getting there

today, after no further Terrible Incidents, My hip is beginning to feel better.  So, 24 hours to feel really bad after eaitng cheese, and a further 24 or more to start to improve. 

I am astounded!

Yesterday, I was very 'naughty', or this is how I choose to describe it.  I fell off the vegan wagon.  I was cooking with stilton.  I ate some.  No, I gorged on what I was not using in my recipe for guests.  I ate a lot.  I was choosing 'not to waste it', I was falling for the article I have just read about how 'addictive' cheese is, it was not my 'fault', i could not help it, blah, blah, excuses, excuses.

It was delicious.  I felt guilty.  My stomach was not pleased to receive it and sent it on it's way quite promptly.

But, exactly 24 hours later, and a few more non vegan morsels later, the arthritis symptoms I had before becoming vegan, are back with a vengeance.  I welcome them, they are clear proof, further proof if it was needed, of the connection between the discomfort of arthritis and dairy.  I did not wonder if I would get the pain, it is not psychosomatic.  It did not occur to me that it could be so instant, so directly connected.   It is extreme, I am limping, I am avoiding  walking between the kitchen and dining room.  It is OK now that I am sitting here and I doubt it will keep me awake.  I will be interested to see how soon it will subside, as I believe it will.

I am horrified that when I told the physios of my improvement after giving up dairy last year, they just dismissed it.  I wonder if there is much research of the topic, if not, there clearly needs to be a study.  Anecdotal evidence such as this will never be acceptable in the scientific world, but it is a powerful anecdote.

wonderful quote

Sele45 says "The main basis of my vegan life is to refrain from taking things that aren't mine. The word 'arrogant' comes from a word meaning 'to take for oneself.' It's supremely arrogant of humans to believe they have more of a right to the body and life of another being than the being itself."

so many quotes have become hackneyed and commonplace by overuse.  this is fresh to me, it really stands out.

animal psychic

A few weeks ago, Radio 2 had an animal psychic on the afternoon show.  What was said has haunted me since.  It was on the afternoon show, it was treated very lightly and with some underlying derision I felt.  This programme is not one to look at subjects in any depth or with a serious approach.

But, it could have been an opportunity to promote the vegan and vegetarian cause.  It was the opposite.  After some discussion about the lady's communication with people's pets (I do not know her name, and some Google searches and review of the radio 2 programme content at the time did not reveal it),  the subject of farm animals was raised.  She said something like 'oh, the vegetarian thing' and proceeded to say that farm animals live in the present, and should have good welfare.  With that she had let everyone who eats meat off the hook, dismissed any concern for animals other than people's 'pets' as unnecessary. 

A few days later someone was at the house doing a particular piece of work here, and made the same comment about animals living in the present.  I do not know if she had heard the programme, but if not it was a strange coincidence, so those 'wise' words had been heard.  Whether animals have a concept of the future I do not know, but that they remember events of the past there can be no doubt.  Even if they do live in the moment, being in the hell of the slaughter house in the moment is not justifiable, it is just as horrendous, and frequently involves hours of waiting, just to smell and see the animal ahead of you die before you do.

I do not know if people can communicate with animals in any special way, but, if they can, then this has to extend to all animals surely?  Otherwise it is just an extension of spciesism and humanocentric, communicating with animals for the benefit and reassurance of people only?

Why vegan?

I would like to turn this question around the next time I am asked it.  Why do you eat meat or animal products?  I don't know if I will, but I'd like to, without being aggressive, or defensive, or condescending or nervous.

the bees give us their honey, the hens give us their eggs

No, they don't, they make them for themselves, for their young, for their future, for their own needs, not out of the goodness of their hearts for us.

"Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animals are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans."


—Gary L. Francione (October 24, 2009)