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- “We generally accept that it’s natural for carnivorous wild animals to kill other animals in order to live. But people don’t often think (or even know) about the extraordinary and unnatural suffering that humans inflict on the animals that we freely harvest for food, with the help of modern high technology and the animal food sciences.”
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Marc Bekoff,
Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect
- “Eating Animals” closes with a turkey-less Thanksgiving. As a holiday, it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. But this is Foer’s point. We are, he suggests, defined not just by what we do; we are defined by what we are willing to do without. Vegetarianism requires the renunciation of real and irreplaceable pleasures. To Foer’s credit, he is not embarrassed to ask this of us.”
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Elizabeth Kolbert
- “Look a pig in her eyes, and understand the truth behind bacon.”
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Mango Wodzak
- “Oppressions are linked. We cannot free human beings without freeing cows, sows, and hens along with women and men who are systematically oppressed by those in power. Rather than seek to fight our way up the patriarchal ladder, those working for social justice need to dismantle hierarchies, and cease to exploit all those who are less powerful—even if we must give up a few culinary favorites in the process. (Those who have taken up a plantbased diet for any measure of time never want for fabulous foods. From my experience, people who discover the vast array of wonderful plant-based foods that are readily available in most of our communities never look back.) Each of us decides, over the course of our daily lives, whether we will ignore the suffering of nonhuman animals who are caught in laboratories, veal crates, circuses, and slaughterhouses, or choose to invest in compassionate, healthy alternatives . . . . We choose where our money goes, and in the process, we choose whether to boycott cruelty and support change, or melt ambiguously back into the masses.”
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Lisa Kemmerer,
Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women’s Voices
- “I love animals, especially with barbeque sauce.”
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J. Richard Singleton
- “Once you come to terms with why you don’t eat cats, dogs, monkeys, and dolphins, you will begin to understand why I don’t eat cows, pigs, chickens, and lambs.”
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Edward Sanchez
- “All sentient beings should have at least one right—the right not to be treated as property”
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GaryLFrancione
- “She makes a silent vow to be a vegetarian from now on even if she has to starve to do it. Better that than even the remote possibility of eating one’s friends and fellow sufferers.”
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Carol Emshwiller,
Carmen Dog
- “Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
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Jim Davis
- “Out in the field, sitting on the grass, the hard-core omnivores are hunched around and over the cadaver of a creature they’ve courageously downed, greedily feasting on its flesh, while furtively looking around in all directions.. one of them has thrown in a few wilted sprigs of asparagus and a bucketful of ketchup to sweeten the deal.The vegetarians have caught an animal, chased her baby over to the omnivores, and are suckling from her nipples, while others feast on a basket of gathered birds eggs.The vegans have just ploughed through a mono crop of wheat, and soy and are enjoying their tofu burgers.Meanwhile those radical fruitarian extremists are in the cherry trees, looking on in wide-eyed bewilderment..”
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Mango Wodzak
- “Your wrong habits of eating have so educated your moral powers that you have not the spirit of a Christian. Your temper is perverse, and your treatment of dumb [voiceless] animals is wrong.”~ Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases Vol. 3, p. 306”
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Ellen G. White
- “We think about how our food will impact our bodies, but what about how it impacts our planet?”
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Freequill
- “Organic” labels do nothing for a cow who is perpetually impregnated and milked, who loses her calf to the veal industry—or to protect her calf, who is sold at birth to the veal industry to be slaughtered. “Organic” products are designed to optimize human health and reduce environmental degradation. Those who invest in organic products are not making a choice that promotes the well-being of farmed animals.”
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Lisa Kemmerer,
Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women’s Voices
- “It’s just so simple, animals are not ours, they have their own lives. If you’re not ok with imprisonment, suffering, and murder, then please be one less person paying for the imprisonment, suffering and murder of animals.”
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Mango Wodzak
- “Hindu religious traditions hold nature to be sacred and offer a philosophy of ahimsa, karma, reincarnation, and oneness that [points to] a vegan diet. . . . Gods, humans, and anymals are sometimes indistinguishable: A Hindu god might manifest as human, tortoise, man-lion, or elephant-headed human; a small, playful monkey might turn out to be the powerful god Hanuman. As gods, and through their own special powers, anymals are spiritually powerful in the Hindu tradition, and provide innumerable lessons and worthy examples for human beings. Humans are obligated to live a life of ahimsa, which requires Hindus to speak up in defense of those who are exploited.”
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Lisa Kemmerer,
Animals and World Religions
- “A MAN ON A CANE STILL STANDS ON HIS OWN TWO FEET!”
