Two mums in NZ proved recently just how far they were willing to go to protect their babies, pushing and even biting a man that threatened them. Oh, did I mention that these mums were cows?? Find out more...
To summarise: a farmer tried to separate calves from their mums ... but the mums fought back to protect their babies! It's a good thing those cows didn't know "MOO Thai"!! Man, I love puns.
Like most mums, cows form very strong bonds with their young. One study suggested that this bond is formed within 5 minutes of giving birth! After birth the mum licks her calf all over, in a process that helps her learn the sight and smell of her baby. If they are separated, the mum will bellow frantically, and the calves appear frightened and confused.
Unfortunately, the separation of mum and baby happens on dairy farms all the time. See what happens right here in Australia for yourself. WARNING: this isn't easy to watch.
A TV show in England recently caused an uproar by showing the horrible truth, too - right during prime-time.
WARNING: this clip is really sad too :(
In Australia every year, over 700,000 bobby calves are killed as "waste products" of the dairy industry. Some are shot, but the majority are taken from their mothers and put onto trucks with other calves, bound for the slaughterhouse. There they will be killed ... after being alive for less than a week. That's the secret the dairy industry would rather you didn't know.
If you want to take action for bobby calves and their grieving mums - it's easy. You can simply ditch dairy.Delicious alternatives are in supermarkets and delis everywhere - milks, chocolates, yoghurts and icecreams. Have fun exploring and finding your fave!
p.s. my pick for best non-dairy ice-cream: Coco Luscious. Prove me wrong by telling me your pick below!
Herbie the bull is living what I would say is my dream life. He gets to run around outside on the grass all day ... and play with a ball. If you thought dogs were the only animals that loved playing with toys, then check out the love affair Herbie is having with his new ball!
Just like cats and dogs, cows have their own individual personalities. Rosamund Young (author of The Secret Lives of Cows), points out that cows "can be highly intelligent, moderately so, or slow to understand; friendly, considerate, aggressive, docile, inventive, dull, proud, or shy." They form friendships with other cows, and mother cows form strong bonds with their calves.
But what you may not know is that dairy cows live a life far different to what you might remember from your picture books. Like all mammals (including humans!) cows will only produce milk after they have been pregnant - the milk obviously being meant for their babies. But newborn calves are taken from their mums less than a day after birth. And the milk intended for them makes its way into cartons and then the supermarket fridge.
You may be wondering, "Where do the calves go? Do they get a ball like Herbie?" As much as that would make my day, the reality couldn't be any more different. After separation, the mother and the calf will cry out for each other for days but their chances of a reunion are next to none. Most calves will be killed as a "waste-product" of the dairy industry at just 5 days old. This includes all male calves because they can't produce milk, and any young females not needed to restock the herd of milking cows. Every year in Australia, 700,000 calves are killed like this as part of the system that puts milk and cheese on supermarket shelves.
Not a "feel-good" kinda story is it? The good news for you and for cows though, is that there are alternatives to dairy available in supermarkets and delis across Australia. So Good ice-cream, Tofutti Cuties, oat milk, and Notzarella cheese are all items you can sub into the fridge to replace dairy products. And those are just my faves. Not only do they taste good, they also help save cows and their calves from suffering. That's win-win for everyone!
When it comes to milk, are you Team Oat or Team Soy (or even Team Rice)? And what about desserts - So Good or Tofutti? Tell all in the comments below!
!Easter is just around the corner. If you're as loco for cocoa as me, you're probably already drooling over the idea of a long weekend devouring chocolate. But we couldn't wait that long... We're getting into the spirit of Easter early and are giving away a delicious cruelty-free Easter pack to one Unleashed member now. Read on to find out how this lucky person could be you ;)
While Easter can be a sweet deal for us, it's often a sour deal for animals. But it doesn't have to be. By going dairy-free you can be sure to have an awesome Easter while also being sweet to animals.
Most Aussies don't realise that over 700,000 dairy calves (called 'bobby calves') are killed as 'waste products' in the dairy industry every year. But going dairy-free means chocolate doesn't have to be a death sentence for dairy calves.
You might even be surprised how easy ditching dairy can be. Not only is there a great range of dairy-free chocolates in most supermarkets, we've got the (dairy-free)-cream of the crop in the Unleashed shop, to make it super-easy for you to get the perfect prezzies to put on your own wishlist this Easter!. Check out these goodies:
How amazing are they! And what's even more amazing is you could score one of these for free. Just tell us who you'd most like to share dairy-free chocolate with and why. Leave a comment below, and the best answer will score an 'Easter Chicken Gift Pack', including 2 delicious bonvita rice milk egg packs and an adorable chick adoption.
