Submitted by An Animal-Friendly Life

I mentioned in my previous post that I write a lot of letters and comments, and I even linked to some of them in the menu above. Today was an unusually heavy day for responses, so I thought I’d share some here to give you an idea and maybe encourage you to get involved as well.

SheKnows.com: Meatless Complete Proteins

Hi, SheKnows editors and producers.

Thank you for focusing on vegetarian eating (”Meatless Complete Proteins”)!

I am concerned, however, by how the article misrepresents modern nutritional science right from the top (” The vegetarian way to get complete proteins”) by suggesting that one needs to consume complete proteins at each meal in order to be healthy, which has been known to be false for many years now.

While humans do need a variety of essential amino acids over the course of time, there is no need to eat all of these proteins in any one meal. To suggest that this is true is incorrect and possibly harmful.

If anything, Americans eat too much protein, and vegan diets in particular balance this out to an appropriate amount. If one consumes a healthy, plant-based diet rich in variety, one will acquire all the amino acids one needs for proper health, as recognized by no less an authority than the American Dietetic Association.

For more well-researched vegan health information written by a registered dietician, please visit http://veganhealth.org/sh. Of particular note is a page on protein that will get you up to speed for correcting this misleading article:

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/protein

Kind regards,

Contact page

The New York Times: Upton Sinclair, Now Playing on YouTube

Thank you for the frank discussion about what goes on inside slaughterhouses (”Upton Sinclair, Now Playing on YouTube” 3/12/2008). Just a couple of points I wanted to contribute:

1) HSUS is an animal welfare organization, hence their focus on the treatment of cows in the Hallmark/Westland plant, as opposed to their moral right not to be treated as property. Animal rights proponents seek to secure this right, rather than merely regulate their treatment.

2) It is understandable that the industry would want to keep animal slaughter behind closed doors. As more and more people come to understand that animals are sentient beings like us, it is only natural that “if someone is not used to seeing the slaughter process it would be unsettling.” People must desensitize themselves or depersonalize animals in order to kill them, so eventually it becomes more routine. For the rest of us, however, it is a shock to see animals being treated as commodities, and rightly so.

When a vegan diet is as accessible and attractive as it is today, it is no wonder that people object to using animals at all. It doesn’t take much to realize that our convenience and pleasure are insufficient justification for exploiting and killing other beings.

NY Times letters

Calgary Herald: Animals have rights, too (editorial!)

Dear editors,

Thank you for your March 12 editorial, “Animals have rights, too”.

I could have written the opening sentence myself, and I applaud you for bringing up the urgent discussion people need to have regarding the conflict between rights holders and those that own them. It is heartening that human beings are beginning to awaken to the fact that the suffering of animals should supersede the sensitivities of owners. However, I think you need to follow through further on this thought and question the ownership of animals altogether.

You claimed in your editorial that “The only way to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring again is by allowing animal protection officers the right to follow up with those who have proven — even just once — that they have troubles properly providing for animals in their care.” But no amount of regulation will ever sufficiently protect animals from harm. Realistically, as long as animals are considered property, their interests will necessarily be subservient to their owners, so the only way to permanently prevent such tragedies from occurring is to give animals the basic right not to be treated as property. Only then will the headline, “Animals have rights, too” have any meaning.

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The big comment for the day (the only one I remembered to hang on to for this post today) is far too long to paste here, but to follow the thread you really ought to visit the site and read the comments before mine. I think you will be glad you did. No Impact Man focused on “facing the big questions,” including “how should I eat?” Of course I used the opportunity to promote veganism, so check out today’s comment, and read back for yesterday’s comment and responses.

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