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FOOD Most farmed animals are raised on factory "farms," where they spend their entire lives in cages or crates so small that they can not even turn around. Farmed animals are not protected from cruelty under the law. In fact, the majority of state anti-cruelty laws specifically exempt farm animals from basic humane protection — so abandoning a sick animal on a pile of dead animals is considered “normal animal agricultural” practice. Farm animals are living, feeling animals, not agribusiness “commodities.” --Farm Sanctuary
Factory farms are large warehouses where animals are confined in crowded cages or pens or in restrictive stalls. Most animals who are raised and killed for food spend their lives in such miserable places.
The Alternative: A Vegan Diet! · To receive our free Veganism Starter Packet, please contact us. It contains tips, health facts, recipes and a cruelty-free guide to help you live a more complete cruelty-free lifestyle. · Contact the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) for up-to-date medical information on why veganism is the healthiest dietary choice. · Check out some great free vegan recipes: ® VegWeb ® Or, just type “vegan recipes” into your search engine. ® To purchase NJARA's Vegan Cookbook (filled with over 150 delicious recipes), please send your request with a check or money order for $8 to NJARA, PO Box 174, Englishtown, NJ 07726. · Vegan groceries: · NJ-based vegan/vegetarian groups: ® American Vegan Society: 856-694-2887 ® Central Jersey Vegetarian Group: 908-281-6388 ® Vegetarian Society of So. Jersey: 609-216-9095 ® Shore Vegetarians: 908-899-9000 ® Vegetarian Neighbors Teen Program: 856-694-3025 · Cats and dogs can be vegan too! Don’t feed your cat or dog a vegan diet without getting all the nutritional info you need first. Contact us for our free Vegetarian Dog and Cat Food packet.
PERSONAL CARE & HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS Many personal care and cleaning products are manufactured using animal experimentation—cutting, burning, shocking, drugging, starving, irradiating, blinding and killing animals. Millions of animals in the U.S. suffer and are killed each year in laboratories for household and personal care product testing. Look at the following sites for more information on product testing on animals:
· NJARA’s anti-vivisection website - AskUsWhy · New England Anti Vivisection Society · National Anti-Vivisection Society
The Alternative: Buy cruelty-free! Many personal care and cleaning products also contain animal ingredients. It’s easy to read labels and choose products that don't involve the suffering and death of animals. You don’t need to harm animals to have a clean house or a great hair day!
· Contact us to receive our free Cruelty Free Product Guide or click here to print it out as a PDF. · Go to Veg Family for a comprehensive animal ingredient list, so that you will know what ingredients to avoid. · Places to purchase Cruelty-Free Products online: ® Pangea ® Or, just type “vegan products” or “cruelty-free products” into your search engine!
CLOTHING Everybody knows that fur is out of fashion because of the inherent cruelty involved in the fur industry. Animals are killed by means of gassing, trapping, anal and vaginal electrocution, among other means.
But what about leather, wool, and silk? If you’re going to be vegetarian or vegan for ethical reasons, leather has to be eliminated from your wardrobe. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses, since the skins of animals are the most economically important co-product of the multibillion-dollar meat industry.
Sheep raised for wool are often mutilated and castrated without painkillers and eventually slaughtered while fully conscious. Much of the world's wool comes from sheep raised in Australia or New Zealand, where farmers restrain sheep using metal bars and, without any pain relief, slice away large chunks of flesh from the animals' backsides.
When silk worms change into pupas, they live inside a cocoon made of fine threads that they spin around themselves. Instead of being able to mature into a moth after about 3 weeks inside the cocoon, their lives are cut short while still inside. They are immersed in boiling water for a period of time until the pupa dies and continuous thread of silk is obtained. To produce a100 grams of silk yarn, about 1,500 pupas are killed. So you can imagine how many pupas are killed to obtain different silk products like shirts, dresses, ties, etc.
The Alternative: Wear your own skin! There are so many alternatives to leather, wool and silk, that there is really no excuse for wearing them. Compassion is in fashion! Check out these online vegan clothing retailers:
· Contact the Vegetarian Resource Group for their very comprehensive booklet, “A Shopper’s Guide To Leather Alternatives,” or simply view it online. · Vegan clothing: ® Kid Bean ® Pangea ® Just type “non-leather shoes,” “leather alternatives,” or “vegan clothing” into your search engine! |
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