2nd April 2012 And the winner is ....*em* who plans on using this choccie to start a new dairy-free chocolate addiction in her workplace!
Huge thanks to everyone who entered the comp - what a generous bunch you all are!
Don't be too disappointed if you missed out - remember you can grab dairy-free chocolate in most supermarkets in the health food aisle... See it must be good for us!
You know the dairy industry is on the defensive when they stop trying to sing the praises of their product and just scrape the bottom of the barrel for reasons not to drink dairy-free milk (like soy, oat or almond milk).
Check out this ad from the American dairy industry -- it's pretty funny in its desperation to sell milk.
But the dairy industry will never feel the desperation of Bobby, a male calf born to keep his mother producing milk, while he is discarded as a 'waste product' of milk production.
So I'd rather shake and save lives than drink milk stolen from a doomed baby cow, and seriously I've never had to shake my milk that much anyway! Have you?
I've met lots of smart people. At least, they are smarter than me! But it's amazing how even among some of the smartest people I know there are some really basic things that seem to slip through the cracks.
Like, here's where most people think milk comes from:
1) The fridge
2) The supermarket
3) Magical fairy cows that automatically lactate for our convenience
4) All of the above (this was me)
I think these options pretty much sum up the images that you see in ads for cows' milk. Well, next week Animals Australia is going to do some advertising of their own, only this time, they're letting people in on a little secret -- the dark side to dairy that they *won't* tell you about in their ads. Click here to download the new ad, or sit back and watch this video to discover the truth:
If you think animals shouldn't be treated like 'waste products' then please share this vid on your Facebook and Twitter. And if you're cashed up you can even make a donation to help get Animals Australia's new ad in the newspaper next week!
What's the most disturbing thing you've discovered about where food comes from? We wanna know -- leave a comment!
Who said cows don't have an ear for fine music?! An American jazz group put this theory to the test when they recently performed in front of a crowd of captivated, music-loving French cows. Check out the video below, very cute!
I especially like how all the cows stand to attention side-by-side, their ears honed in on the music, seemingly twitching in curiosity and pleasure! Adorable! Just a sunny afternoon of grass munching and jazz - what better way to pass the time?
If only dairy cows, who sing their own songs of sorrow, when their new born calves are taken from them only hours after birth and are trucked off to be killed as 'waste products' of the dairy industry; and steers, castrated, de-horned and branded without pain relief in the beef industry could all experience a little less human cruelty and a little more human kindness and creativity.
Cows are intelligent and inquisitive creatures that form strong social bonds with their bovine buddies, and according to scientists, even enjoy solving mental puzzles! This video just goes to show these amazing animals are every bit as intriguiing and deserving of our respect as dogs, cats or any other animal...
Have you got any cute or funny cow stories/videos to share?
I figure that I'm gonna be pretty popular when I announce that we have chocolate for you! Well, ok not all of you! But 5 lucky peeps who can tell me what amazing dairy free delights they have discovered this year.
I can tell you what my favourite is right now -- Constant Cravings incredibly, immensely delicious and decadent Chocolate Truffles! We've got gift packs of 8 (EIGHT!! I just dribbled on the keyboard) Constant Craving truffles valued at $18 to win.
And victory will taste all the sweeter knowing that no cows (or calves!) were harmed in the making of those chocolicious treats!
In the pack are Scorched Almond, Coconut Rough, Apricot Dream and Coffee flavoured truffles. Now if any of you are worried about a little guilty pleasure, I am quite prepared to get on a flight to anywhere and help the winners polish off their prize. I'm considerate like that ;)
So, go on, tell me what your fave dairy-free snack is and make my tummy grumble even more. Good luck!
Unleashed Note: A little while
ago, 4_da_animals1 posted a thread to the forum describing her experiences doing part time work at a small dairy farm. Most of us already know that male calves (who obviously can't produce milk) are killed as a waste product
of the industry. But we were intrigued and disturbed to hear about
her day to day encounters, so we asked her to write a guest blog.
With all the dairy chocolate gobbled up at Easter, we thought this would be the perfect time to share her story:
Having recently turned vegetarian, I can now tell you one way to guarantee to become vegan is to work on a dairy farm.
Needing a job for the summer holidays, I was skimming through the country paper and saw an ad for a job on a dairy farm. Mum had been breathing down my neck to get a job; nothing much else was on offer; and to be honest I was curious to see how dairies treat their animals first hand, so I rang the manager to see if the spot had been taken. It hadn't.
