Vegan Nutrition in Pregnancy and Childhood
by Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D. and Katie Kavanagh-Prochaska, Dietetic Intern

Basic Needs in Pregnancy

During pregnancy, the body requires extra calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals in order to support the baby’s growth and to allow for changes in the mother’s body. Important considerations in pregnancy include calories, protein, vitamin B12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, and folate.

Calories

Pregnant women, in general, need an additional 300 calories per day, beginning in the second trimester. The extra calories allow for the mother’s body to change and the baby to grow. Your calorie needs may vary according to your pre-pregnancy weight and the amount of weight which you need to gain. Adding nutritious snacks to your daily routine is one way to get extra calories. A sample meal plan for vegan pregnancy, which includes three snack ideas, can be found inside this article.

Protein

Protein recommendations in pregnancy call for an additional 10 grams (for 25-50 year olds) or 14 grams (for 19-24 year olds) of protein. Some examples of protein-rich foods are plain, enriched soyamilk; tofu; tempeh; cooked beans; and nuts and nut butters. Eating a wide variety of nutritious foods will help pregnant women get the additional protein they need.

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is used for tissue synthesis and requirements are increased during pregnancy. Some good sources of vitamin B12 are vitamin B12 fortified soyamilk and fortified tofu, some fortified ready-to-eat cereals, and Vegetarian Support Formula nutritional yeast. A little more than a tablespoon of Vegetarian Support Formula will provide the recommended amount of vitamin B12. This is a critical nutrient, so if your diet does not include these foods daily, use a vegetarian prenatal vitamin with vitamin B12.

Iron

Iron is needed for increased maternal blood volume and to form the baby’s blood. Anemia can be a problem during any pregnancy, regardless of your diet. All pregnant women need to eat foods rich in iron, such as green leafy vegetables, dried beans and legumes, and dried fruits. Eating iron-rich foods with citrus fruits can increase iron absorption. An iron supplement may be necessary if you cannot get enough iron from your diet.

Calcium/Vitamin D

Calcium and vitamin D work together for bone and teeth health and development. Calcium absorption increases in pregnancy and may compensate for increased needs. Pregnant women should eat 4 or more servings of calcium-rich foods daily, including some green leafy vegetables, and calcium-fortified tofu, soyamilk, and orange juice. Calcium supplements, on days your appetite is poor, are also an option. Vitamin D is found in fortified soyamilk and fortified breakfast cereals.

Zinc

Zinc is necessary for growth and development. The recommended intake for zinc increases during pregnancy. Good sources of zinc include peas, beans, brown rice, spinach, nuts, tofu, and tempeh.

Folate

Folate is important even before you know you are pregnant, so all women of childbearing age should be getting at least 400µg (micrograms) per day. The need for folate increases in pregnancy, to 600µg per day. Dark leafy greens, whole grains, and orange juice are rich sources of folate. Vegan diets are often high in folate.

Basic Needs During Breast-feeding

The best diet for breast-feeding is very similar to the diet recommended for pregnancy. Calorie, protein, and vitamin B12 needs are slightly higher, while the need for iron is reduced. It is a good idea to use a standard prenatal vitamin shortly before, during, and after pregnancy, along with eating a well-balanced diet.

Basic Needs for Infants (0-1 years)

The ideal food for a vegan baby’s first year of life is breast milk. Benefits to the breast-fed baby include enhancement of the immune system, protection against infection, and reduced risk of allergies. Benefits to the mom include reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer, release of stress-relieving hormones, and convenience. Breast-feeding may also help you lose weight, though you should not restrict calories when trying to establish milk supply. There may be other benefits we are not aware of yet.

Vitamin D

The most reliable way to get vitamin D is from fortified foods or supplements. Vitamin D is synthesized in our skin with sunlight exposure. This synthesis is greatly reduced by sun screen use. Since sun screen should be used with any sunlight exposure, dietary or supplemental vitamin D is needed. Babies under 6 months of age should not be exposed to the sun for long periods of time. After 6 months of age, use a sun screen formulated specifically for baby’s skin. Breast-fed infants should be supplemented with 5µg (200IU) of vitamin D daily. Infant formula supplies adequate amounts of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency leads to rickets (soft, improperly mineralized bones).

Iron

The breast-fed infant should be started on iron supplements or iron-fortified foods (like baby cereal) between 4 and 6 months. Formula fed babies may not need the supplement since infant formula contains iron. Iron-fortified cereals provide additional iron. If you give iron supplements to your baby, ask your pediatrician for the correct dose.

DHA

DHA is a fatty acid which appears to be important for eye and brain development. It is found primarily in animal derived foods. However, babies can make DHA from another fatty acid called linolenic acid which is found in breast milk if the mother’s diet includes good sources of linolenic acid (flaxseed oil, ground flaxseed, canola oil, soy oil).

Soy Formula

There are several soy-based formulas available. Vegan families should choose these if breast-feeding is not an option. Some soy-based formulas may contain animal-derived fats, so check the ingredient label. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, in the US the food industry does not offer ANY soy-based formulas that do not include vitamin D derived from lanolin, which comes from sheep’s wool. There are no other acceptable options for formula-fed vegan infants. Only consumer outcry is likely to change this situation.

It is important to note that soyamilk, rice milk, and homemade formulas should not be used to replace breast milk or commercial infant formula during the first year. These foods do not contain the right amounts of nutrients for babies.

Introducing Solid Foods

Solid foods should be introduced between 4 and 6 months of age. Try to introduce one food at a time, waiting 2 to 3 days before trying another food, to see if the baby has a reaction to the food. If an allergic reaction occurs, the offending food is more easily identified.

Iron-fortified infant rice cereal is a good first food. It is an excellent source of iron, and rice cereal is least likely to cause an allergic response. Once the baby eats this cereal well, begin introducing other cereals such as oats, barley, and corn. Vegetables may be introduced next, again, one at a time to check for allergies. Vegetables must be well-mashed or puréed. Well-mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, sweet potatoes, and green beans are good first vegetables.

Fruits are usually introduced after vegetables, theoretically in order to allow acceptance of vegetables before the sweet taste of fruits is experienced. Good first fruits are well-mashed bananas, pears, or peaches.

Protein foods are generally introduced around 7 to 8 months. Some good sources of protein include mashed, cooked dried beans; mashed tofu; and soy yogurt. Smooth nut and seed butters spread on bread or crackers can be introduced after the first birthday.

Some parents choose to use commercial baby foods. There are products made for vegetarian babies, but careful label reading is recommended. Many parents wish to make their own baby foods. These should be prepared without added sugar, salt, or spices. Foods should be well cooked, mashed or puréed, and handled under clean conditions.

Babies under age 2 need more calories and fat than at any other time in their lives. Fat is important in brain development. Some foods used to increase fat in the diet are mashed avocado, vegetable oil, and nut and seed butters spread on crackers (in children older than 1 year).

If a breast-feeding mother is not using a reliable source of vitamin B12, the baby needs a vitamin B12 supplement.

For a more detailed discussion of vegan pregnancy, you can purchase Simply Vegan, by Debra Wasserman and Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D. This book is available from The Vegetarian Resource Group. Healthcare practitioners may wish to consult the “Nutrition Management of the Vegetarian Child” chapter from the Pediatric Manual of Clinical Dietetics, from The American Dietetic Association.

Feeding Vegan Children — Toddlers through School-Age

Children, especially toddlers and preschoolers, often tend to eat less than most parents think they should. This is generally due to a developing sense of independence and a slow down in growth. All parents should schedule regular check-ups with their child’s pediatrician, in order to monitor growth, development, and health. All parents need to make sure that what their child does eat, gives the child the nutrients he or she needs. The preschool years are an important time for developing healthy eating patterns, which can set the stage for a healthful adult diet.

Calories and Fat

Young children have small stomachs and eating a lot of high fiber foods may not give them enough calories. A diet rich in fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is also usually high in fiber. The fiber content of a vegan child’s diet can be reduced by offering him or her some refined grain products, fruit juices, and peeled fruits and vegetables. Foods like avocado, nut and seed butters, dried fruits, and soy products can pack a lot of calories into small quantities, which is great for the growing child. To promote synthesis of DHA, an important fat, include source of linolenic acid like canola oil, flaxseed oil, and soy products in your child’s diet.

Protein

A child will meet protein needs if a variety of plant foods are eaten and calorie intake is adequate. It is unnecessary to precisely plan and complement amino acids within each meal as was once thought, as long as children eat several meals and snacks a day. Variety is the key to a healthy diet. Sources of protein include legumes, grains, soy products, meat analogs, and nut butters.

Calcium

Calcium is very important for growing bones and teeth. Good sources of calcium include fortified soyamilk, fortified rice milks, and calcium-fortified orange juice, tofu made with calcium, blackstrap molasses, vegetarian baked beans, and textured vegetable protein (TVP). Because of the small size of a child’s stomach and the amount needed, leafy greens are not a major source of calcium. However, the older child may be able to consume enough kale, collard greens, turnip, and mustard greens, along with other good sources of calcium, to meet needs.

Zinc

There is little available information on the zinc content of diets of vegan children. Zinc sources include legumes, whole grain pasta, wheat germ, fortified cereals, tofu, nut butters, and miso.

Vitamin D

Dietary sources of vitamin D include some brands of fortified soyamilk, fortified rice milk, and some dry cereals. Vitamin D supplements are needed for children who have no dietary source of vitamin D. Sun exposure has traditionally been recommended for vitamin D production. Current recommendations call for the use of sun screen, which greatly reduces vitamin D production by the skin, so sun exposure should not be relied on for vitamin D adequacy. Remember that children always need to wear sun screen outdoors.

Vitamin B12

Vegan children should use foods fortified with vitamin B12 or vitamin B12 supplements. A variety of foods fortified with vitamin B12 are available, including some brands of soyamilk, meat analogs, fortified nutritional yeast, and some breakfast cereals.

Iron

Iron deficiency anemia is a common childhood nutritional problem, no matter what the diet. Good iron sources include whole or enriched grains and grain products, iron-fortified cereals, legumes, green leafy vegetables, and dried fruits. Vitamin C helps the body absorb iron, so offer citrus fruits with iron-rich foods.

A diet plan for vegan toddlers and children is included later.

Special Tips for Feeding Preschoolers

• Offer choices of foods. Letting the child make some decisions can increase acceptance of foods.