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Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier,
Friend In Your Pocket Conversations Session One
- “We know today the calcium from plants can provide protection from fractures, while calcium derived from dairy products increases fracture risk. This is evident in a June 2016 longitudinal study from the China Health and Nutrition Survey published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research – Long-Term Low Intake of Dietary Calcium and Fracture Risk In Older Adults With Plant-Based Diet (65). Researchers found a high intake of calcium from dairy products may not offer protection from bone fractures, while a lower intake of calcium from plant-derived foods was protective. Calcium intake, and the number of bone fractures were analyzed from 6,210 participants consuming plant-based diets in the China Health and Nutrition Survey. Lower calcium intakes sourced from plants were found to be the most protective, with no added benefits for consuming above that range. The authors conclude, “A plant-based diet may be associated with lower requirements for calcium intake for bone health, compared with Westernized diets.”
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Jesse J Jacoby
- “Look into their eyes and tell them “I’m sorry, you have to die, but I need to eat”. Look into their eyes, and tell them “I know there is an abundance of plant based foods I could eat, but I would still rather eat you”. Look into their eyes and tell them “I know I don’t NEED to eat you, but I am going to pay someone else to murder you anyway” Look into their eyes and tell them “I’m sorry you lived a short enslaved, abused and tortured life, but I don’t care because I am selfish” Look into their eyes and tell them ” I love my cat/dog, but your life doesn’t matter as much” Go ahead, take a look into their eyes and tell them that!”
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Jenn V Keller-Lowe
- “When I look into the eyes of our animal friends, I feel as if it’s the universe itself looking back at me, a profoundly beautiful, deep, and knowing presence. I sense this universal spirit is waiting to see how I will treat them, judging my worthiness of the gift of their companionship. I feel their beauty and purity in the very depths of my soul, and in the process of caring for them and trying to protect them from harm, my heart fills with a love that feels infinite…”
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Rai Aren
- “Bacon would not be a choice if the pig had any say in the matter. A lamb, given the gift of speech, would most probably say “no” if you asked if you could eat her leg. Fish would no doubt choose to stay in the water, if they could and I feel pretty sure turkeys must object once their Christmas fête (or should that be fate?) is made clear to them. Chickens are surely protesting from having their eggs systematically stolen and freedoms restricted, and both cows and their calves would be up in arms, if they had any, with the theft of their milk and violent separation. Given the chance, bees will attack and defend ferociously, even sacrificing themselves in the process, in order to protect their precious honey; a sure sign they do not part with it voluntarily.”
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Mango Wodzak,
Destination Eden – Eden Fruitarianism Explained
- “It shouldn’t be the consumer’s responsibility to figure out what’s cruel and what’s kind, what’s environmentally destructive and what’s sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don’t need the option of buying children’s toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don’t need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.”
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Jonathan Safran Foer,
Eating Animals
- “Everyone’s life changes when they meet their Obi-Wan & their Yoda, or their Morpheus & their Oracle; those who help remove the veil.”
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Brandi L. Bates
- “My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people.”
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Colleen Patrick-Goudreau,
Vegan’s Daily Companion: 365 Days of Inspiration for Cooking, Eating, and Living Compassionately
- “You settle for less, you get less.”
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Brandi L. Bates,
Remains To Be Seen
- “Yes, there are constraints on our actions, conventions and structural injustices that set the parameters of possibility. Our free will is not omnipotent – we can’t do whatever we want. But, as Scranton says, we are free to choose from possible options. And one of our options is to make environmentally conscientious choices. It doesn’t require breaking the laws of physics–or even electing a green president–to select something plant-based from a menu or at the grocery store. And although it may be a neoliberal myth that individual decisions have ultimate power, it is a defeatist myth that individual decisions have no power at all. Both macro and micro actions have power, and when it comes to mitigating our planetary destruction, it is unethical to dismiss either, or to proclaim that because the large cannot be achieved, the small should not be attempted.”
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Jonathan Safran Foer,
We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast
- “Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well with others.”
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Cesar Chavez
- “The U.S. can retire more than 60% of cultivated lands if people choose a plant-based diet, and we would use much less water, pesticides, fossil fuels, and chemical fertilizers.”
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Lisa Kemmerer,
Eating Earth: Environmental Ethics and Dietary Choice
- “Ethically, she couldn’t cause the suffering of any living thing. Logically, bacon cheeseburgers were delicious.”
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Thomm Quackenbush,
We Shadows
- “A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
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Leo Tolstoy
- “The longer I have been on the raw food path, the more I tend to come full circle and return to where my original ideas and inspiration of wanting to eat raw food come from – and that’s natural hygiene and its principles.”
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Kytka Hilmar-Jezek,
RAW FOOD FOR CHILDREN: Protect Your Child from Cancer, Hyperactivity, Autism, Diabetes, Allergies, Behavioral Problems, Obesity, ADHD & More