I would be in charge of feeding gorgeous baby calves for a few hours a couple of times a week, and being paid for it. What could go wrong? Turns out being a calf feeder is not all I thought it would be. I had heard stories about the dairy industry being cruel - male calves taken from their mothers and trucked off to slaughter every week - but nothing really hits you in the heart more than seeing the kinds of day to day cruelty these poor creatures go through firsthand.
With images of gorgeous happy calves skipping up to me for a feed, I headed down to the farm with a smile on my face, and high expectations. These expectations, however, were crushed within a few mere hours.
The first thing I clearly remember from stepping outside the car was the smell. The smell of mass amounts of faeces. In front of me were hundreds of cows packed in a small iron pen, one by one being pushed through these huge machines with tubes being attached to their udders - a person behind them, making loud noises and hitting their behinds with a rubber tube, to push them forward.
I was told to throw some rubber boots on, and get in with the cows. The lady pushing the cows forward would be in charge of me, to teach me what to do. As I headed towards her, all I could see were piles and piles of faeces in the pen - so large that I would get stuck in it. The cows were forced to move through the sludge, which the workers called "mud" to get onto the concrete in front of the milkers. Some cows would trip and fall into the "mud" face first. Some cow's behinds were covered in sores and dried "mud", others were limping, but all were forced further and further forward to be finished by break time.
The one thing I will never get out of my head is the sadness in those cow's eyes. With hung heads, you could tell they could feel every hit, and if you tried to approach them, they would run off, with genuine fear in their eyes of you, the two legged being with a big stick.
Once a cow had given birth, a worker would take the baby away from the mother, and shove him into a tiny trailer attached to the back of the quad bike, awaiting a calf feeder to take him down with the others. Some calves were stuck in that cage for up to 12 hours.
The calves were placed 5 or 6 to a pen. To move a calf into a different pen, they were picked up and thrown over the fence, then left to gather their own feet. Standing in front of the calves' pens for the first time, I looked to my left and was faced with a pile of dead calves covered in flies being thrown on the back of the quad to be taken to the "death pit". In front of me, in the pens, were cute wobbly calves, covered in all different shades of faeces - from other sick calves and calves with the equivalent of diarrhea, which is lethal to a baby calf if not treated within days of getting sick.
It's a calf feeder's responsibility to separate the sick calves from the healthy, and tell the manager when more medicine needs to be ordered. If the manager isn't told, it doesn't happen, and the calves suffer and die as a result. This happened frequently, as the majority of workers just didn't care. They were simply there to get their hours.
Deprived of a mother to drink milk from at a leisurely pace, calves have two opportunities to drink milk per day, having to consume 2 litres of milk on both occasions. If a calf refused to feed from the plastic feeders on the fence, they had a tube shoved down their throat and were forced to feed, with a quiet moan escaping them as the tube slid in. As you make sure each calf consumes its 2 litres, you cannot escape the overwhelming wails of the mother cows that have just had their babies taken from them.
Every single male bobby calf, and any female that was born with a male as twins gets sent to slaughter. The female twins are included, as they have a higher rate of future miscarriage. Miscarriage means no baby, which means no production of milk. Every five days, the truck comes to take the bobby calves to slaughter and their miserable life comes to an end.
Needless to say, I didn't last long working there. And my time there has triggered my decision to go vegan. I do not know of many people who would agree to this treatment of such kindhearted creatures. This was a small country dairy, I could not possibly imagine the kinds of things big companies get away with.
I'm glad I can now give people a first hand account of how animals are treated on dairy farms. And I'll be taking every opportunity I can to inform others! We, as consumers need to show through what we choose to eat and buy that we do not agree with ill-treatment of other living creatures!
Want to uncover more dirt on dairy? Check out this video, tracing the life of a bobby calf:
It's almost that time again -Â Chocolate time! Oh, I mean Easter time, yup Easter! But really, chocolate is aaall I can think about this time of year. And since ditching dairy, I've discovered so many delicious and delightful chocolates that I am certainly spoilt for choice!
I know you're dying to hear about them, so without further ado:
Bonvita (Karen's fave by a country mile!) have released little half eggs made from rice milk this year, so creamy and so YUM! You can grab these at Vegan Online.
Constant Craving have also gone all out by encasing their incredible chocolate truffles inside a chocolate egg. And with truffle flavours jaffa, coconut and almond there is certainly one to suit everyone! Order these from The Cruelty Free Shop.
Now my fave - The ever amazing Sweet William has come up with new Easter products this year. Along with the tried and true chocolate bunnies, they also come in a sugar free variety (still just as sweet, I can vouch for that!) and ... this is so exciting ... a rice crackle Easter bunny! You can order these online too, or just pick them up at your local supermarket.
