IDA Blog

Author Archive

I love Halloween. The coming darkness of autumn, the creepy, smiling jack-o-lanterns, and pumpkin-flavored everything. At what other time of the year do you get to dress up in wacky, sexy, or superhero costumes and eat yourself sick with candy? What a great holiday!

But Halloween can also be a nightmare for vegans—seems like non-vegan sweets are everywhere. Yet the true nightmare is what happens to animals on factory farms.

Vegan treats can be found at the witching hour, and you wouldn’t have guessed that some old favorites are actually vegan. Our friends at VegNews have compiled a deliciously comprehensive list of vegan candy. Can you imagine that Dots, Pez, and Dum-Dum Pops are vegan? You can also indulge in candies that are a bit healthier, support fair trade practices, and encourage sustainable agriculture like Sjaak’s Organic Chocolates  or Let’s Do Organic Gummy Bears.

So when the little monsters come to your door, you don’t necessarily have to contribute to the sugar fest. Stickers are a great surprise for the vampires, Freddy Kruegers, and Lady Gagas. Kids love stickers, and yours will be the coolest house on the block! Colored pencils or erasers can be fun, too.

Let’s make this a safe and compassionate holiday for everyone, including farmed animals.

New to veganism? Click here to order a Vegan Starter Kit.

World Go Vegan Week is Oct. 24 – 31, and IDA volunteers have been hard at work getting pizza restaurants to participate in our Vegan Pizza Takes Over the World campaign! We’ve had 73 volunteers reach out to 142 pizza restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, asking them to participate in our week of celebration of the vegan lifestyle.

Click here to see a list of participating restaurants offering a vegan pizza featuring Daiya cheese (pronounced DAY-aa), a vegan cheese that melts, stretches, and tastes like traditional dairy-based cheese. If a restaurant is participating in your area, grab your friends and family and show support with a vegan pizza party!

The vegan lifestyle is picking up steam; celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Alicia Silverstone, Lea Michele, Carrie Underwood, Emily Deschanel, Tobey Maguire, and Bill Clinton, among many others, have all made this compassionate and healthy lifestyle choice. While the number of vegetarians is growing every year, the number of non-vegetarians who often order vegan meals at restaurants is also increasing dramatically. The National Restaurant Association named vegan entrées a “hot trend” for 2011. Many people are looking for ways to eat healthier, while at the same time, helping to reduce animal suffering and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Ordering a vegan pizza is a great way to accomplish all three!

The dairy industry is pure hell for cows. To make just a pound of cheese, which is loaded with saturated fat, 12 pounds of milk are needed for this extremely wasteful and energy-intensive process. Like all mammals, female cows only lactate after giving birth. To maximize milk production, cows are constantly kept pregnant during their entire short and miserable lives until sent to slaughter. Each year, she will be artificially inseminated, and within hours of giving birth, the calf will be ripped from her side. Males will be fattened for veal or beef, while the females will endure the same dismal fate as their mothers. The stress on the mother’s body will diminish her milk output after about 3 or 4 years. She is then what the industry calls “dried up” or “spent,” and even though her natural life span is 20 years, it is more lucrative to send her to slaughter and replace her. Her body will be sold as ground beef.

But there is a way to reduce all of this suffering—Celebrate World Go Vegan Week and GO VEGAN! Give it a try for at least one week. The animals, the environment, and your health can only benefit from your compassionate choice. Click here for more information on the vegan lifestyle.

On Friday, October 7, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 376, the California Shark Protection Act into law. As of July 1, 2013, it will be illegal to possess, sell, trade and/or distribute shark fins in California. This effectively shuts down the shark fin trade in the U.S. Pacific as California joins Oregon, Washington and Hawaii in banning shark finning. The California Shark Protection Act passed both houses of the Legislature with bi-partisan support.

