Raw meat already makes me want to vomit…how about I drape some of it all over my body? Now unto the more serious stuff…why the hell are you wearing dead animal all over you? What the hell is your point? Animals were slaughtered so you could drape their meat over your body for a few shocking minutes on the VMAs and then you can toss them into the garbage? That’s so messed up. I hate it when animals die, but feel a little bit better if they are eaten or worn, or whatever, and not wasted. This situation? A complete waste. I don’t think she made any point other than she’s an idiot.

Gaga defended and explained herself by saying “Well, it is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian. As you know, I am the most judgment-free human being on the earth,” said Gaga. “However, it has many interpretations but for me this evening. If we don’t stand up for what we believe in and if we don’t fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat.” Who cares if it’s no disrespect to the vegans or vegetarians! What about the animals?! I think it’s, oh, just a little bit disrespectful that you have freaking dead animal on you. Just a little. “No matter how beautifully it is presented, flesh from a tortured animal is flesh from a tortured animal,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement. “Meat represents bloody violence and suffering, so if that’s the look they were going for, they achieved it.”

My fave Ellen DeGeneres taped her season opener last night, which will air today, and came across Gaga and presented her with a veggie bikini and suggested she try that next time she wants to make a statement. Nice.

This isn’t the first time Gaga’s used meat to “make a statement” either. Gaga posed for the September cover of Vogue Hommes Japan in a meat bikini. I really don’t think she has any real reason to why she’s using meat. I don’t believe she even has a fascination with it or anything. Really no point either. I think she’s just doing what she’s always doing…trying to shock, offend, and terrify people. Usually her tactics are werid yet alluring but not this time…just sick.

“Meat is the decomposing flesh of an abused animal who didn’t want to die, and after being under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh that it is and likely be crawling with maggots – not too attractive, really,” PETA’s president told TMZ today about Gaga’s nasty getup. Newkirk continued to discuss the matter, “In her line of business, Lady Gaga has a hard time being ‘over the top’, and wearing a dress made from cuts of dead cows is offensive enough to elicit comment, but someone should whisper in her ear that more people are upset by butchery than are impressed by it – and that means a lot of young people will not be buying her records if she keeps it up.”

I wonder how excited Cher was to hold Gaga’s raw meat purse. Gag.

Peanut Noodles are Yum.

My lovely friends, The M family grow their own vegetables in their garden! I love this. I also really love green beans. So what a lovely surprise when my husband came home one day with a bag of green beans from the M’s garden! I didn’t know what to do with them. Oh the possibilities. We could sauté them. We could stir fry. We could steam. We could chop. We could munch on them raw. Oh what to do. Well, I was overwhelmed by my options so I tossed the bag in the fridge and decided to deal with that situation later. Later came the following day when my husband deserted me and I had some alone (aka boring, spare) time and no meal.

Crap, was I actually going to attempt to cook for myself? Oy. Anyone who knows me, knows I am no Top Chef. Plus I have weird cravings almost daily. Like this night, I wanted peanut butter but I also wanted to eat those green beans while they were fresh. So I came up with a concoction! Yes, I, me, myself, yours truly made something. And no, I wish I could say I made everything from scratch, but I did not. I have to start somewhere, don’t judge. So here’s the recipe for my lovely Peanut Noodles & Beans!

Ingredients:

• Green beans (canned, fresh, whatever!)
• Lo mien noodles (you can get these literally anywhere. I suppose you could substitute the noodles, but I don’t really recommend it.)
• Any type of peanut sauce (you can find these in the Asian food aisle at the supermarket).
• Peanuts.
• Obviously, you can also make your own peanut sauce-there are countless amounts of recipes out there-but if you are cheap and lazy like me-a bottle of peanut sauce from the store is perfecto.
• Sriracha sauce.

Steps:

1. Make noodles according to package (usually just boil water, put in noodles, 5-7 minutes, done!)
2. At the same time, either boil to cook your green beans or stir fry them in a separate pan.
3. Drain noodles, return them to the pot and stir in peanut sauce. How much is up to you, however I don’t recommend overdosing since this is a sauce, not a broth!
4. Stir in the green beans.
5. Put a squirt of Sriracha into the pot and make sure to mix that ish up, or your going to set your mouth on fire.
6. Chop up the peanuts (I like to put them in a plastic bag and then have at them with something heavy) and toss that on top of your dish!
7. Done. Easy as pie. Actually probably easier than pie!