Also in the supermarket aisle you'll find the Lindt Gold Bunny (in dark chocolate only!), Lindor pouches of dark chocolate eggs and Whittaker's dark chocolate blocks which are great for melting down and making your own little choc bunnies or eggs with.
For those with someone they really wanna treat this Easter (don't forget - that 'someone' can absolutely be YOU!), you can grab a gorgeous plush bunny with his own assortment of dairy-free fun, including Plamil and Rawganic chocolates and those delicious Constant Craving truffles from the Unleashed shop. (Of course all proceeds go towards helping save the Easter bunny's relatives and furry friends.)
Now remember, that there's no reason to limit this amazing choccy goodness to just one time of year. All these chocolatiers (I love that word!) sell their mouth-watering treats all year round. Hip Hooray!
Which choccies are you gonna try this Easter? Have you discovered one I didn't mention? Tell me, so I can stuff my face with it! I mean, so I can sample it and give you a review ..ahem.
World Water Day is brought to you by the United Nations to remind us that over 1 billion people don't have access to clean water. It's staggering to think that nearly 4,000 kids die every day as a result. [1]
And this got me thinking… A lot of us have water restrictions affecting out gardening or our shower time, but these savings aren't even a drop in the ocean compared with what is used in the meat and dairy industries every day.
When I was at uni, we went to a cattle feedlot in Tungali in rural SA. I nearly fell over when the guide told me that in summer, a cow can drink up to 80 litres of water in a day. There were 3,000 thirsty cows jammed into this feedlot! That's almost a quarter of a million litres of water used a day just so people can eat unhealthy hamburgers made from the bodies of unfortunate cows in just one of the many feedlots across Oz.
Now while I wait for you to find your feet again, I'll let you in on some other scary stats:
To produce just one kilo of chicken meat takes 3,500 litres of water. [2]
To produce a kilo of beef takes 100,000 litres! [2]
And wait for it … over 12% of all the water used in the world is used to produce … milk! [3] Yep, dairy is undoubtedly the biggest guzzler of water in the world (not to mention one of the cruellest industries to boot)
So, if you're serious about saving water, you could refuse to shower for an entire year, let your garden dry up into a dust patch, and never ever wash the car. OR, you could join me to go vegan and reward yourself with some amazingly delicious cruelty-free food!
How will you be saving water on World Water Day (and every other day)?
There's a daring ice cream maker in London whose latest offering is made from human breast milk. Yep, you can now buy Baby Gaga icecream for £15 a scoop...
Eternal attention seeker, Lady Gaga (yes, she of the disgusting meat bikini) calls it "nausea-inducing". I can't quite see how she wasn't nauseous getting ready to attend the Grammys in a dress made of muscles from dead animals, but there you go!
I wonder if Lady Blah Blah has ever thought about how nausea-inducing drinking cows' milk really is. I know she's done some pretty crazy things but surely it's not natural to suckle from the udder of a cow who has recently given birth and is producing milk for her baby.
I'm sure dairy cows would agree -- because cows don't automatically produce milk. In fact in order to milk cows for the massive dairy market, the industry sends bewildered newborn baby calves to their deaths by the hundreds of thousands. Watch their story.
So call me crazy, but ice cream using breast milk from perfectly willing mothers who get to keep and nurture their children, who don't get killed, sounds a whole lot better to me!
Although …for now, I might just stick to the So Good Soy Ice Cream. It's soooo gooood after all :)
What kind of ice cream would you rather be eating?
Now The 7PM Project is jumping on the bandwagon too! This will be some of the biggest exposure bobby calves have ever had in Australia - making it a show not to be missed. So tune into the program tonight (2nd Feb) - on Channel 10, at ... hang on I just have to check what time it starts ... ;)
Most people would be outraged to know that 700,000 baby calves are sent to slaughter each year as a routine part of the dairy industry. And they have a right to know! So get all your family and friends to watch too!
Afterwards, tell us what you thought of the show in the comments below!
PS. Want to win some dairy-free chocolate goodness? Want to do a good deed for the calves? Great... then head over here to help bobby calves on MooTube …I mean YouTube!
Most people wouldn't stop to ask, as they pour milk into their morning coffee, what went into producing that milk. But this morning, as people take a sip and open today's paper, they'll find out, because of this campaign ad.
It'll come as a shock to most Aussies to learn that every year in Australia over 700,000 calves are killed as 'waste products' of the dairy industry. What may come as even more of a shock is that the dairy industry is now pushing for legislation that would allow calves to be starved of feed for the last 30 hours of their lives, before being killed at the slaughterhouse!