Every year, tens of millions of sharks are killed for the tasteless, “luxury” shark fin soup. This unnecessary dish has been a major contributor to the near collapse of many shark species world-wide. As the top predator in the marine food web, sharks maintain the natural balance in our oceans. Without them, other ocean species will disappear and ocean ecosystems will collapse. Scientists are warning that the massive decline of sharks is having a devastating effect on the marine ecosystem and they say that an estimate 34% of the world’s sharks are near extinction, and almost all shark species are in decline.

IDA would like to thank Governor Brown and all the legislators who voted for this ban. California is the 2nd largest consumer of shark fin in the world but will now be a leader in the global effort to end the practice of finning and in the preservation of the ocean ecosystem for generations to come.

Click here to support our work.

On September 27, 2011, the Richmond, California City Council voted to end live bird sales at its farmers’ market, effective November 1, 2011. In Defense of Animals partnered with LGBT Compassion to organize weekly protests, petitions, action alerts and other pressures to convince the city to end the cruel practice of selling live chickens at the Richmond Farmers’ Market.

The Richmond mayor received over 1,000 e-mails from local IDA supporters, and she acknowledged these e-mails at the meeting. Nineteen passionate animal advocates spoke in support of the ban and only two people spoke in opposition. All our efforts paid off with a 4 – 2 vote, with the mayor voting for the ban. Supportive Council Member Jeff Ritterman did a celebratory chair spin and fist pump in the air as the room full of animal advocates gave a standing ovation!

The vendor, Raymond Young, has a history of well-documented and shocking mistreatment of the spent egg-laying hens he sells at market. In 2009, San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control cited Mr. Young for 795 cruelty violations, including overcrowding, injuries, and failure to provide water. This was after he ignored requests for corrections.

At the weekly protests, IDA activists repeatedly witnessed the disturbing procedure of two birds being forcefully yanked from their tiny cage and stuffed upside-down into one paper bag with little ventilation. Most of the birds go immediate into a silent shock, but others loudly squawk and scream in fear and struggle in vain to free themselves. We have video of customers putting the birds in their car trunks and then returning to shop at the market. We witnessed children kicking and violently picking up and dropping the bags on the concrete. If there was a dog or a cat in the bag, these customers could be arrested for animal cruelty – a chicken has the same capacity to suffer as a dog or a cat.

There is no regulation or supervision of what happens when these chickens reach the customer’s house. They could be starved, terrorized by pets or children, and a careless or just unknowledgeable slaughter could cause prolonged and immense suffering. Self-slaughter violates California’s humane poultry slaughter laws, which require poultry to be killed by specific methods at licensed facilities – and for good reasons.

Two years ago, live birds were being sold at four Bay Area farmers’ markets. As of this week, they are sold at none, Richmond was the last to finally ban this practice, thanks to the tireless efforts of many animal advocates.

World Go Vegan Week (October 24th through 31st) is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment, world hunger, and everyone’s well-being. This year is going to be extra special… and extra cheesy! We want to help make it even easier to be vegan and what better way than being able to order a quick and easy pizza- with delicious vegan Daiya cheese.

Our goal is to make eating vegan simple, fun, and accessible to every community. You can help with just a few minutes of your time by reaching out to your local pizzeria and asking them to offer a vegan pizza. One of the best aspects of restaurant outreach is that a single person can make a direct and lasting difference for animals.
We want you to go to your local pizza shop and ask if they would offer a vegan pizza for the week of World Go Vegan Week. We are partnering with Daiya cheese and they have offered to provide a free sample of their cheese for the pizza shop to try. Daiya cheese melts, stretches, and tastes just like traditional dairy based cheese. We will provide you with a letter and tips on how to approach the pizzerias. Remember, all it takes is one person to make a major difference in changing everyday restaurants into vegan-friendly havens.

If you would like to be part of spreading the pizza love in your community, please contact Hope Bohanec: hope@idausa.org 415-448-0058 or 707-540-1760.

Vegan pizza outreach not your cup of tea? There are many other ways to celebrate with us! Click here for other ideas to promote World Go Vegan Week.

New to veganism? Click here to order a Vegan Starter Kit.