• Offer a variety of foods, repeatedly. Children’s food preferences often change. The food they refuse today may become tomorrow’s favorite.

• Keep mealtime a pleasant time. Do not force a child to eat or use food as a reward. Try to remain low-key about food refusals. Studies show that a new food can be offered up to 15 times before the child will try it.

• Make food fun. Try pancakes in different shapes, offer vegetables and dips, and hide small pieces of soft fruit in soy yogurt.

• Set a good example. Let the child see you eating healthy foods.

• Foods that are not a particular favorite may be added to foods the child likes, for example, chopped or puréed vegetables can be added to pasta sauce or soup. Tofu can be blended into a fruit shake. Fruit purées can be added to baked goods.

• Involve the child in food preparation. Even young toddlers can tear lettuce and help put cut-up vegetables into a pot.

• Some children may prefer eating single foods in separate bowls rather than a mixture of foods such as a casserole.

Choking risks

Toddlers and preschoolers are at increased risk of choking because they are still learning to chew and swallow, they may not have a full set of teeth yet, and they may not want to take the time to chew food carefully. To minimize choking risk, the following foods should be avoided or eaten only with supervision:

• Nuts, except when finely ground.

• Nut butters by the spoonful.

• Vegetarian hot dogs, unless sliced into tiny pieces the size of a pea.

• Cherry tomatoes, unless halved or quartered.

• Grapes, unless cut in half. Peeling may be needed for young toddlers.

• Raw cherries, unless pitted and sliced.

• Raw celery and whole raw carrots.

• Popcorn.

Meal Planning Ideas

Popular foods with vegan children include:

• Pizza, without cheese, and topped with vegetables, tofu, or meat analogs.

• Pasta with marinara sauce.

• Oven-baked French fries.

• Soy yogurt.

• Macaroni and soy cheese.

• Milkshakes made with calcium-fortified soyamilk and fruit.

• Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

• Fresh or dried fruit.

• Pancakes and waffles.

• Noodles with peanut butter sauce.

• Raw vegetables with dip.

• Muffins.

• Mashed potatoes.

• Veggie burgers.

• Tofu dogs.

• Bagels with nut butter or humus.

Interested in teen nutrition? Check out our Vegetarian Nutrition Guide for Teenagers for more information on the website, or call (410) 366-8343 for a paper copy.

General Tips

Use an iron skillet when preparing acidic foods, such as tomato sauce. This helps “unlock” the iron.

• Be sure your non-dairy milk alternative is fortified with vitamins D and B12, as well as calcium.

• Good sources of zinc are peas, beans, brown rice, nuts, spinach, tofu, wheat germ, fortified breakfast cereals, and tempeh.

• Introduce one new food at a time to your baby in order to identify possible allergens.

• Do not restrict fat in your baby’s diet before 2 years of age. Babies need fat for brain development. Some sources of fat are avocados, olive oil, and nut butters.

Nuts and nut butters are possible allergens, so watch your child carefully for signs of an allergic reaction. Nut butters should only be given to babies over one year of age, and only with supervision. Whole nuts should never be given to a child under 3 years of age because they are a choking hazard.

A Sample Meal Plan for Vegan Pregnancy, Infancy, and Childhood

This sample meal plan provides approximately 2500 calories, 94 gm protein, 70 gm fat (24% of calories), and 396 gm carbohydrate. This sample meal plan meets the RDA for iron, calcium, zinc, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin D, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin.

Breakfast

½ cup oatmeal with maple syrup 1 slice whole wheat toast with fruit spread 1 cup fortified soyamilk ½ cup calcium-fortified orange juice Morning Snack ½ whole wheat bagel with margarine 1 banana

Lunch

Veggie burger on whole wheat bun with mustard and ketchup

1 cup steamed collard greens Medium apple 1 cup fortified soyamilk Afternoon Snack 3/4¾ cup ready-to-eat cereal with ½ cup blueberries

1 cup fortified soyamilk

Dinner

3/4¾ cup tofu stir-fried with 1 cup vegetables 1 cup brown rice

Medium orange

Evening Snack

Whole grain crackers with 2 Tbsp. peanut butter
4 ounces apple juice

Feeding Schedule For Vegan Babies Ages 4-12 Months
	4-7 mos	6-8 mos*	7-10 mos	10-12 mos
MILK	Breast milk or soy formula.	Breast milk or soy formula.	Breast milk or soy formula.	Breast milk or soy formula (24-32 ounces).
CEREAL & BREAD	Begin iron-fortified baby cereal mixed with breast milk or soy formula.	Continue baby cereal. Begin other breads and cereals.	Baby cereal. Other breads and cereals.	Baby cereal until 18 mos. Total of 4 svgs (1 svg=1/4 slice bread or 2-4 TB cereal).
FRUITS & VEGETABLES	None	Begin juice from cup: 2-4 oz vit C source. Begin mashed vegetables & fruits.	4 oz juice. Pieces of soft/cooked fruits & vegetables.	Table-food diet. Allow 4 svgs per day (1 svg=2-4 TB fruit & vegetable, 4 oz juice).
LEGUMES & NUT BUTTERS	None	None	Gradually introduce tofu. Begin casseroles, pureed legumes, soy cheese, & soy yogurt.	2 svgs daily each about ½ oz. Nut butters should not be started before 1 year.

*Overlap of ages occurs because of varying rate of development.

Diet Plans for Vegan Toddlers and Preschoolers (Age 1-4)
FOOD GROUP	NUMBER OF SERVINGS
Grains	6 or more servings. A serving is ½ to 1 slice of bread; 1/4 to ½ cup cooked cereal, grain, or pasta; ½ to 1 cup ready-to-eat cereal.
Legumes, Nuts, Seeds	2 or more servings. A serving is 1/4 to ½ cup cooked beans, tofu, tempeh, or TVP; 1-1/2 to 3 ounces of meat analog; 1 to 2 Tbsp. nuts, seeds, or nut or seed butter.
Fortified soyamilk, etc	3 servings. A serving is 1 cup fortified soyamilk, infant formula, or breast milk.
Vegetables	2 or more servings. A serving is 1/4 to ½ cup cooked, or ½ to 1 cup raw vegetables.
Fruits	3 or more servings. A serving is 1/4 to ½ cup canned fruit, ½ cup juice, or ½ medium fruit.
Fats	3-4 servings. A serving is 1 tsp. margarine or oil.
School-aged Children
FOOD GROUP	NUMBER OF SERVINGS
Grains	6 or more servings for five to six-year-olds; 7 or more for seven to twelve-year-olds. A serving is 1 slice of bread; ½ cup cooked cereal, grain, or pasta; or 3/4 to 1 cup ready-to-eat cereal.
Legumes, Nuts, Seeds	1-1/2 to 3 servings for five to six-year-olds; 3 or more for seven to twelve-year-olds. A serving is ½ cup cooked beans, tofu, tempeh, or TVP; 3 ounces of meat analog; or 2 Tbsp. nuts, seeds, nut or seed butter.
Fortified Soyamilk, etc.	3 servings. A serving is 1 cup fortified soyamilk.
Vegetables	2 or more servings for five to six-year-olds; 3 or more for seven to twelve-year-olds. A serving is ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw vegetables.
Fruits	2 to 4 servings for five to six-year-olds; 3 or more for seven to twelve-year-olds. A serving is ½ cup canned fruit, 3/4 cup juice, or 1 medium fruit.
Fats	4 servings for five to six-year-olds; 5 for seven to twelve-year-olds. A serving is 1 tsp. margarine or oil.

Available from The Vegetarian Resource Group

Vegan Handbook, edited by Debra Wasserman and Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D. Includes homemade baby food recipes and healthy fast food ideas for preschoolers. ($20)

CalciYum!, By David and Rachelle Bronfman. ($22)

Send check to VRG, Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203 or call (410) 366-8343, 9am to 5pm EST, to order with a Visa or MasterCard or order online.

Also available from VRG for kids.

Leprechaun Cake and Other Tales: A Vegetarian Story-Cookbook, by Vonnie Winslow Crist and Debra Wasserman. ($10)

For each free item below, send a SASE to the address below.

I Love Animals and Broccoli Coloring Book (3-8 year olds) I Love Animals and Broccoli Shopping Basket (7-10 year olds) I Love Animals and Broccoli Lesson Plan

Food Experience Projects for Young Children

Join The Vegetarian Resource Group

Receive the bi-monthly Vegetarian Journal, containing vegan recipes, nutrition information, updates from the scientific community, interviews with activists, and much more. Send $20 to The Vegetarian Resource Group, Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203 or subscribe online.

About VRG

The Vegetarian Resource Group is a non-profit educational organization which educates the public about vegetarianism, and the interrelated issues of health, nutrition, ecology, ethics, and world hunger. The contents of this article is not intended to provide personal medical advice. This should be obtained from a qualified health professional.

Be sure to explore our website www.vrg.org. You’ll find more information on vegan pregnancy, raising vegan children, traveling with vegan children, and recipes for vegan families. We have sample articles from previous issues of Vegetarian Journal, The American Dietetic Association Position Paper: Vegetarian Diets, books of interest to vegans, and links to related sites. Also consider joining our online vegetarian parent list.

Order Simply Vegan

The information contained in this article has been adapted from Simply Vegan. This excellent resource book contains 160 quick and easy vegan recipes and an extensive vegan nutrition section by Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., covering topics such as protein, fat, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, Pregnancy and the Vegan Diet, Feeding Vegan Kids, and a nutrition glossary. Also featured are sample menus and meal plans. ($13) Send your check to Vegetarian Resource Group, Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203; call (410) 366-8343, 9am to 5pm EST, to order with a Visa or MasterCard; or you can order online.

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SOYA “COW” TO BENEFIT HOSPITAL AND HEART PATIENTS
A gift to India from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

New Delhi — It doesn’t moo, but the “cow” that is now housed at Adhyatma Sadhana Kendra, a leading yoga institute, does provide milk — soya “milk”, that is. The soya-making machine was a gift to the institute from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an American-based group of medical doctors and others who promote sound nutrition. Dr. S.C. Manchanda, head of Cardiology Unit of All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS), India’s premiere medical hospital, unveiled the new soya cow, distributed soya milk and explained why soya beats dairy milk for people.

“Soya milk is superior to cow’s milk,” said Dr. Manchanda. “It’s a heart healthy drink without saturated fat and cholesterol of dairy.”

Soya products have actually been shown to benefit people suffering from heart disease, an increasing health concern in India. The World Health Organization predicts that deaths caused by heart disease will double in India by 2015. Research attributes this expected rise to India’s increased consumption of dairy and meat and adoption of a high-fat “cheeseburger” lifestyle.

The soya cow’s products, including soya milk, tofu (soya paneer), soya shakes will be given to heart patients and others who are undergoing training and therapy and the yoga institute, as well as to patients and staff and AIIMS. Both institutions believe that soya milk promotes good health, while dairy products are linked to deadly disease, including heart disease and cancer.

Scientific research shows they are right to be concerned. Since the 1980’s, study after study has linked dairy consumption to a high incidence of breast and other cancers. The American Dietetic Association, for example, reports that breast cancer is most prevalent in countries where women consume high-fat, animal-based diets. In east Asia, where milk consumption is extremely rare, breast cancer is almost unheard of. International renowned nutrition expert Dr. T. Colin Campbell points to China, a basically non-milk-drinking country, where cancer deaths among women aged 35 to 64 averaged less than 9 per 100,000, as opposed to 44 per 100,000 in the U.S.

Medical studies, including the Harvard Nurses Study, which has monitored the health of 75,000 milk and non-milk drinking women over the course of a decade, show that dairy products may actually contribute to osteoporosis and bone breaks. The study found that is because the calcium in milk, which is difficult for the body to absorb, actually leaches calcium from the body. Soya milk on the other hand has a very high absorption.

Men, too, are at risk. Results of the landmark Physicians’ Health Study of 20,885 doctors showed that men who consumed at least 2-1/2 servings of dairy foods daily were about 30 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than men who averaged less than half a serving per day. The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study found that men who consumed high amounts of dairy products had a 70 percent increased risk of prostate cancer. British researchers have found that men who eat a diet without dairy products and meat have lower levels of a certain protein associated with prostate cancer. The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, found that levels of IGF-1 – an insulin-like growth factor believed to play a key role in causing prostate cancer – were 9 percent lower in vegans than in nonvegans.

Milk and cheese are also laden with saturated fat, the worst kind you can get. Physicians now warn that dairy products also lead to allergies, “tummy trouble” such as stomach cramps, bloating and discomfort caused by lactose intolerance. A recent study by Dr. Minocha, the Chief of Gastroenterology at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, found that 70% of south Indians are lactose intolerant.

Milk and cheese can be particularly bad for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children as dairy products frequently contain cow’s blood and pus and are contaminated with pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. In children, cow’s milk is linked to insulin-dependent Type I (juvenile) diabetes. According to a report published last year in the American Journal of Nutrition, a study of children in 40 countries found that the incidence of juvenile diabetes was directly related to diet: The higher the consumption of cow’s milk and other animal products, the greater the chance of developing diabetes. Conversely, children who consumed a largely vegetarian diet had a much lower incidence of diabetes.

Dairy products can wreak havoc with children’s health in other ways. The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology names cow’s milk as the number one-cause of food allergies in kids. Susceptible children suffer from chronic runny noses, sore throats, sinus and ear infections, skin problems, chronic coughs, asthma and other conditions.

For more information on dairy versus soya milk, please visit PCRMIndia.org

Submitted by Anuradha Sawhney [email protected]

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Do you want to make milks at home?

In America, I buy ready-made soyamilk. But when in India, I don’t have that choice. So here is the recipe for home use (it is very time consuming and tedious, but we did it anyways during our last trip!):

Take one cup (8 oz.) of raw soy beans, inspect them thoroughly for removing pebbles, etc. foreign objects. Wash them 3-4 times. Let soak in 2-3 cups of water for overnight (or at least 8-10 hours). Then they should be soft, swollen and grindable. Again wash and inspect for removing the unswollen ones.

Now you grind them! Over and over, again and again! At least 5-6 times! Each time with 2-3 cups of new water. When you grind each time, they release milky white fluid. Each time you sieve them with a very thin clothe such as sari or dhoti. In the earlier batches, the fluid is enough thick to make ice cream out of it. But in the later batches it starts getting thinner. You use your judgment when to stop grinding any further.

Now you have a total of about 12-15 cups of milk! But it is not ready yet. It has smell and you need some taste and texture. Add about 15-20 cloves (“laving”) to suppress the smell, and a little (about one teaspoon) of salt for taste. Then you bring it to a boil on stove and then continue for about 15 minutes more for texture. Don’t forget stirring it with a large spatula otherwise it will settle and burn at the bottom (just like the cow’s milk!). Now let it cool, and it is ready for consumption. The milk stays good for a few days in refrigerator. Both myself and my wife drink this milk. I also make ice cream (actually it should be called soy cream) out of this, and we love it. My wife makes tea also from it. We haven’t got much success in making ‘dahin’ (yogurt) out of it yet, but we need more experiments. Again, in America, we can buy soy yogurt easily, so we have no pressing need for it.

Early this year we were there. Mostly we lived in Rajkot. But we went on a tour to Rajasthan for a week. At that time for the sake of convenience, my wife resorted to drinking cow’s milk. But she wasn’t happy!

Because, when we came back to Rajkot, upon getting back on the soyamilk, she thanked for the satisfactory feeling of taste!! It is difficult to believe, that now she actually preferred (not only for health and animal compassion
cause, but also for taste) soyamilk over the cow’s milk. I myself have remained a perfect vegan for all the past 7-8 years.

You can make milk from rice also. It is much easier. You don’t even need special preparations. Just take the leftover cooked rice, throw them in grinder, and add some salt and sugar for taste. Grind well and sieve through the loin clothe. It is ready! Tastes different, but you can get used to it. And it is so convenient, because you always have cooked leftover rice with home cooking…

The soyamilk process is lengthy, but it is unbelievably economical! One cup of soy beans cost about 10 rupees. But you produce 3-4 liters of milk, that may be worth at least 100 rupees! The heart patients usually are wealthy people, so they won’t care. But the non-heart patients, the poor ones, should care for this cheaper and healthier product. The rice milk is also similarly very cheap to make. However, both the processes need at least one food grinder, which may not always be affordable initially to the poorer ones. However, in long run, the cost of grinder also is recoverable if the whole family turns to this milk.

Someday somebody should start this as a business. It would be very profitable. And the cows and their babies would thank us for letting them live their lives as the nature intended.

(Narendra Sheth, Editor)

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A Dog’s Life Fetches 27 Cents

Dogs are sold for U.S. 27 cents each and slaughtered in Asia. Their throats are slit, and the conscious dogs bleed to death. Their skins are turned into wallets, handbags, and golf gloves, often labeled “cow skin.”

Cats are also being killed for their fur in China and other Asian countries. Cats are hung by ropes, struggling as they slowly suffocate. Dog and cat fur is made into jackets, ear muffs, gloves, and pet toys and has been found for sale in U.S. and European stores.

Designer Devils

PETA made headlines during New York’s Fashion Week by protesting the pelts on parade. At Michael Kors’ show, our tofu cream pie flew as the designer took his bow. Oscar de la Renta grimaced when two PETA activists dashed onto the catwalk and unfurled banners. And a model sporting a sable-hooded cape at Randolph Duke’s show was stopped in her tracks as the runway was doused with red (water-soluble) paint.

Are You In Someone’s Stolen Skin?

Ponyskin — Sometimes it’s “phony pony,” made from cows or calves; often it’s made from dead ponies from Italy, Spain, France, or Russia. It’s always made from anguished animals.

Shearling — This is the sheep’s actual skin: See the hide outside? Both the fleece and skin are stripped off year-old sheep. Tens of thousands of coyotes, groundhogs, and other “bothersome” animals whose homes sheep graze on are also slaughtered.

Snakeskin and lizard — Fully conscious reptiles are often nailed to a tree and their skins stripped off their backs. They can suffer for hours or even days before dying.

Shahtoosh — Tibetan chiru antelopes are trapped, killed, and skinned for their super-short, fine fleece. Shahtoosh shawls are illegal in the United States.

Pashmina

— Tibetan mountain goats are farmed for their fleece. Makers claim that the animals aren’t killed outright, but like sheep, are exploited constantly and eventually killed.

Alligator — As our investigator watched, one worker stood on the alligator’s mouth, another on the tail, and the third used a chisel and hammer to deliver eight blows to the spinal cord. Other farmers bludgeon alligators with baseball bats or axes.

“The skin of a python…is no less precious to the snake than fur is to the fox.”

— Maneka Gandhi,
India’s Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment

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Merino wool — Australia’s most popular sheep are bred to have wrinkled skin. Flies lay eggs in the folds of skin, so in order to prevent maggots from hatching there, ranchers carve huge strips of flesh off the unanesthetized lambs’ legs. For several days, the little lambs limp from pain.

Leather — In the United States, leather is made from the skins of cows, calves, horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs raised in abject misery on factory farms. In India, cows and buffaloes are beaten and forced to trudge hundreds of miles in blazing heat. Many collapse from exhaustion, hunger, and thirst. Other cattle are crammed into trucks so horribly overcrowded that they suffer trampling and suffocation.

Cows for Concern

Arun Gandhi has written to the prime minister of India to ask for protection for cows in India. Following his grandfather’s teachings of nonviolence and compassion, Arun expressed “much anguish” over India’s failure to enforce existing laws that would protect cows from severe abuse and slaughter for their skins.

• Write for a free skin action pack today! We have everything you need to protest the fur and leather trades: leaflets, stickers, camera-ready ads, and posters.

• Speak out! Organizing a protest is easy — it only takes one person to make a difference. Need ideas or advice? Contact PETA’s Skin Campaign coordinator, RaeLeann Smith, at 757-622-7382, extension 518.

• Check out websites www.FurIsDead.com and www.CowsAreCool.com.

• Protest the barbaric slaughter of dogs and cats in Asia for their skins by writing to the Thai, Philippine, and Chinese Embassies.

• His Excellency Ernesto M. Maceda, Ambassador, The Embassy of the Philippines, 1600 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20036

• His Excellency Li Zhaoxing, Ambassador, Chinese Embassy, 2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20008

• His Excellency Tej Bunnag, Ambassador, The Royal Thai Embassy, 1024 Wisconsin Ave. N.W., Ste. 401, Washington, DC 20007

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Fur — An Environmental Nightmare

In a public relations campaign designed to deflect criticism of the fur industries treatment of animals, it was declared that fur is an environmentally safe product.  When held up to review, this statement has not held true. In fact, advertising standards committees in England, Denmark, Holland, Italy, and Finland have ruled that any advertising declaring fur as environmentally safe is false and misleading. Fur farms, like all factory farm operations, produce massive amounts of animal waste that is all consolidated in one small area. In Finland, home of 65% of the worlds fox farms, fur animal wastes have come to equal the uncleaned sewage of a million people, according to environmentalist Mauro Leivi.

Water & Air Pollution

Animal wastes are high in phosphorous and nitrogen. When it rains this waste can wash downhill towards streams and other bodies of water. Other times it is left to soak into the soil, and sometimes contaminate the ground water.

The nutrients in the waste lead to excessive algae growth which in turn depletes the oxygen in the water. This can kill more sensitive species of fish and make the water unsuitable for humans. In the Finnish town of Kaustinen, taking of the groundwater had to be stopped, and the direction of the water current changed, because of pollution caused by fur farms.

In the US, fur farm associations have lobbied local governments in the Great Lakes region to keep water quality standards low. The WI DNR has even addressed fur farmers about ground water contamination.

Sweden’s largest fox farm was ordered to close in January 1998 because of the role they had played in contaminating local water supplies. At roughly the same time the magazine Scientifur reported on a Polish study which found that the soil around fur farms was contaminated with growing forms of nematodes. Another study in the same issue advised fur farmers to be careful when determining the location for water wells on their property.

In Finland, fur farms produce 1500 tons of ammonia a year. This is serious air pollution and is very unpleasant to live near. Unfortunately, agricultural zoning laws make it difficult for people near fur farms to do anything about it.

Invasive Species

Various animals have been shipped into foreign habitat for the purpose of fur farming. In the 1830’s the Russian-American Co. began dumping foxes onto various islands around Alaska. These islands had never had a predator like the fox, and the conditions were right for the proliferation of the this animal so as to make trapping easier. This was, in a sense, an early attempt at fur farming, by placing a large number of animals in one small place until the killing season.

This early attempt at fur farming had a devastating impact. The non-native foxes caused the extinction of various seabirds. The Aleutian Canada goose has had its range reduced to one island. A 1987 survey found that more than 100 fox filled, offshore islands were completely devoid of nocturnal shorebirds.

After this the fur trade moved towards keeping animals in cages. This still led to the establishment of mink in Europe, nutria in the US, raccoons in Germany, muskrats in Holland, raccoons and skunks in the Prince Edward Islands, opossums in New Zealand, and red fox in CA. Sometimes this has led to very real environmental problems, and sometimes it hasn’t.

This still hasn’t stopped the fur trade from raising animals in places that they are not native too, thus inviting another ecological disaster. An example would be the farming of red fox in Iceland. The red fox, and its color mutations such as the silver fox, are not native to Iceland. These types of fox are bigger and more aggressive than Iceland’s native arctic fox, and should red fox establish themselves in this Nordic country, they are likely to cause a great decline in the arctic fox population. This theory is based on what has happened in other areas where the two species have been forced to coexist.

Icelandic farmers often complain about the impacts the arctic fox has upon their stock. Let’s see what happens if the bigger red fox establishes itself in Iceland as a result of fur farming.

The damage American mink have caused in Europe has been exaggerated by mink hunting interests. Nonetheless, various European governments have carried out kill campaigns against the American mink. The European mink, a different species, is often confused with the American mink, and is nearly endangered as a result of these lethal control initiatives. The European mink wouldn’t be dying in large numbers if fur farmers hadn’t originally brought American mink over for fur farming.

Impact on Native Species

Trappers are lobbying to maintain a trapping season for lynx in MT, despite the fact that as few as 150 may still exist in that state. On top of that, the National Trappers Association has even suggested having the lynx, otter, and bobcat downlisted from their current status with the Convention In Trade for Endangered Species. The stated reason for this was that tagging the pelts, so as to keep up with the body count, involved too much effort.

Trapping causes the immediate destruction of large numbers of predators.  This can lead to an over abundance of various prey species. This helped the deer mice population in NM boom several years ago. As a result of this the deer mice transmitted the Hanta virus to over 50 people who later died as a result of this.

Come spring though, the predator populations will usually rebound. When an animal’s numbers are reduced, there is less stress as food and habitat become more readily available. Less stress on the surviving animals means that there will be increase in breeding success. This refutes the fur trades claim that trapping curbs alleged instances animal overpopulation.

Traps are non-selective and often catch endangered species. In 1973 a trapper with the federal govt. reported that 2,500 bald and golden eagles had been caught in traps in Nevada. 630 died in the traps, and undoubtedly others died later as a result of trap induced injuries.

In the late 70’s it was discovered that otter populations in PA were at a dangerously low level. There were between 285 and 465 surviving individuals. Yet PA had not allowed otter trapping since the 50’s. Then, 70,000 acre Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area was closed to trapping, while at the same time beaver prices fell. This saved the otter, as beaver trapping was reduced substantially. Apparently otters had been getting caught in beaver traps on a regular basis.

The University of Minnesota Raptor Research and Rehabilitation Program conducted a survey that found 21% of all admissions of bald eagles involved individuals caught in leghold traps. 64% of these eagles died as a result of their injuries.

Trapping has been blamed for hindering the recovery of the marten, the fisher, and the wolverine in the Rocky Mountain states. These predators are very susceptible to baited traps set for other species. An accurate count of how many of these animals have been trapped incidentally is impossible to measure as many trappers follow the “shoot, shovel, and shut up” philosophy.
Basically, this means that if you catch an endangered species you should bury it and never say anything about it again.

Caustic chemicals are used in the processing of fur coats. The fur trade has always claimed fur is biodegradable. This is true for raw pelts, but only dressed pelts are put on the market as no one wants a coat that will rot in their closet. In 1991 the Environmental Protection Agency fined two fur processing companies a combined total of $1.6 million for noncompliance with hazardous waste regulations. In 1993 a NY fur processor was found guilty of the same thing.  Yet the fur industry still claims they are selling a “natural” product!

A study by Ford Motor Co. researcher Gregory Smith found that production of a wild caught fur required 3 times more energy than the production of a synthetic coat. A ranch raised coat required nearly 20 times more energy than the production of a synthetic coat.

The production of fur hurts marine mammals as well. Seal and whale meat is increasingly being used as feed on fur farms in Canada and Russia.

The fur industry is an environmental rapist. The evidence presented here is just a thumbnail sketch of the immense environmental problem created by fur production. This industry is now exposed as being not only abusive in their treatment of animals, but deadly to the planet that we all live on.

Source: http://www.banfur.com Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT)

Email: [email protected]

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 In the Industry’s Own Words

Decades-old fur industry directories reveal that in 1972, there were 797 established fur garment makers in the United States, most located in New York. Twenty years later, in 1992, the number of fur makers dwindled to only 211. Today, numbers of garment makers are rapidly decreasing as this older generation of skilled craftsmen retire. Few young people are interested in devoting the years of apprenticeship necessary to master a craft with an obviously diminishing consumer base.

The Trapper & Predator Caller, September 2001

Unfortunately, many of the old-line independent retail furriers have been operating for several years with dramatically reduced inventories. After a decade of lackluster sales, it is certainly understandable why these furriers would continue to reduce inventories and pare back selections.

The Trapper and Predator Caller, March 2001

The Netherlands Council of Ministers has accepted a proposal by Agriculture Minister L.J. Brinkhorst that would phase out fur farming within 10 years without financial compensation to the fur factory-farmers.

Sandy Parker Reports, Weekly Intern’l Fur News, Feb 5 2001

The prices for fur do fluctuate somewhat, but in the last 15 years they haven’t climbed high enough to start up a serious trap line again.

Hunting Net Message Board at www.huntingbbs.com, November 14, 2000

The Agriculture Department’s statistics service says mink production in the U.S. fell 4%, to 2.81 million pelts. ‘The number of farms is going down quite rapidly,’ says Tom Kruchten, an Agriculture statistician. There are about 400 mink farms in the U.S., less than half as many as a decade ago.

Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2000

The slowdown in store traffic has again demonstrated just how weather-sensitive the fur business has become in comparison to earlier years when it was more fashion-driven.

Sandy Parker Reports, Weekly Intern’l Fur News, Jan 17 2000

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NIKE TELLS INDIAN GOVERNMENT: “JUST DO IT!”
Big companies join international Indian leather boycott, demand enforcement of animal laws
Submitted by: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)

Nike and Reebok, the world’s top two shoe companies have joined the growing list. So have Peru-based Foresta International and top fashion designer Kenneth Cole. Add, too, the famous US Spiegel catalogue and Cole Haan, a company known for its upmarket shoes and accessories all over the US. Every one of these companies has pledged to PETA that it will no longer purchase leather from India. The companies reviewed documentation provided by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals revealing widespread abuse in the handling and slaughter of buffalo, cattle, sheep, goats and other animals whose skin is exported from India or learned from a PETA representative of the cruelty at the Shoe Market of the Americas fair recently held in Miami. These boycotts come at a time when the Indian leather industry is trying to open new markets in Peru and other Latin American countries.

These companies join retail giants The Gap, Eddie Bauer, Timberland, Casual Corner, Florsheim, J. Crew, Liz Claiborne, Nordstrom, Wolverine Worldwide, Clarks, Fiorucci, Travel 2000, Marks and Spencer and others in asking the Indian government to enforce basic animal protection laws.

“It is against the policies of these companies to support unlawful practices,” says PETA president Ingrid Newkirk. “If the Indian leather industry wants to play in the world market, the least it must do is ensure India’s own basic standards are followed in leather production.”

Investigations by PETA have exposed the Rs. 12,000 crore leather industry’s unlawful slaughter and transport of animals. In slaughterhouses across India, workers saw at animals’ throats with dull blades and frequently begin dismembering and skinning animals even while they are still conscious. Animals transported to slaughter are crammed so tightly into lorries that some suffocate or are crushed beneath others. When animals collapse from exhaustion or dehydration, handlers smear hot chili peppers or tobacco into their eyes and break their tails to force them to keep moving.

To date, Indian Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee and Minister of Commerce and Industry Murasoli Muran have neither required the leather industry to comply with animal protection laws nor compelled officials to enforce the laws. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s only action has been to send a letter requesting state officials fine violators of the law, but his lack of follow up has meant that police, some of whom are known to accept bribes, continue to look the other way. The leather industry, through the Council on Leather Exports (CLE) continues to subsidize the illegal transport and slaughter through its skin purchases.

In an effort to educate slaughterhouse and transport workers, PETA has funded trips of international experts in these fields to speak to government officials, presented training seminars to transporters and slaughterhouse managers and distributed educational materials on humane handling to state authorities. So far, officials have failed to act on our suggestions.

PETA is demanding that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Commerce and Industry issue a follow up directive to state governments demanding that animal protection laws be enforced; that state governments submit concrete action plans and progress reports to PETA, as they had promised-and failed-to deliver to the Minister of Commerce and Industry; and that penalties for animal abuse, which are now minuscule, be strengthened so that enforcement will be effective.

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VEGAN PREGNANCY
My Own True Story
Hita Bambhania-Modha — San Jose, CA ([email protected])

In the summer of 1996, after six months of meditating over John Robbin’s book `Diet for the New America’, my husband and I became vegan. The true tales of loving and intelligent animals, shocking details of cruel, wasteful, and unhealthy factory farming, and the heart-piercing argument–“we become what we eat” all touched us deeply and influenced our decision. Already vegetarians since birth, we decided to exclude dairy products as well from our diet. A vegan diet essentially consists of plant-based foods and excludes all animal products such as chicken, fish, beef, pork, eggs, honey, and dairy products.

Upon hearing of our seemingly abrupt decision to become vegan, concerned friends and family asked, “What will you do when you become pregnant?” “Wouldn’t you need extra supplements from animal products?” Honestly, I didn’t have any answers–either for them or for myself. Fortunately, I stumbled upon Dr. Michael Klaper’s book `Pregnancy, Children, and a Vegan Diet’ which gives a thorough analysis of nutrition in a vegan diet. After reading this book from cover to cover, I was convinced that I would not give up vegan diet even in pregnancy.

Well, in 1998, I did become pregnant. Although I had great moral support from my husband, parents, and midwife, I felt quite alone in my quest of going through a vegan pregnancy. I felt that I needed to talk to someone who had done this before successfully. All the mainstream books that I read on pregnancy stressed that vegetarians have to be extra cautious. The message I derived was “Vegans Beware”. Everybody that I met was concerned that somehow my vegan diet will not be sufficient for the nutritional needs of my growing baby. Their argument was seemingly sound “lack of good nutrition can cause birth defects in a child”. Furthermore, if something goes wrong in formative days, it will be impossible to correct later on. I felt encircled in fears and apprehensions of people around me, and, perhaps, sadly, adopted their fears as well. My most haunting nightmare became “What if I had an abnormal baby, say, with a missing ear or a missing finger or weak bones?”

However, instead of sinking in the whirlpool of fears, I decided to take charge. Re-reading the `Pregnancy, Children, and a Vegan Diet’ assured me that if I ate a wide variety of foods from the vegetable kingdom, plus some vegan supplements I will have a perfectly healthy and normal pregnancy. While mistakenly a vegan diet is thought of as a diet that lacks nutrients in fact exactly the opposite is true. A good vegan diet has an abundance of all nutrients that our body needs. I ate a variety of colorful, seasonal fruits and vegetables that gave me plenty of vitamins and minerals. I ate different legumes and beans with grains and rice, which fulfilled my needs for protein, carbohydrates, and fibers. I snacked on nuts, seeds, sprouts, and dry fruits. I drank plenty of water, fruit juices, and soymilk (fortified with B12). I also took vegan multivitamins with folic acid. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I took vegan iron–Floradix.

To be more precise, my usual diet included foods from India. My typical meal was dal (split toor soup), rice, vegetable curry, chapatis (a flat tortilla-like wheat bread), and salad. In place of dal, I sometimes ate other variety of legumes and beans. Often, I made khichadi with split mung/toor and rice/cracked wheat. I ate vegetable sandwiches with whole wheat or sprouted grain bread, taco/burrito, falafel, pita bread with hummus and taboli–to name just a few. I made vegan deserts using egg-replacement powder, soymilk, and vegan margarine. My list here could go on and on. Driven first by fear, and then by determination, I left no vegan shore untouched. I truly discovered that delicious and yet nourishing vegan dishes are only limited by one’s imagination.

Two things I had to be careful about were: (a) to avoid foods with empty calories such as fried foods and certain desserts and (b) to plan a good protein dish in every meal–especially toward the latter part of my pregnancy. This is probably true for a non-vegan diet as well.

In addition to a healthful diet, I nourished the baby and myself by reading good books, by listening to good music, by walking, and by doing yoga.

After a healthy full term pregnancy and a normal labor at our home in San Jose, CA, on May 25^th, 1999, I gave birth to a perfectly normal baby girl, Paramita Peace Modha. At birth, Paramita weighed 6 lb. 6 oz. Paramita is now 2 and a half. Paramita began teething at 8 months, and reached a full set of teeth well before she was 2. Skeptics chanting “vegans suffer from Calcium deficiency” were — once and for all — silenced. Paramita is truly a vegan child. Perhaps surprisingly and quite reassuringly, in her entire time on planet Earth, we have never had to visit a doctor even once!

I went through a very similar second pregnancy, only this time I took no additional supplements. My second child, a boy, Sohum Bodhi Modha, was born on May 15^th, 2001. Sohum was also born at our family home. At birth, he weighed 7 lb. 5 oz., and was very healthy as well. Sohum is now 6 months old and is exclusively on my breast milk, which I have an abundant supply of. As of today, even Sohum has not visited a doctor even once…

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The fate of animals is in our hands;
God grant we are equal to the task.
The Case for Animal Rights
by Tom Regan

I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights — as part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals, including the total abolition of the use of animals in science; the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture; and the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.

There are, I know, those who profess to believe in animal rights but do not avow these goals. Factory farming, they say, is wrong — it violates animals’ rights — but traditional animal agriculture is all right. Toxicity tests of cosmetics on animals violates their rights, but important medical research — cancer research, for example — does not. The clubbing of seals is abhorrent, but not the harvesting of adult seals. I used to think I understood this reasoning. Not anymore. You don’t change unjust institutions by tidying them up.

What’s wrong — fundamentally wrong — with the way animals are treated isn’t the details that vary from case to case. It’s the whole system. The forlornness of the veal calf is pathetic, heart-wrenching; the pulsing pain of the chimp with electrodes planted deep in her brain is repulsive; the slow, torturous death of the raccoon caught in the leghold trap is agonizing. But what is wrong isn’t the pain, isn’t the suffering, isn’t the deprivation. These compound what’s wrong. Sometimes — often — they make it much, much worse. But they are not the fundamental wrong.

The fundamental wrong is the system that allows us to view animals as our resources, here for us — to be eaten, or surgically manipulated, or exploited for sport or money. Once we accept this view of animals — as our resources — the rest is as predictable as it is regrettable. Why worry about their loneliness, their pain, their death? Since animals exist for us, to benefit us in one way or another, what harms them really doesn’t matter — or matters only if it starts to bother us, makes us feel a trifle uneasy when we eat our veal escallop, for example. So, yes, let us get veal calves out of solitary confinement, give them more space, a little straw, a few companions. But let us keep our veal escallop.

But a little straw, more space and a few companions won’t eliminate — won’t even touch — the basic wrong that attaches to our viewing and treating animals as our resources. A veal calf killed to be eaten after living in close confinement is viewed and treated in this way: but so, too, is another who is raised (as they say) “more humanely.” To right the wrong of our treatment of farm animals requires more than making rearing methods “more humane”; it requires the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture.

How we do this, whether we do it or, as in the case of animals in science, whether and how we abolish their use — these are to a large extent political questions. People must change their beliefs before they change their habits. Enough people, especially those elected to public office, must believe in change — must want it — before we will have laws that protect the rights of animals. This process of change is very complicated, very demanding, very exhausting, calling for the efforts of many hands in education, publicity, political organization and activity, down to the licking of envelopes and stamps. As a trained and practicing philosopher, the sort of contribution I can make is limited but, I like to think, important. The currency of philosophy is ideas — their meaning and rational foundation — not the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, say, or the mechanics of community organization. That’s what I have been exploring over the past ten years or so in my essays and talks and, most recently, in my books, The Case for Animal Rights and The Struggle for Animal Rights. I believe the major conclusions I reach in the books are true because they are supported by the weight of the best arguments. I believe the idea of animal rights has reason, not just emotion, on its side.

In the space I have at my disposal here I can only sketch, in the barest outline, some of the main features of my books. Their main themes — and we should not be surprised by this — involve asking and answering deep, fundamental moral questions about what morality is, how it should be understood and what is the best moral theory, all considered.

I hope we can convey something of the shape I think this theory takes. The attempt to do this will be (to use a word a friendly critic once used to describe my work) cerebral, perhaps too cerebral. But this is misleading. My feelings about how animals are sometimes treated run just as deep and just as strong as those of my more volatile compatriots. Philosophers do — to use current jargon — have a right side to their brains. If it’s the left side we contribute (or mainly should), that’s because what talents we have reside there.

How to proceed? We begin by asking how the moral status of animals has been understood by thinkers who deny that animals have rights. Then we test the mettle of their ideas by seeing how well they stand up under the heat of fair criticism. If we start our thinking in this way, we soon find that some people believe we have no duties directly to animals, that we owe nothing to them, that we can do nothing that wrongs them. Rather, we can do wrong acts that involve animals, and so we have duties regarding them, though none to them. Such views may be called indirect duty views. By way of illustration: suppose your neighbor kicks your dog. Then your neighbor has done something wrong. But not to your dog. The wrong that has been done is a wrong to you. After all, it is wrong to upset people, and your neighbor’s kicking your dog upsets you. So you are the one who is wronged, not your dog. Or again: by kicking your dog, your neighbor damages your property. And since it is wrong to damage another person’s property, your neighbor has done something wrong — to you, of course, not to your dog. Your neighbor no more wrongs your dog than your car would be wronged if the windshield were smashed. More generally, all of our duties regarding animals are indirect duties to one another — to humanity.

How could someone try to justify such a view? Someone might say that your dog doesn’t feel anything and so isn’t hurt by your neighbor’s kick, doesn’t care about the pain since none is felt, is as unaware of anything as is your car’s windshield. Someone might say this, but no rational person will, since, among other considerations, such a view will commit anyone who holds it to the position that no human being feels pain either — that human beings also don’t care about what happens to them. A second possibility is that though both humans and your dog are hurt when kicked, it is only human pain that matters. But, again, no rational person can believe this. Pain is pain wherever it occurs. If your neighbor’s causing you pain is wrong because of the pain that is caused, we cannot rationally ignore or dismiss the moral relevance of the pain that your dog feels.

Philosophers who hold indirect duty views — and some still do — have come to understand that they must avoid the two defects just noted: that is, both the view that animals don’t feel anything as well as the idea that only human pain can be morally relevant. Among such thinkers the sort of view now favored is one or other form of what is called contractarianism.

Here, very crudely, is the root idea: morality consists of a set of rules that individuals voluntarily agree to abide by, as we do when we sign a contract (hence the name contractarianism). Those who understand and accept the terms of the contract are covered directly; they have rights created and recognized by, and protected in, the contract. And these contractors can also have protection spelled out for others who, though they lack the ability to understand morality and so cannot sign the contract themselves, are loved or cherished by those who can. Thus young children, for example, are unable to sign contracts and lack rights. But they are protected by the contract nonetheless because of the sentimental interests of others, most notably their parents. So we have, then, duties involving these children, duties regarding them, but no duties to them. Our duties in their case are indirect duties to other human beings, usually their parents.

As for animals, since they cannot understand contracts, they obviously cannot sign; and since they cannot sign, they have no rights. Like children, however, some animals are the objects of the sentimental interest of others. You, for example, love your dog or cat. So those animals enough people care about (companion animals, whales, baby seals, the American bald eagle), though they lack rights themselves, will be protected because of the sentimental interests of people. I have, then, according to contractarianism, no duty directly to your dog or any other animal, not even the duty not to cause them pain or suffering; my duty not to hurt them is a duty I have to those people who care about what happens to them. As for other animals, where no or little sentimental interest is present — in the case of farm animals, for example, or laboratory rats — what duties we have grow weaker and weaker, perhaps to the vanishing point. The pain and death they endure, though real, are not wrong if no one cares about them.

When it comes to the moral status of animals’ contractarianism could be a hard view to refute if it were an adequate theoretical approach to the moral status of human beings. It is not adequate in this latter respect, however, which makes the question of its adequacy in the former case, regarding animals, utterly moot. For consider: morality, according to the (crude) contractarian position before us, consists of rules that people agree to abide by. What people? Well, enough to make a difference — enough, that is, collectively to have the power to enforce the rules that are drawn up in the contract. That is very well and good for the signatories but not so good for anyone who is not asked to sign. And there is nothing in contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone will have a chance to participate equally in framing the rules of morality. The result is that this approach to ethics could sanction the most blatant forms of social, economic, moral and political injustice, ranging from a repressive caste system to systemic racial or sexual discrimination. Might, according to this theory, does make right. Let those who are the victims of injustice suffer as they will. It matters not so long as no one else — no contractor, or too few of them — cares about it. Such a theory takes one’s moral breath away … as if, for example, there would be nothing wrong with apartheid in South Africa if few white South Africans were upset by it. A theory with so little to recommend it at the level of the ethics of our treatment of humans cannot have anything more to recommend it when it comes to the ethics of how we treat our fellow animals.

The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have noted, a crude variety, and in fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion it must be noted that much more refined, subtle and ingenious varieties are possible. For example, John Rawls, in his A Theory of Justice, sets forth a version of contractarianism that forces contractors to ignore the accidental features of being a human being — for example, whether one is white or black, male or female, a genius or modest intellect. Only by ignoring such features, Rawls believes, can we ensure that the principles of justice that contracts would agree upon are not based on bias or prejudice. Despite the improvement a view such as Rawls’ represents over the cruder forms of contractarianism, it remains deficient: it systematically denies that we have direct duties to those human beings who do not have a sense of justice — young children, for instance, and many mentally retarded humans.

And yet it seems reasonably certain that, were we to torture a young child or a retarded elder, we would be doing something that wronged him or her, not something that would be wrong if (and only if) other humans with a sense of justice were upset. And since this is true in the case of these humans we cannot rationally deny the same in the case of animals.

Indirect duty views, then, including the best among them, fail to command our rational assent. Whatever ethical theory we should accept rationally, therefore, it must at least recognize that we have duties directly to animals, just as we have some duties directly to each other. The next two theories I’ll sketch attempt to meet this requirement.

The first I call the cruelty-kindness view. Simply stated, this says that we have a direct duty to be kind to animals and a direct duty not to be cruel to them. Despite the familiar, reassuring ring of these ideas, I do not believe that this view offers an adequate theory. To make this clearer, consider kindness. A kind person acts from a certain kind of motive — compassion or concern, for example. And that is a virtue. But there is no guarantee that a kind act is a right act. If I am a generous racist, for example, I will be inclined to act kindly toward members of my own race, favoring their interests above those of others. My kindness would be real and, so far as it goes, good. But I trust it is too obvious to require argument that my kind acts may not be above moral reproach — may, in fact, be positively wrong because they’re rooted in injustice. So kindness, notwithstanding its status as a virtue to be encouraged, simply will not carry the weight of a theory of right action.

Cruelty fares no better. People or their acts are cruel if they display either a lack of sympathy for — or, worse the presence of enjoyment in another’s suffering. Cruelty in all its guises is a bad thing, a tragic human failing. But just as a person’s being motivated by kindness does not guarantee that he or she does what is right, so the absence of cruelty does not ensure that he or she avoids doing what is wrong. Many people who perform abortions, for example, are not cruel, sadistic people. But that fact alone does not settle the terribly difficult question of the morality of abortion. The case is no different when we examine the ethics of our treatment of animals. So, yes, let us be for kindness and against cruelty. But let us not suppose that being for the one and against the other answers questions about moral right and wrong.

Some people think that the theory we are looking for is utilitarianism. A utilitarian accepts two moral principles. The first is that of equality: everyone’s interests count, and similar interests must be counted as having similar weight or importance. White or black, American or Iranian, human or animal — everyone’s pain or frustration matter, and matter just as much as the equivalent pain or frustration of anyone else. The second principle a utilitarian accepts is that of utility: do the act that will bring about the best balance between satisfaction and frustration for all affected by the outcome.

As a utilitarian, then, here is how I am to approach the task of deciding what I morally ought to do: I must ask who will be affected if I choose to do one thing rather than another, how much each individual will be affected, and where the best results are most likely to lie — which option is most likely to bring about the best results, the best balance between satisfaction and frustration. That option, whatever it may be, is the one I ought to choose. That is where my moral duty lies.

The great appeal of utilitarianism rests with its uncompromising egalitarianism: everyone’s interests count as much as the like interests of everyone else. The kind of odious discrimination that some forms of contractarianism can justify seems disallowed in principle by utilitarianism, as is speciesism, systematic discrimination based on species membership.

The equality we find in utilitarianism, however, is not the sort an advocate of animal or human rights should have in mind. Utilitarianism has no room for the equal moral rights of different individuals because it has no room for their equal inherent value or worth. What has value for the utilitarian is the satisfaction of an individual’s interests, not the individual whose interests they are. A universe in which you satisfy your desire for water, food and warmth is, other things being equal, better than a universe in which these desires are frustrated. But neither your nor the animal have any value in your own right. Only your feelings do.

Here is an analogy to help make the philosophical point clearer: a cup contains different liquids, sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes a mix of the two. What has value are the liquids: the sweeter the better, the bitterer the worse. The cup, the container, has no value. It is what goes into it, not what they go into, that has value. For the utilitarian, you and I are like the cup: we have no value as individuals and thus no equal value. What has value is what goes into us, what we serve as receptacles for: our feelings of satisfaction have positive value, our feelings of frustration negative value.

Serious problems arise for utilitarianism when we remind ourselves that it enjoins us to bring about the best consequences. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean the best consequences for me alone, or for my family or friends, or any other person taken individually. No, what we must do is, roughly, as follows: we must add up (somehow!) the separate satisfactions and frustrations of everyone likely to be affected by our choice, the satisfactions in one column, the frustrations in the other. We must total each column for each of the options before us. That is what it means to say the theory is aggregative. And then we must choose that option which is most likely to bring about the best balance of totaled satisfactions over totaled frustrations. Whatever act would lead to this outcome is the one we ought morally to perform — it is where our moral duty lies. And that act clearly might not be the same one that would bring about the best for each individual.

That utilitarianism is an aggregative theory is the key objection to this theory. My Aunt Bea is old, inactive, a cranky, sour person, though not physically ill. She prefers to go on living. She is also rather rich. I could make a fortune if I could get my hands on her money, money she intends to give me in any event, after she dies, but which she refuses to give me now. In order to avoid a huge tax bite, I plan to donate a handsome sum of my profits to a local children’s hospital. Many, many children will benefit from my generosity, and much joy will be brought to their parents, relatives and friends. If I don’t get the money rather soon, all these ambitions will come to naught. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a real killing will be gone. Why, then, not kill my Aunt Bea?

Oh, of course I might get caught. But I’m no fool and, besides, her doctor can be counted on to cooperate (he has an eye for the same investment and I happen to know a good deal about his shady past). The deed can be done … professionally, shall we say. There is very little chance of getting caught. And as for my conscience being guilt-ridden, I am a resourceful sort of fellow and will take more than sufficient comfort in contemplating the joys and health I have brought to so many others.

Suppose Aunt Bea is killed and the rest of the story comes out as told? Would I have done anything wrong? Anything immoral? One would have thought that I had. Not according to utilitarianism. Since what I have done has brought about the best balance between totaled satisfaction and frustration for all those affected by the outcome, my action is not wrong. Indeed, in killing Aunt Bea, the physician and I did what duty required.

This same kind of argument can be repeated in all sorts of cases, illustrating, time after time, how the utilitarian’s position leads to results that impartial people find morally callous. It is wrong to kill my Aunt Bea in the name of bringing about the best results for others. A good end does not justify an evil means. Any adequate moral theory will have to explain why this is so. Utilitarianism fails in this respect and so cannot be the theory we seek.

What to do? Where to begin anew? The place to begin, I think, is with the utilitarian’s view of the value of the individual — or, rather, lack of value. In its place, suppose we consider that you and I, for example, do have value as individuals — what we’ll call inherent value. To say we have such value is to say that we are something more than, something different from, mere receptacles. Moreover, to ensure that we do not pave the way for such injustices as slavery or sexual discrimination, we must believe that all who have inherent value have it equally, regardless of their gender, race, religion, birthplace and so on. Similarly to be discarded as irrelevant are one’s talents or skills, intelligence and wealth, personality or pathology, whether one is loved and admired or despised and loathed. The genius and the retarded child, the prince and the pauper, the brain surgeon and the fruit vendor, Mother Teresa and the most unscrupulous used-car salesman — all have inherent value, all possess it equally, and all have an equal right to be treated with respect, to be treated in ways that do not reduce them to the status of things, as if they existed as resources for others. My value as an individual is independent of my usefulness to you. Yours is not dependent on your usefulness to me. For either of us to treat the other in ways that fail to show respect for the other’s independent value is to act immorally, to violate the individual’s rights.

Some of the rational virtues of this view — what I call the rights view — should be evident. Unlike (crude) contractarianism, for example, the rights view in principle denies the moral tolerance of any and all forms of racial, sexual or social discrimination; and unlike utilitarianism, this view in principle denies that we can justify good results by using evil means that violate an individual’s rights — denies, for example, that it could be moral to kill my Aunt Bea to harvest beneficial consequences for others. That would be to sanction the disrespectful treatment of the individual in the name of the social good, something the rights view will not — categorically will not — ever allow.

The rights view, I believe, is rationally the most satisfactory moral theory. It surpasses all other theories in the degree to which it illuminates and explains the foundations of our duties to one another — the domain of human morality. On this score it has the best reasons, the best arguments, on its side. Of course, if it were possible to show that only human beings are included within its scope, then a person like myself, who believes in animal rights, would be obliged to look elsewhere.

But attempts to limit its scope to humans only can be shown to be rationally defective. Animals, it is true, lack many of the abilities humans possess. They can’t read, do higher mathematics, build a bookcase or make baba ghanoush. Neither can many human beings, however, and yet we don’t (and shouldn’t) say that they (these humans) therefore have less inherent value, less of a right to be treated with respect, than do others. It is the similarities between those human beings who most clearly, most non-controversially have such value (the people reading this, for example), not our differences, that matter most. And the really crucial, the basic similarity is simply this: we are each of us the experiencing subject of a life, a conscious creature having an individual welfare that has importance to us whatever our usefulness to others.

We want and prefer things, believe and feel things, recall and expect things. And all these dimensions of our life, including our pleasure and pain, our enjoyment and suffering, our satisfaction and frustration, our continued existence or our untimely death — all make a difference to the quality of our life as lived, as experienced, by us as individuals. As the same is true of those animals that concern us (the ones who are eaten and trapped, for example), they too must be viewed as the experiencing subjects of a life, with inherent value of their own.

Some there are who resist the idea that animals have inherent value. “Only humans have such value,” they profess. How might this narrow view be defended? Shall we say that only humans have the requisite intelligence, or autonomy, or reason? But there are many, many humans who fail to meet these standards and yet are reasonably viewed as having value above and beyond their usefulness to others. Shall we claim that only humans belong to the right species, the species Homo sapiens? But this is blatant speciesism. Will it be said, then, that all — and only — humans have immortal souls? Then our opponents have their work cut out for them. I am myself not ill-disposed to the proposition that there are immortal souls. Personally, I profoundly hope I have one. But I would not want to rest my position on a controversial ethical issue on the even more controversial question about who or what has an immortal soul. That is to dig one’s hole deeper, not to climb out. Rationally, it is better to resolve moral issues without making more controversial assumptions than are needed. The question of who has inherent value is such a question, one that is resolved more rationally without the introduction of the idea of immortal souls than by its use.

Well, perhaps some will say that animals have some inherent value, only less than we have. Once again, however, attempts to defend this view can be shown to lack rational justification. What could be the basis of our having more inherent value than animals? Their lack of reason, or autonomy, or intellect? Only if we are willing to make the same judgement in the case of humans who are similarly deficient. But it is not true that such humans — the retarded child, for example, or the mentally deranged — have less inherent value than you or I. Neither, then, can we rationally sustain the view that animals like them in being the experiencing subjects of a life have less inherent value. All who have inherent value have it equally, whether they be human animals or not.

Inherent value, then, belongs equally to those who are the experiencing subjects of a life. Whether it belongs to others — to rocks and rivers, trees and glaciers, for example — we do not know. But we do not need to know, for example, how many people are eligible to vote in the next presidential election before we can know whether I am. Similarly, we do not need to know how many individuals have inherent value before we can know that some do. When it comes to the case for animal rights, then, what we need to know is whether the animals that, in our culture, are routinely eaten, hunted and used in our laboratories, for example, are like us in being subjects of a life. And we do know this. We do know that many — literally, billions — of these animals are the subjects of a life in the sense explained and so have inherent value if we do. And since, in order to arrive at the best theory of our duties to one another, we must recognize our equal inherent value as individuals, reason — not sentiment, not emotion — reason compels us to recognize the equal inherent value of these animals and, with this, their equal right to be treated with respect.

That, very roughly, is the shape and feel of the case for animal rights. Most of the details of the supporting argument are missing. They are to be found in the book to which I alluded earlier. I must, in closing, limit myself to four final points.

The first is how the theory that underlies the case for animal rights shows that the animal rights movement is a part of, not antagonistic to, the human rights movement. The theory that rationally grounds the rights of animals also grounds the rights of humans.

Secondly, having set out the broad outlines of the rights view, I can now say why its implications for farming and science, among other fields, are both clear and uncompromising. In the case of the use of animals in science, the rights view is categorically abolitionist. Lab animals are not our tasters; we are not their kings. Because these animals are treated routinely, systematically as if their value were reducible to their usefulness to others, they are routinely, systematically treated with a lack of respect, and thus are their rights routinely, systematically violated. This is just as true when they are used in trivial, duplicative, unnecessary or unwise research as it is when they are used in studies that hold out real promise for human beings.

We can’t justify harming or killing a human being (my Aunt Bea, for example) just for these sorts of reasons. Neither can we do so even in the case of so “lowly” a creature as a laboratory rat. It is not just refinement or reduction that is called for, not just larger, cleaner cages, not just more generous use of anesthetic or the elimination of multiple surgery, not just tidying up the system. It is complete replacement. The best we can do when it comes to using animals in science is — not to use them. That is where our duty lies, according to the rights view.

As for commercial animal agriculture, the rights view takes a similar abolitionist position. The fundamental moral wrong here is not that animals are kept in stressful close confinement or in isolation, or that their pain and suffering, their needs and preferences are ignored or discounted. All these are wrong, of course, but they are not the fundamental wrong. They are symptoms and effects of the deeper, systematic wrong that allows these animals to be viewed and treated as lacking independent value, as resources for us — as, indeed, a renewable resource. Giving farm animals more space, more natural environments, more companions does not right the fundamental wrong in their case. Nothing less than the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture will do this, just as, for similar reasons I won’t develop at length here, morality requires nothing less than the total elimination of hunting and trapping for commercial and sporting ends. The rights view’s implications, then, as I have said, are clear and uncompromising.

My last two points are about philosophy, my profession. It is, most obviously, no substitute for political action. The words I have written here and in other places by themselves don’t change a thing. It is what we do with the thoughts that the words express — our acts, our deeds — that changes things. All that philosophy can do, and all I have attempted, is to offer a vision of what our needs should aim at. And the why. But not the how.

Finally, I am reminded of my thoughtful critic, the one who chastised me for being too cerebral. I am also reminded, however, of the image another friend once set before me — the image of the ballerina as expressive of disciplined passion. Long hours of sweat and toil, of loneliness and practice, of doubt and fatigue: those are the disciplines of her craft. But the passion is there, too, the fierce drive to excel, to speak through her body, to do it right, to pierce our minds. That is the image of philosophy I would leave with you, not “too cerebral” but disciplined passion. Of the discipline enough has been seen. As for the passion: there are times, and these not infrequent, when tears come to my eyes when I see, or read, or hear of the wretched plight of animals in the hands of humans. Their pain, their suffering, their loneliness, their innocence, their death. Anger. Rage. Pity. Sorrow. Disgust. The whole creation groans under the weight of the evil we humans visit upon these mute, powerless creatures. It is our hearts, not just our heads, that call for an end to it all, that demand of us that we overcome, for them, the habits and forces behind their systematic oppression. All great movements, it is written, go through three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption. It is the realization of this third stage, adoption, that requires both our passion and our discipline, our hearts and our heads. The fate of animals is in our hands. God grant we are equal to the task.

Tom Regan is professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University. Among his more than twenty books are The Case for Animal Rights, The Struggle for Animal Rights, In Defense of Animal Rights, and Defending Animal Rights. He is co-founder, with his wife, Nancy, of the

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Culture and Animals Foundation.

== 100% SILK SAREES ==

Banarasi Kanjivaram Dharmavaram Bangalore

Tanchhoi Paper Panetar Dhakai

Temple Endi Kosha Tussar

Jaipuri Mysore Vallkalam Jamevar

Matka Baluchari Kashmiri Paithani

Patola Bhagalpur Murshidabad Shagun

Where have all the silk moths gone?

Gone to steam-baths every one.

When will we ever learn?

Will we ever learn?

LETHER TURNS ANIMALS INSIDE OUT

What our stone-age ancestors wore:

ANIMAL HIDE!

What we wear:

GENIUNE LEATHER

Is there any difference?

Our stone-age ancestors had no other alternative

For them, wearing animal skins was a matter of survival.

What is our excuse?

Do have to kill to clothe ourselves today?

725 Reasons Why You Don’t Want To Be an Animal In a Military Lab Pentagon Experiments under InvestigationBy Steven Ragland — PCRM

The $435 hammers and $640 toilet seats bought by the U.S. military in the 1980s were nothing. The Department of Defense now spends $200 million a year on experiments using hundreds of thousands of animals, often with no more than the vaguest scientific rationale. By all appearances, some Department of Defense programs have become little more than checking accounts for ivory tower research.

In 1992 and again in 1994, PCRM doctors testified before Congress on military animal use and worked with the General Accounting Office (GAO) in its investigation of Michael Carey’s experiments at Louisiana State University. Carey had shot 700 restrained cats in the head to “model” human injuries. As a result of the investigation, Carey’s cat-shooting experiments were halted. Other labs in which animals were shot for training purposes discontinued these practices, two laboratories were forced to improve their animal care standards, and a computer tracking system was set up to monitor animal use.