For people who are looking for more protein and/or are less lazy than me, toss in some stir fried tofu, or other vegetables…this recipe is pretty versatile!

Have fun experimenting in the kitchen! That’s what it’s there for!

Ugh, I’m Giving up Uggs.

I cannot lie. I love my Ugg boots. Love them. So how unfortunate that I had to do my research on them and now can no longer buy anymore of those evil boots. In reality, I do not need Uggs. I can happily get the Fuggs from Target, and now I probably will. It won’t compare in comfort, but how could it? Uggs are sheep on your feet. According to their website, “Only the finest materials are used in the construction of our products – the highest quality leathers and suedes, and of course, the world’s finest sheepskin. UGG® Australia is the world’s largest purveyor of grade-A sheepskin.”

So what does that mean? It means they skin sheep (not shave, skin) and then buff up both sides for you, making the nice soft outside and the comfy furry inside. “Twin-face sheepskin is used in many of our core products. A piece of twin-face sheepskin has been treated on both the fleece side, and the skin side, providing the soft comfort UGG® Australia is famous for.”

The Animal Liberation Movement has been criticizing Uggs since the beginning and have been trying to get them to stop using animal hides, but since they are so successful and popular, it just isn’t going to happen. Pamela Anderson who used to sport Uggs all the time, when finding out it was sheepskin, she posted on her website encouraging everyone to stop buying Uggs. A few other groups and people have been trying to stop the production of animal hides by Ugg but little has changed. The Princeton Animal Welfare Society have also held huge protests against the Ugg industry on their college campus, only getting the message across to some fellow students.

Obviously my blog isn’t going to stop anything either, however, for anyone out there who really cares about these poor animals, just stop buying animal hide/fur/leather! Is it really worth it? The faux stuff looks just the same anyways. Yes, I love my Uggs. And I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to toss out the ones I own…but I can promise that I will never knowingly purchase another pair again! See ya Uggs! It’s been a good run!

A Fur-ry Situation

As a member of PETA, I get information mailed to me about new and shocking, (or not so new and shocking) information about anything animals related from around the world. The information I got recently, put me over the edge! I’m not a huge pet person, actually I don’t want pets at all, but I know many people out there who don’t really give a thought to animals unless it is their dog or cat. Well read on pet lovers because this will shock you!

As many of you know PETA is not just about not eating animals, it’s also a huge activist against wearing animals. Of course, I support this but really don’t ever think about fur. Fur has never been an issue to me because I never really thought I wore it, so I’ve never really given much thought or done much research on the topic. Well after reading the information sent to me, it made me think more. Fur can be found on anything…I usually just think of big luxurious fur coats, but they are collars on coats, lining in gloves, lining in our boots (I’m guilty!), rugs, trinkets, even kids clothes and toys. Well it so happens that fur is not what we think it is. Fur is usually labeled as anything from “Asian jackal” to “rabbit” but it doesn’t stop there folks! Disney knew what they were talking about with 101 Dalmatians…because a lot of that fur out there is dog!

PETA did an investigation and found that cats, dogs, and puppies are routinely used to make fur products. Here are some disturbing facts:

• Trucks transport up to 800 animals in tiny cages to fur markets, and some of them are still wearing the collars that their former owners had put on them!
• Dead and dying dogs and cats are crammed into the cages along with the living animals.
• Many of the cages are tossed 10 feet from the top of trucks to the ground below, killing or injuring some of the animals inside during the process.
• “Kinder” killing methods cost money or damages the fur so methods like anal electrocution, kicking, strangling with wire nooses, drowning and skinning live animals are used on a normal basis.
• PETA got actual footage of cats and dogs hung up by their legs and tails and had the fur peeled from their flesh while they were alive! Once they were stripped, their bleeding bodies are tossed into a pile with other bodies, where the animals’ hearts were still beating and they were still gasping for life for up to five minutes! And the other animals awaited their turn in the cages where they were covered in feces and urine. Omg!