Due to an oversupply brought on by low demand, chicken (or broiler) meat slaughter is expected to slow dramatically in the second half of 2011. According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s latest report, third quarter production is estimated to be 1.3% lower than the third quarter of 2010.

Lower production is expected to continue in the fourth quarter of 2011, with production expected to decrease 2% from the same period in 2010.

An earlier study from the Daily Livestock Report found that U.S. meat, poultry, and fish consumption declined by one pound per person in 2010. Per capita pork consumption fell by 2.2 pounds per person in 2010, and beef consumption was at its lowest level in 2010 since the Daily Livestock Report started keeping records in 1955! This is the fourth year in a row that meat consumption has declined in the United States and the fifth decline within a six-year period.

The economy could be a factor in this trend, but studies are finding that a recent increased awareness about farm animal issues is also likely to be a contributing factor. If you would like to take action to help further this trend, join us for World Go Vegan Week and help spread healthy vegan eating.

Order your own FREE Vegan Starter Kit by clicking here!

IDA would like to thank Ellen DeGeneres for launching a new educational website called Going Vegan with Ellen. The celebrated comedian and talk show host has turned her love for animals and a healthy lifestyle into a website that shares recipes, tips on getting started, and glimpses of other celebrities that are also vegan including her wife, actress Portia de Rossi. Some other famous vegans noted on her site are Joaquin Phoenix, Toby Maguire, Lea Michele of Glee, and Emily Deschanel who was IDA’s spokesperson for World Go Vegan Week last year.

DeGeneres went vegan in 2008 and has steadily increased her dedication to the diet, shunning Lady Gaga’s meat dress on her show and offering the musician a dress made of veggies instead.

We love Ellen and her passion for veganism, however, she is now the face of Cover Girl Cosmetics, a company notorious for testing their products on animals. We hope that she can make the connection that animals suffer in labs just as much as those that end up on our plates and either discontinue support of Cover Girl or use her celebrity power and get them to stop testing on animals- an even better option!

Order your own FREE Vegan Starter Kit by clicking here!

The IDA Team & Table!

The Animal Rights 2011 National Conference, the world’s largest and oldest animal rights gathering, was held July 21 – 25 in Los Angeles, California at the Westin LAX Hotel. This annual conference sponsored by Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) and co-sponsored by In Defense of Animals (IDA) offered sessions on combating animal abuse, organizing, tactics, animal protection issues, and key campaigns. IDA enlightened newcomers and seasoned activists about our programs through extensive participation on panels. Our table in the main hall was brimming with information on IDA campaigns, plus fun t-shirts, buttons, travel mugs, and other animal-related merchandise.

Catherine Doyle, IDA’s Elephant Campaign Director, spoke on three panels, including Animals in Entertainment. She gave an overview of IDA’s work for elephants in zoos and circuses and described the welfare problems associations with each, and showed footage of abuse in circuses and a video about elephants in zoos. Catherine also spoke on the panel Animal Rescues about the unique nature of the elephant rescues IDA has facilitated.

At the Saturday night banquet, Catherine introduced the winner of the Young Animal Rights Activist Award, Juliette West, a “youth ambassador” for elephants in captivity and in the wild. She is featured in the documentary How I Became An Elephant, which tells the story of her efforts to rescue an elephant from the streets of Thailand. She uses the film to reach young audiences around the country and teach them about elephants in captivity.

Hope Animal Sanctuary's Doll Stanley

Our Hope Animal Sanctuary’s Director Doll Stanley introduced IDA at the opening plenary session. Doll also spoke on four panels: Vivisection, Companion Animal Campaigns, Running a Sanctuary, and Enforcing Protective Laws.

Hope Bohanec, IDA’s Grassroots Campaigns Director, offered her power point presentation Eco-Eating: A Cool Diet for a Hot Planet about environmental impacts of animal agriculture. She also spoke on the panel International Activism about IDA Africa, our chimpanzee sanctuary in Cameroon; IDA India, where we spay, neuter and offer emergency medical care for street animals in Mumbai; and our South Korean Dog and Cat campaign, exposing the horrors of dogs tortured and slaughtered for their meat and cats boiled for “medicinal elixirs” in South Korea. Hope also spoke on Language and Labels, introducing people to IDA’s unique Guardian Campaign, which encourages the use of non-objectifying and more accurate words when we discuss animals, such as “guardian” instead of “owner” and “he” or “she” instead of “it.”