This proposed new standard is under 'public consultation' at the moment. Did you know you were being consulted? No? Neither do most people, because the government and industry conveniently neglected to let the public know!
But just because they don't want to tell the public the truth, doesn't mean we can't do that for them! After all, people have a right to know what they are buying into if they drink dairy.
So today Animals Australia is running the above ad in major newspapers across the country. Make sure you grab a copy of one of these papers and show the ad to all your family and friends:
Daily Telegraph
Sydney Morning Herald
Herald Sun
The Age
Courier Mail
West Australian
The Advertiser
Hobart Mercury
Canberra Times
Want to make your voice heard too? Great! Click here to check out the video that exposes dairy's dark secret, and to get tips on how you can make a difference for calves - including the chance to win delicious dairy-free chocolates!
Have you already spotted our ad in your local paper? What did you think?
The new year is the perfect time to turn over a new leaf. So we hope that the animals have made it onto your resolution list! If not, then we've got a few suggestions for how you could make a world of difference for animals and the planet in the new year:
Pledge to take animals off your plate. All animals - cats, dogs, pigs, lambs and even fish! - are individuals with feelings and their own desires and as the actor James Cromwell said, "I don't eat anyone who would run, swim, or fly away if he could."
If you think animals rock, but need a little added incentive to
take that next step, then this film should give you the extra motivation you're looking for:
Already meat-free and lovin' it? Great! Then how about taking the next step and giving dairy and eggs the flick?
Sadly, the milk and egg industries aren't without their body count - and it's the babies of these industries who are the first casualties. About 12 million day old male chicks and a million unwanted baby calves from the dairy industry are discarded and killed as 'waste products' each year. And even dairy cows and egg laying hens don't get to live a full life. When they are no longer productive enough to be profitable, they too find themselves on the way to be slaughtered.
So you're meat-free, don't do dairy and set a good eggsample by not eating eggs? Awesome! Then next year make your voice heard, even louder, for the animals!
So that's our tips for the new year. Now... what are your new year's resolutions?
WOW! I just saw the video for P!nk's latest (sure to be) hit! And it's made me love her even more :) Never one to shy away from controversy she has hit the nail on the head with this film clip, tackling topics that really tick her off! (And me! And you!)
It starts with P!nk giving a bull fighter a taste of his own medicine, with a magnificent bull watching on. Good thing places like Catalonia in Spain are waking up to the disgusting cruelty of this 'tradition' …
But the scene that's going to expose a few home truths to millions of pop fans watching this video might seem a little absurd at first...
But it really does outline the crazy hypocrisy of a society that thinks it's ok to drink milk that cows are producing for their own babies. While P!nk lovingly bottle-feeds a beautiful newborn calf litres and litres of milk, we then see what the milking machine is hooked up to…
If you think that's strange, don't you also think how weird it is that humans drink the milk of another species? (Gross!) And in doing so, support an industry that considers newborn calves as 'waste products'; tearing one million innocent babies away from their grieving mothers to be slaughtered? I know I think that's strange …and unjustifiably cruel!
Unjustified because, like P!nk, soy milk rocks! And almond milk, rice milk, oat milk and all the other cruelty-free dairy alternatives on the supermarket shelves. Why would anyone even want cow's milk?
A friend of mine recently said "Milk is stealing from babies" …So true! And nice of P!nk to give a little of it back!
Did you know that June 1st is 'World Milk Day'? Or, as I think it should be called, WMD? I think this acronym is more than suitable because milk is a Weapon of Mass Destruction -- for cows, calves and the environment.
On WMD, let's remember the 1 million bobby calves who were taken from their grieving Mums, only to be slaughtered as 'waste products' of the dairy industry -- so that the milk nature intended for them could be fed to humans...
On WMD, let's spare a thought for the struggling Murray Darling Basin. It takes 200 litres of water to get one glass of milk. Not only is this the driest inhabited continent in the world -- our river systems are at record lows. But I'm taking shorter showers while the dairy industry is draining our waterways!
On WMD, let's think about how we can change things for the better. What better day than World Milk Day to mark the day you ditch dairy?
Here's an amazing recipe to get you started... a non-dairy cheesecake (it's a Weapon of Mass Deliciousness!)
P.S. Did I mention, "Milk is for babies"? Check out our new WMD-inspired banner! Show you care by slapping it on your Myspace, or uploading it to Facebook :)
Click here to download the banner, or copy and paste this code to your Myspace:
<a href="http://www.unleashed.org.au?tr=1026"><img border="0" src="http://www.unleashed.org.au/images/banners/280_dairy.gif" alt="Milk is for babies! unleashed.org.au" title="Milk is for babies unleashed.org.au" height="250" width="280" /></a>
This week the 7:30 Reportran a story on the dangers of milk. According to the program, regular milk may be linked to a long list of diseases including: heart disease, diabetes, autism and even schizophrenia!