So what can we do? Well first off, stop wearing it. Anything labeled “fur” could be dog, cat, fox, coyote, lynx, rabbit, sheep, lamb, raccoon…no animal is spared. Anything that even looks like fur, don’t do it because it turns out there is a lot of consumer deception going on when it comes to fur labeling. Turns out if the fur value is less than $150, there is no requirement from the company to label it! Great huh? The Truth in Fur Labeling Act was passed in 2008 and is slowly closing all the loopholes. (For more information on that you can go to hsus.org-which is the Humane Society of the U.S.)

This jacket, with no mention of fur on the label, was sold in a U.S. store in January 2007. The fur on it was later identified by mass spectrometry as raccoon dog.

Second? You can join PETA and donate money (anything helps) so that they can continue to organize demonstrations, protest at fashion shows, produce media so more people can be educated, and so forth. PETA as been successful in converting top designers and companies to becoming fur-free. Polo Ralph Lauren went fur-free after meeting with PETA and seeing footage from fur farms, and recently PETA has won over Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein as well. They are slowly gaining ground so help!

Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss sporting real fur. 😦

Nicole Richie and SJP sporting faux fur. 🙂

This is DOG.

Fast Food Nation

Last night I had the extreme pleasure of viewing the movie Fast Food Nation for the very first time. Let me tell you, if you haven’t seen this movie, you must! I was only a tad reluctant because the movie got very mixed reviews. Many of the reviews I read on my beloved Netflix were terrible. People we’re complaining that the movie should have been made into a documentary instead but I disagree. I thought the movie was well made. In defense, the way I see it is that not many people enjoy documentaries. I in fact, love them, but I know that many people find them to be boring, slow, long, etc. Therefore taking the matter of slaughterhouses, the fast food industry, the meat industry, immigration and activism and putting it into a fictional plot seems like a good idea to me. I find that people who cannot bear to sit and watch documentaries can watch a movie that has a plot, storyline and characters that they can identify with.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, it is a movie following a few different people’s lives who are all somehow affected by the meat/fast food industry. We follow around a business man who works for Mickey’s, a fast food chain, a high school girl who works at Mickey’s while becoming friends with college activists, and an illegal immigrant couple who come to America and end up working at Mickey’s beef supplier. It stars many people, including Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Wilmar Valderama, Avril Lavinge and Bruce Willis.

For whomever out there that wants to see this movie in documentary form, there is a version, called Food, Inc. This documentary is great, and was one of the first movies I saw that really concreted my decision of giving up meat. It shows you a behind the scenes look at slaughterhouses, worker conditions for immigrants and nonimmigrants, and also describes all the preservatives and hormones that you are consuming when you eat industrialized meat.

The book that both films are based off of is New York Time’s bestseller, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. The book takes you behind the scenes to what we are really eating when we eat beef from our favorite fast food restaurants. It goes into detail about the “flavorings” that make our beef taste “cajun” or “smoked,” shows us what ingredients are in our foods, where our food comes from, and who touches our food before it gets to us. There are insights, interviews, and so much more…I love it. Because of this book, which I read many years ago, I no longer consume McDonald’s strawberry milkshake-it has over 30 ingredients and 50% of them are chemicals. Yum!

For anyone who either doesn’t have the time or patience for reading Fast Food Nation, Schlosser (along with Charles Wilson) wrote a second book, called Chew on This, which is a tamer, shorter version of Fast Food Nation. It was made to aim at teenagers and younger people, but with the same concept-to educate people on the fast food industry. I have yet to read this but plan on doing so soon.

So in conclusion, I have to recommend both films, the fictional Fast Food Nation and the documentary Food, inc. Both will broaden your horizon and knowledge on the meat and fast food industry. I feel better just knowing where meat comes from, and it helps me remember why I don’t consume it. For anyone who is reluctant because they do want to consume meat, don’t fret, just go organic. Food, Inc. will show you how a chicken is killed in a slaughterhouse versus how they are killed on a local farm. Good stuff folks.

Peace!

Other good, similar films to check out: