Speaking of recipes, now seems like a good time to highlight how the BC SPCA is involved in your dinner.
You certainly do not need to be a vegan to support animal rights, but I believe that any person who eats or otherwise consumes animal products has a responsibility to ensure that the animals they are eating or using are being treated humanely, and allowed to live out their lives in a way that supports their natural behaviors.
The SPCA is working hard to ensure that happens.
I am of the belief that “you can’t just do one thing” – every action you take has repercussions that ripple outward from them. A higher tide lifts all the boats, and insisting animals be treated humanely in every instance, but especially agriculturally, will ensure the health of our population and our planet.
My favourite example of the inability to “do one thing” is asking lacto-ovo vegetarians whether they think about where the boys go.
Because our modern industrial animal production environments have led to specialized breeding for certain traits (high milk/egg production, in the instance of cows & chickens), the non-producing members of that species are essentially useless for anything else.
Baby dairy cows are not designed to grow efficiently into beef. They become veal. Baby boy laying chickens are not designed to grow efficiently into broilers. They become dogfood.
If you drink milk and eat eggs, you necessarily support the veal and omnivorous pet-food industries.
This is not a bad thing.
It does mean that if you drink milk and eat eggs, you are probably wise to ensure that your dairy cows and laying hens are being treated well, because it means that the veal and chicks you don’t eat (or feed your pet) “out of protest” are being treated equally humanely.
Over 95% of the animals people own in BC are farm animals. They deserve to have the happiest, piggiest, chickeniest, horsiest and cowiest lives they can! They do a great service to us, please do a great service to them and donate.
I’m blogging for 24 hours straight to support the BC SPCA
Pledge through the Blogathon Site
or
Directly through the SPCA Paws for a Cause donation portal.