Should we really be surprised that a drink intended for baby calves isn't ideal for adult humans? As Dr. Michael Klapper said: "The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk or giraffes' milk."
So milk might make you sick. But what the report didn't mention is that it's also making the environment sick. It takes about 200 litres of water to produce just one glass of milk. That's almost as much water as many people use for all their household activities in a day!
But perhaps the darkest side of the dairy industry is what happens to the animals. Cows do not automatically produce milk – just like humans, first they need to have a baby. So what happens to the calf? Every year in Australia, 1 million baby calves are slaughtered as 'waste-products' of the dairy industry. Their flesh may be sold as pink veal, their bones may be crushed-up and made into designer dog biscuits, and the lining of their stomachs may be used in the process of making cheese.
Now that's enough to make anybody sick!
Fortunately, enjoying milk without such sickening side effects is a breeze! Next time you're at the shops, why not try one of these fantastic cruelty free milks?
Soy milk – My personal favourite. It's high in protein and fibre. My recommendation? Try out Sanitarium's So Good Lite if you like that milky taste. But then if you asked Karen, she'd tell you that Vitasoy's Soy Milky Lite is the way to go.
Rice milk – A favourite for some in cooking. If you've got a sweet tooth, this may be the option for you as it's known for its sweeter taste compared to other milks. Vic Unleashed Street Team Co-ordinator Rochelle's recommendation: go get yourself a carton of Vitasoy.
Almond milk, Oat milk, and the list goes on... If you're feeling really adventurous you can even make your own, for example this recipe for cashew milk.
The neat thing with all of these is that not all soy/rice/almond/oat milks taste alike. So there's one to suit everyone's taste. On the flip side, it might take you a little exploring to find the one that suits you. So if at first you don't succed, try another brand ;)
And don't forget to comment below and share which one's your fave?
I think Easter is a pretty sweet deal -- holidays and a chocolate supply big enough that I have some to spare after a whole week of stuffing my face. Sadly Easter isn't quite such a sweet deal for the cows who have to produce all that milk for dairy Easter eggs. Not only have they been selectively bred to produce a whopping 10 times the amount of milk their calves would naturally need, but to add insult to injury their calves (who are born just to keep the mums producing milk) are taken away from them within 24hours and most are trucked off to slaughter. Hmm... that's enough to kill that sugar high.
But once you know the dirt on dairy, the big question is how to be sweet to yourself and the cows at Easter...? Well let me tell you, this used to be a challenge! But these days there are so many amazing cruelty-free, dairy-free chocolates around that you probably don't need a blog to point them out. But since you're here...
Our top 5 Must-Have-Eat Vegan Easter Treats!
5. Lindt Dark Choc Bunny
Why? 'Cause these cute little guys are smooth, delicious and available pretty much everywhere (Note only the dark bunnies are vegan, but they're the best, anyway ;)).
4. Alpha Chocolate Eggs
Something to get eggxcited about (first and last egg pun, I swear)! Alpha have a range of fine dairy-free chocolates including large and small eggs. Look out for them at DJ's or TheCrueltyFreeShop.
3. Sweet William Chocolate Bunnies
All Sweet William do is make chocolate. And all Sweet William chocolates are vegan! This Easter they've brought out Easter bunny multi-packs available at Coles, Darrell Lea, Franklins, Independent Groceries and Health Food Stores.
2. Vegan Snickers, Bounty, Milky Way and Mars Bar Doppelgangers
These delights are new to Australia and are to die for. If you're lucky your local health/specialty store will stock them, or pick them up from TheCrueltyFreeShop.
1. DIY Vegan Chocolate Treats
My favourite 'cause there's nothing quite like getting your hands dirty and making your own chocolates! Grab a bar (or five) of your favourite dairy-free chocolate*, melt in a bowl sitting in a pot of shallow boiling water, then scoop the melted chocolate into chocolate moulds and place some roasted nuts (macadamias are my fave) in the centres. Cover with sprinkled nuts or desiccated coconut. You don't need to hold out for Easter -- these make great gifts at any time of year actually! *Here are a few of the brands to look out for:
Whittaker's Dark Chocolate Block (confectionary isle of supermarkets)
Tropical Source (fair trade, and lots of yummy varieties! At some supermarkets and heath food stores)
Bonvita Rice Milk Chocolate (also fair trade. Words can't express how amazing Bonvita is. Their white chocolate is incredible. At health food & specialty stores)
Sweet William (their range of chocolate bars are in most supermarkets. They now have vegan white chocolate bars too!)
So now you know what to get me for Easter :) If you have any favourites to add to the list please comment below!
It reads like a news headline doesn't it? No doubt when people realise that the animal products they consume are literally killing them, it will be a headline. Anyway, this is the story of Rocco – a meat-lovin' cowboy from Arizona who was literally eating himself into a grave.
Rocco's 53 years old, but had the heart of an 85 year old. He's overweight and severely diabetic.
Rocco appeared on the TV show The Dr. Oz Show with the wish to change his life. After some clinical assessments, Dr. Oz recommended that Rocco should go vegan for 28 days to see how dramatically his health improves.
When The Dr. Oz Show checked in with Rocco after 28 days, it's clear that his health improved dramatically after going vegan. He dropped his waist size by more than 15cm, his glucose count went from 172 to 99, and his good cholesterol (HDL) increased. Just by looking at Rocco, you can see the difference in his life since going vegan.
But this isn't just one instance. There are stories everywhere of people who have gone vegan and experienced improved health (including myself, a reformed McDonaldsCruelty lover). So the proof really is in the (vegan) pudding folks. Next time you see Sam Neill misleading orang-utans on TV about how great meat is, throw a pickle at the screen for me.
Wow! There was some great news for animals coming out of the US last week. I just wish I could say the same for Australia :(
Last Monday (12 October) Michigan passed a bill that will see the phase out some of the cruelest confinement methods used in the farming industry.
Within 3 years, dairy calves in Michigan will no longer be confined in tiny veal crates and starved of iron to make their flesh pale and soft. Battery cages , used to confine egg-laying hens, and gestation crates used to confine mother pigs, will also be phased out. With these significant improvements for animals Michigan has become the 7th state to ban gestation crates, the 5th to ban veal crates and the 2nd to ban battery cages.
And the good news just keeps coming! California - who have already banned veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages – have added to their list of ‘no-no’s’ tail docking of dairy cows. A good sign from one of the US's largest dairy states, and very good news for the 1.8million dairy cows in California!
While we're on the topic of changes for animals, the city council of Santa Monica (also in California) has voted in favour of drafting new legislation that will restrict animal 'declawing' – ie. the practice of painfully removing animals’ claws.
Meanwhile, over the other side of the world in a little place often known as 'the lucky country', farm animals aren't so lucky. Recently The Greens in ACT (and Tas for that matter) put forward a Bill that would ban battery cages from ACT (meaning only one business would be affected) and the Liberals and Labour teamed up to shoot it down (same story in Tasmania). With the many other parts of the world making huge advances for animals, it is disappointing that Australia is still dragging its feet.
Well, the Aussie government may be stuck in the dark ages, but the good news is none of us need to be.
I think I've just found my new favourite cartoon! This brilliant illustration was sent to us by the insightful and very talented Donn Pattenden (thanks Donn!).
This is one issue that really stirs me up. The meat and dairy industries are huge water guzzlers. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that one glass of milk takes roughly 200 litres of water to produce. That's almost 3 days worth of showers! But that's nothing compared to the 100,000 litres of water that David Pimentel, a water resource specialist, says is required to produce just 1 kilo of beef!
In a country as dry as Australia, this sort of squandering of water just doesn't make sense. I live in Brisbane, where water shortages are a real threat (just like many of our other cities). We've been told to keep our domestic water usage below 140L of water per person per day...
I'm all for water conservation at home. In fact, we've just installed a new rain water tank :-) ... but when 70% of global water usage is for agriculture, it seems like what we eat and drink would be a smart place for us to start looking at how we can save water.
So Easter is coming and I'm getting pretty excited about all the dairy-free easter eggs, hot-cross buns and faux fish I've stocked my pantry with. But one thing that does really get me worked up at Easter, as a
Sydney-sider, is the Sydney Royal Easter Show! (for those of you from interstate it's the equivalent of the Melbourne Show, Brisbane Ekka, etc...)
As a child I adored the Easter Show. My Dad used to even let me have the day off school so we could beat the weekend crowds. My absolute favourite part was visiting all the farm animals. Combine this with fairy floss, roller coasters and show bags and it was truly kid-heaven.
Despite being a sensitive, animal-loving child, all the cruelty surrounding the housing, transportation and ultimate slaughter of these animals never clicked. And why would it? The show is set up in a magical, fairytale way with all of the cute animals and none of the horrors that they must endure.