The military’s new tracking system now lists 725 military experiments using animals, exposed to light for the first time. Some are patently unnecessary: military experimenters use pigs to experiment with laser tattoo removal and use rats, pigeons, and squirrel monkeys to study drug abuse. Other experiments, particularly biological and chemical weapons tests, are among the most gruesome experiments imaginable. The GAO is again investigating military animal use, and PCRM has prepared a series of reports on the experiments and rallied experts to critique them. We have found scores of military tests that kill animals and serve no realistic military purpose.

Biological and Chemical Weapons

The U.S. is a signatory to the international Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits the use of any biological agent and requires that all stockpiles be destroyed or diverted to peaceful purposes. But biological weapons tests on animals continue. Military experimenters are infecting monkeys with the smallpox virus in order to work toward “a safer, more immunogenic cell culture-derived vaccine” despite the fact that such vaccines can be developed and tested without animals. Brucellosis, anthrax, dengue fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, equine infectious anemia, and the filoviruses ebola and marburg are being tested in other military experiments.

These experiments are not only controversial because of the animal abuse involved. While they may appear to serve a defensive purpose, vaccine research may be intended to find ways to allow the use of chemical agents in combat or to circumvent defenses, according to some critics.

Chemical weapons are widely tested on rats, primates, pigs, rabbits, and other animals. Poison gases can damage the lungs, nerves, skin, and eyes, and cause a slow and painful death.

Such tests are as misleading as they are cruel. Animals often respond to chemical agents and antidotes differently than humans. A rat’s respiratory system differs greatly from that of a human, and rats are more susceptible to toxins because they are unable to vomit. Mice have a genetic tendency to develop lung tumors, rendering much of the research on physiological effects of exposure invalid. Regarding skin tests, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report said, “Since laboratory animals have fur and do not have sweat glands on most of their body, they do not provide optimal models for dermal exposure.”

Mustard gas, first used in World War I, continues to be a favorite agent for Department of Defense animal experimenters. Yet good treatments are already available and are easy to use. Military personnel receive a “Mark I Kit” with two self-injectable antidotes to the gas: atropine, which counteracts the effects, and pralidoxime chloride, which binds the nerve agent so it can be cleared from the body. Preventive drugs, such as benactyzine, oximes, aprophen, and physostigmine, are also commonly used. Little about these treatments has changed in the last 35 years, yet military experimenters continue to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars for animal tests with the agent.

Training Programs Need Reform

Medical training is one of the largest areas of animal use in the military. Animals are used for practicing basic trauma skills and surgery, and even in basic medical school physiology and pharmacology demonstrations.

Replacing these labs is not difficult. For every animal use in training, an alternative is readily available that is both cheaper and more effective. High-quality training manikins and simulators, computer software, interactive videodiscs, and human cadavers are used throughout civilian training programs and offer significant educational advantages.

For example, to teach infant intubation — inserting a tube down the throat with the aid of a metal stylus — one military lab uses ferrets, another uses cats, and yet another uses sheep, none of whom is, in fact, a close model for humans. In adult intubation training, instructors have used primates, ferrets, and pigs. This basic trauma care procedure is performed daily in emergency rooms. It is learned using simulator manikins and cadavers. Animals are not typically used in civilian intubation training, yet military programs continue to use animals despite obvious anatomical differences. Manikins are anatomically exact, inexpensive, and can be used again and again to maintain skills over weeks and months.

The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the military medical school in Bethesda, Maryland, is the only U.S. medical school that still forces students to participate in live animal laboratories, despite complaints from the House Armed Services Committee and the American Medical Student Association.

PCRM is providing research, reports, and expert opinions to the General Accounting Office, and is pushing for alternatives as aggressively as possible.

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McDonald’s Tells Farmers To Treat Chickens Better
Marc Kaufman — Washington Post (submitted by [email protected])

The McDonald’s restaurant chain has launched a major effort to improve the way egg farmers care for their hens — a move that reflects rising scientific and public concern over how farm animals are treated.

McDonald’s Corp. sent letters to the farmers who supply the company with 1.5 billion eggs yearly outlining strict new regulations for raising hens.

The guidelines require 50 percent more space for each caged hen, ban the controversial practice of withholding food and water to increase egg production, and require a gradual phasing out of the “debeaking” that is common in the poultry industry.

The move — the first of its kind by any major U.S. food supplier — was prompted by a combination of factors, including pressure from animal rights activists and growing concern among government and academic scientists that current methods of caring for chickens may increase the risk for diseases that can be spread to humans. Analysts also called it a potentially profitable business move — to win credit for taking a step that might otherwise be required by the government.

The action is the most far-reaching step in a trend that began in Europe and has recently begun to spread to the United States toward improving living conditions for all farm animals, for both ethical and public health reasons.

While the European Union has already banned practices such as the “forced molting” of hens and has required a phasing out of all chicken caging by 2012, U.S. authorities have moved more slowly and have relied more on industry recommendations.

Recently, however, the United Egg Producers (UEP), which represents many of the nation’s suppliers, was handed recommendations on chicken living conditions by its scientific advisory committee very similar to those adopted by McDonald’s. In addition, the Department of Agriculture is evaluating the raising of chickens that supply eggs purchased for federal lunch and other food programs.

“There has been a definite spillover of concern about farm animals from Europe to here in recent years,” said Joy Mench, a professor at the University of California at Davis, who is an animal well-being specialist on both the UEP advisory group and the McDonald’s scientific committee that recommended the new guidelines.

“There is a concern about the crowding of animals and their inability to perform typical behaviors in their housing, and industry here is being forced to respond,” she said. “McDonald’s and the UEP are responding here, and I think others will be forced to address their animal welfare issues in the future.”

Many supermarket shoppers already have the option of buying organic and “free-range” eggs that are produced without cages, forced molting or debeaking. Those premium eggs make up a small portion of the egg market — industry sources estimate it at 2 percent to 3 percent of the 239 billion eggs produced yearly — but this segment is growing and commands considerably higher prices.

The new McDonald’s guidelines will not be as strict as those governing the premium eggs, advocates for farm animal protections say, but they will significantly expand the number of eggs produced with humane issues in mind. As a result, some of the company’s harshest critics in the past welcomed the new guidelines yesterday.

“We are very appreciative of what the company has done, and think they are doing the right thing,” said Steven Gross, who has served as a negotiator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in its two-year discussions with McDonald’s. “Other companies in this field have been dragging their feet and, frankly, we think this decision will have the salutary effect of waking them up.”

“These issues about how food animals are raised are here to stay,” said Gross, whose group is supporting legislation in Illinois to ban hen cages entirely.

While the new guidelines do call for a significant increase in the size of chicken cages, the cages will remain very tight for the birds — providing 72 square inches per bird. That will allow the birds to all lie down at the same time, said Robert Langert, McDonald’s community affairs director, and will give all of them access to food. But activists say they will still be unable to fully stretch their wings or perform many basic bird behaviors.

The practice of forced molting — which involves the withholding of food for five to 14 days — has been used by producers for decades to increase the egg-laying capacity of hens. But some scientists have concluded that the stress of forced molting can increase the levels of disease-causing salmonella, and animal rights activists have called it inhumane.

The beaks of many hens are removed because they will otherwise peck one another to death, industry officials say. The fact that they are packed so tightly into cages and that the hens have been bred to increase their aggressive qualities lead to the potentially lethal pecking. While the McDonald’s guidelines call for a phasing out of “debeaking,” they acknowledge that it may take some time.

All of the new guidelines will be enforced through an inspection process that the company also uses with its meat producers, according to Langert. McDonald’s does not own any of its suppliers, he said.

Producers have voiced concern that changes like those sought by McDonald’s will raise prices significantly. McDonald’s officials would not comment on the possible cost of the new guidelines, but one egg supplier said they will probably add about 2 cents per egg. According to Robert Krouse of Midwest Poultry Services, the decrease in the number of birds per cage will be the most costly change.

While both McDonald’s and animal rights advocates spoke yesterday of the health and ethical issues involved in the new guidelines, financial analyst Bruce J. Raabe, who covers McDonald’s for Collins & Co. in San Francisco, saw other motivations.

“Big companies are increasingly being held responsible for the practices of their subcontractors — like Nike and other sneaker makers with plants they don’t even run in Third World countries,” Raabe said. “This should be seen as part of the same phenomenon — of companies trying to get out ahead of a potential legal battle.”

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Osama bin Laden on Meat
from Editorial by Merritt Clifton, Animal People, October 2001

It was no radical animal rights activist or militant vegan whose recently disclosed words linked the events of September 11 to the phrase “Meat is Murder!”

Rather, the fate of the thousand of people who were murdered aboard four hijacked airliners, at the World Trade Center, and at the Pentagon appears to have been inseparably linked to meat by Osama vin Laden himself, the mastermind and financier of the attacks, in his handwritten final orders to the 19 hijackers.

Copies of the four-page letter were found in the misdirected luggage, the wreckage of United Airlines flight 93, and a car parked at Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C.

“You must make your knife sharp, and you must not discomfort your animal during the slaughter,” bin Laden commanded, depicting slashing the throats of flight attendants, passengers, and pilots like killing sheep and goats at Ramadan. “If you slaughter,” bin Laden emphasized later in the letter, reinforcing “do not cause discomfort of those you are killing.”

That terrorists might slash the throats of some jet riders to intimidate others, without causing them discomfort, en route to murder thousands, is self-evidently preposterous. Yet bin Laden obviously did manage to convince the hijackers that their deeds would have no more negative moral consequence than killing animals for meat.

Many and perhaps most of the nine billion animals sent to slaughter in the U.S. each year, as well as the billions killed abroad, have at least as long to sense doom as did the September 11 victims. Neither are the animals’ cries as unlike the cell phone calls made by some September 11 victims as the typical meat-eater would like to believe.

Equally disturbing to meat-eaters might be awareness that doomed animals, too, often put up frantic resistance, like the passengers who tried to retake United Airlines flight 93, saving countless lives by causing the hijackers to crash the plane far from any target.

It is much easier to see the link between violence against animals and the violence against people in the behavior of psychopaths than in the much denied and disguised behavior of ordinary people doing ordinary things in daily life.

The violence countenanced by normal people for normal reasons too often differs from the mayhem of psychopaths chiefly in the degrees of disassociation and denial that are involved.

Our deepest denial involves human consumption of animals. The horror of September 11 was a reflection of human attitudes toward meat.

You don’t have to take our word for it.

Take the words of Osama bin Laden.

January – December

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