We were even able to participate in the world’s biggest circus demo ever with 500 hundred protesters educating Ringling Bros. circus goers about the cruel and sad life of circus animals. We had a great time and I hope you can join us in Washington DC next July for the AR 2012 National Conference!

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Surgeon General unveiled a new food guide, MyPlate, that will replace the Food Pyramid that has been the standard nutrition guide since 1992. First Lady Michelle Obama, a champion of healthy eating and raising awareness about childhood obesity, spoke at the Agriculture Department in Washington DC to introduce the new, more visual guide.

The innovative plate shows four portions with vegetables and grains being the largest segments, fruit and “protein” making up the smaller sections. Not only is it very exciting that the vegetable and grain section are by far the largest slice of the plate, also noteworthy is that the actual food is listed for vegetables, fruits, and grains, however, the fourth section, “protein” is listed as a nutrient. Not as meat- not as meat/beans- just protein. The other sections could be listed as “carbohydrates” or “vitamins” but they are not. It is clear that they are specifically recommending eating vegetables, grains, and fruits, however, how you get your protein is optional. The clear message is that meat is no longer recommended or required in the diet. This is a true turning point in mainstream nutrition education. This is practically a vegan plate!

MyPlate shows the country what we in the vegan community have been excited about for years, plant-based diets ― including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes ― offer an abundant, diverse selection of nutrient-rich foods to choose from, are high in fiber, phytochemicals, and antioxidants, and have no saturated fat (with the exception of coconuts and palm oil). According to numerous studies, plant-based diets have been shown to lower the risk of many diseases including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

The only disappointment with the new guide is the separate small circle to the upper right hand side of the plate, representing a glass of dairy. Dairy is completely unnecessary in the diet and is actually harmful with high saturated fat, cholesterol, and many people are allergic, especially in communities of color. Not to mention the very sad, miserable, and short life of a dairy cow and her calves who are usually slaughtered in the veal industry. It’s unfortunate that this was included, but this shouldn’t damper our celebration of this landmark new guide.

MyPlate is an important stage in the global shift to a plant-based diet, and IDA would like to give kudos to the USDA for educating the public on the importance of vegetables and grains on our plate.

For more information on how you can go vegan or promote veganism – Please check out IDA’s Vegan Campaign Pages and Resources!

Washington State’s Governor Chris Gregoire has signed into law a ban prohibiting the sale and trade of shark fins in the state. This historic bill passed unanimously in the state Senate and by a vote of 95 to 1 in the House. We at IDA want to thank the Washington state government for making the compassionate and environmentally sound choice to end the terrible practice of shark fining off the coast of Washington.
A California bill that would ban the possession, sale, trade and distribution of shark fins in California, Assembly Bill (AB) 376, will be up for a vote very soon. This bill was introduced by Assembly members Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael). A similar ban in Hawaii passed in 2010 has help start a much needed cascade effect of legislation on the coast of the Western United States to protect the top predator in the ocean.

Shark fining is an industry where the fins and tails of sharks are cut off and the remainder of the often still living fish is thrown back into the ocean. Sharks then sink to the bottom, unable to swim and die a slow, agonizing death. Every year, tens of millions of sharks are killed in this manner for shark fin soup, a tasteless, Asian delicacy. This unnecessary dish has been a major contributor to the near collapse of many shark species world-wide as well as in California. Sharks maintain the natural balance in our oceans marine food web. Scientists are warning that the massive decline of sharks is having a devastating effect on the marine ecosystem.

California’s (AB) 376 will give important protection to sharks to help preserve the ecosystem and biodiversity of the California coast and the world’s oceans.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION:  If you are a California resident, please contact your representative and ask them to support (AB) 376.