First you might go to the nursery stalls where you see happy piglets, chicks and ducklings playing and snuggling up to their mothers. Then in the dairy stalls they explain the "nutritious benefits" of dairy and make the whole milking process seem totally natural. Moving onto the adult pigs, cows and chickens you stop to pat them, make a connection with them and admire their ribbons. Everything is clean, there is lots of space and the animals look healthy and well groomed.
Then in the next room, there's a diagram explaining which cut of meat comes from which part of the animal. It is here that you might feel a moment's guilt at the fact animals are slaughtered, but you think "well, they obviously have happy lives up until the end, and this nutrition panel says I need meat to be healthy... gee, I think I'll go have a dagwood dog". You then walk off, feeling on top of the world, singing "Old McDonald" in your head ... thinking everythings ok.
What they forget to mention is that baby animals are taken from their mothers in factory farms and that they have painful surgical procedures performed without aesthetic in their first fragile days of life.
Nor do they tell us that a mother cow isn't just milk making machine—she is forced to give birth every year to continue lactating, only to have her baby taken away from her and slaughtered.
Oh and of course they don't mention the fact that these animals are a tiny few of the 500 million Animals in Australia who, back on factory farms, are kept in prison-like conditions, denied freedom of movement, that would be illegal if they were a cat or a dog!
No wonder we grow up with a warped and romanticised view of the animal farm, when even as kids we have the wool pulled over our eyes at shows like these!
And don't even get me started on the utter cruelty of the rodeos, and the awful leather and skins shops.
So you won't find me at "The Greatest Show on Earth" this year. I'll be spending time celebrating a cruelty-free Easter with my family, friends and ferrets.
A couple of weeks ago we ran a stall at the Petacular pet expo in Brisbane. The wonderful volunteer, Kate, offered to bake vegan cupcakes for the day... So of course we said yes yes yes!
The cupcakes looked and tasted amazing! Not surprisingly, they went down a treat and many a cupcake muncher marvelled at the fact that no animals were harmed in the making of these delectible treats.
When highlighting the cruelty of the egg and dairy industries, nothing promotes cruelty free living quite like cupcake goodness. So it's time, as Kate would say, to "share the cupcake love"!
This cupcake concoction was even given the thumbs up by punk heroes Propagandhi. Kate's hubby plays in the Brissie band Bad Day Down, who supported Propagandhi on their recent visit to Australia. On tour, Kate soon assumed the role of official cupcake cooker. But she isn't just a superstar in the kitchen. Check out this photo of her singing on stage with Propagandhi at their Melbourne show. (btw, keep your eyes out for more from us on Propagandhi soon)
Anyway, back to the important business of cupcakes. Here for your pleasure, is the undisputed best cupcake recipe in the world (or at least so claims Kate): Click here for the cupcake-a-licious recipe.
Now don't be greedy! Make sure you share your amazing cruelty free creations with all your friends and family to spread the word about how easy it is to be sweet to animals.
If you're as obsessive about a mug of scalding hot liquid as I am, you'll understand why I'm giddy with delight at discovering Di Bella's coffee today...
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with coffee shops... only because you still occasionally find one that's stuck in the dark ages and hasn't heard of soy milk—so I was reminded this morning (thanks a bunch, Brewbakers). Fair to say, these places tend to lose a lot of customers (like me). But when you need a coffee, you need a coffee. Right?
My coffee expedition led me to Di Bella's, where I was not only offered an ultra-smooth velvety soy latte, but I wasn't charged for the privilege of sparing the life of a baby cow!
Seriously, we live in a topsy-turvy world where most cafes try to squeeze an extra 50 cents out of you for a dash of soy milk, when it's no secret that the dairy industry is a vastly inefficient machine, squandering precious resources, damaging the environment—and not to mention—causing immense pain, suffering and death to countless innocent cows. In the end you can't really put a dollar figure on the damage (or absurdity) caused by people drinking milk meant for baby cows.
But Di Bella's didn't stop there. Their brews are all fair-trade, AND they also give out free vegan Belgian spice biscuits with their coffees! What more could a coffee lover hope for??
What's your favourite cup? Or, what's the lamest coffee shop experience you've had? Share your comments below!
Disclaimer:
We’re supposed to let you know that the ideas expressed here are the views of the individual authors, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Animals Australia or Animals Australia Unleashed. So now you know.
If you want to take action for bobby calves and their grieving mums - it's easy. You can simply ditch dairy. Delicious alternatives are in supermarkets and delis everywhere - milks, chocolates, yoghurts and icecreams. Have fun exploring and finding your fave!
But what you may not know is that 
Not a "feel-good" kinda story is it? The good news for you and for cows though, is that there are 
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