Why you should avoid Palm Oil

Posted by: Vegan Future

To find out what’s wrong with palm oil and why you should avoid products containing palm oil, please read the Lush factsheet below and listen to the Go Vegan Radio interview. Help the rainforests and the orangutans – say no to palm oil from today.

View this document on Scribd

Go Vegan Radio’s Bob Linden (www.goveganradio.com) speaks to Leila Salazar-Lopez (Rainforest Action Network) about the damage caused to rainforest habitats and species by the palm oil industry. One of the creatures under severe threat is the orangutans. Listeners are encouraged to check the ingredients in food, drink, cosmetics and household products and avoid those containing palm oil

Rainforest Action Network is also encouraging people to ask product manufacturers to use alternatives to palm oil.

This interview is an extract from the 9th August 2008 Go Vegan Radio show. Visit www.goveganradio.com to hear the show in full. To find out more about the campaign against palm oil, check out http://theproblemwithpalmoil.org

__________________________________________________

Go Vegan today: Download a free starter kit

Watch vegan videos on the Vegan Future Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/veganfuture

Download vegan booklets, fliers, fact sheets and starter kits: www.scribd.com/veganfuture

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/veganfuture

Help Séverine Gérard (vegan mother detained in France)

NEW: Download the Free Severine Gerard Poster

The following article from the American Chronicle website (May 19th, 2009) is a disturbing account of Belgian national, Séverine Gérard, who is languishing in a psychiatric institution after being subjected to every mother’s worst nightmare – her child being snatched away from her. Please help vegan Séverine by demanding that the Belgian authorities urgently rescue her from this nightmare and reunite her with her son.

Help Séverine Now

Write a message to:

Consulate of Belgium in Nice, France

5 rue Gabriel Faure

06000 NICE

Phone: + (33) (4) 93.87.79.56

Fax: + (33) (4) 93.87.41.96

Email: nice@diplobel.fed.be,kab.bz@diplobel.fed.be

Herman Van Rompuy

Prime Minister of Belgium

Hoevestraat 41

1640 Sint-Genesius-Rode

Email: herman.van.rompuy@telenet.be,herman.vanrompuy@premier.fed.be

Her Royal Highness Princess Mathilde of Belgium

Royal P alace

1000 Brussels

Belgium

Séverine on a hunger strike in front of the courthouse in Nice, France. Her son was taken from her and she is being detained in a psychiatric institution. Please help her. Contact the Belgian authorities now. Photo : Franck Fernandes

Urgent Travel Warning : Vegans Visiting France, Beware!

As a long-term foreign resident in France, I have previously had occasion to report on and analyze French attitudes towards vegetarians and vegans. To make a long story short*, being for the most part linguistically isolated, the French believe what their media tell them. And the media everywhere (not just in France) are, sadly, beholding to the lobbies of powerful industrial interests, nowhere more so than here, in Nice, France’s fifth largest city. Besides which, almost any traveller to France can vouch for the fact that the French, for the most part, don’t like foreigners. When you have both negatively viewed qualities (foreign and vegan) in one person, the combination can, apparently, become dangerously provocative.

A young Belgian woman (29), Séverine Gérard, came to France, a few months ago, it would seem, and with her 2-year-old son, Elie. She says she has been staying with friends here. The Nice Matin, the local newspaper, reports the authorities’ contention, that Séverine is an SDF (a ’sans domicile fixe’, or a homeless person). More recently, this accusation has been amended to one of Séverine being an ‘itinerant’, which technically all foreign visiters are. They accuse her of sleeping on the beach, although she denies it and, personally, I find this difficult to believe as Nice has had an extremely cold and wet winter and spring, so even street-hardened SDFs have not been sleeping on the beach.

Whatever the truth to this allegation, the fact is that sometime around March 23, Elie was taken away from Séverine by force by the police, apparently at one of the city’s soup kitchens, Séverine being accused of parental neglect, because she is vegan and because she does not feed Elie animal products of any kind.

In her own defense, Séverine is reported, by the Nice Matin, as saying that she had gone to the soup kitchen to meet people, since in Belgium these are places where intellectuals congregate. She is also reported to have said that she still breastfeeds Elie (hence he still has his mother’s milk… although, let us remember that some industrial lobbies have made fortunes contending that their powdered milk formulas are healthier than what Nature intended for small children). Nevertheless, the authorities here, including a judge, have alleged that Séverine is an unfit mother and they seized Elie, placed him in a foster home, and refuse to return him to Séverine.

The authorities, up to now, have not alleged that Elie is in poor health. The charge that Séverine is an unfit mother stems, apparently entirely, from the two facts mentioned: she is vegan and she has no fixed domicile in Nice (she is itinerant).

In response, Séverine began a hunger strike in front of the Nice courthouse. Her friends put together a petition asking for Elie to be returned to his mother. In fact, Séverine’s right to visit her child was, in the meantime, denied to her, because (reports the Nice Matin) ’she refuses to facilitate the separation’.

The first Nice Matin report on Séverine’s hunger strike and the actions of the French authorities came at the end of April, when she had already been fasting for something like five weeks. Local vegans, even militant vegans, have cited the allegation that Séverine is an SDF to minimize the authorities’ attack on her refusal to eat animal products. In fact, they did not want to show solidarity with this young mother in distress. I can only explain this in the context of the deeply ingrained submissiveness of the non-elite in France’s rigid class society… In a really explosive situation, when push comes to shove, the people are scared stiff of the repressive powers of the authorities (and rightly so, since it has been shown over and over again that the rules and the laws will be bent to suit official intentions), and this fear can all too easily be bought to bear on those who would show solidarity with the targets of the authorities’ wrath…

On the first Sunday in May, in a state of distress that can easily be imagined (at least, by most mothers, vegan or not), Séverine found out where her son had been placed (in Antibes, about 30 kilometers west of Nice, along the coast). Somehow, she managed to procure an alarm gun (mostly used for noise, to scare off assailants), and went to take her son back by force. After 5 or 6 weeks of a hunger strike, one can imagine that she may not have been thinking too clearly, and that she was motivated primarily by emotion : her desire to put an end to the imposed separation from her son.

Unfortunately, Séverine fired her alarm gun.

Unfortunately, the foster father was slightly injured (a scratch on the arm, not requiring hospitalization).

Not only did Séverine not succeed in getting Elie back, but she is now interned in the Antibes hospital, in the psychiatric ward, and is denied all contact with the outside world, except for the police and her court-appointed lawyer.

Subsequent to this dramatic turn of events, local public officials have been reported in the Nice Matin (suddenly no longer sympathetic to Séverine) as congratulating the foster family on their ‘courage’. Elie, it is suddenly reported, ‘has begun gaining weight’, as if he had been underweight before, a point strangely never previously contended… In other words, Séverine’s entirely understandable (in my opinion) distress is now dismissed. The authorities point to her desperate act as proof that she is crazy, hence her son should not be returned to her. But do French authorities have the right to do this to two citizens of another country, just because they are in France?

Can a mother be treated more diabolically and cruelly?

The Belgian consulate in Nice, contacted by email from concerned Belgian citizens requesting an urgent intervention for both mother and child, has said to local vegan activists that he is negotiating the situation with the French authorities.

The solution, at this point, would appear to be to get both mother and child out of France and back to Belgium, undoubtedly more tolerant on lifestyle issues than France. But, do French authorities have the right to remove a Belgian child from his Belgian mother and detain him, just because they are on French soil and French authorities don’t like the mother’s lifestyle?

We will report again on this story, as events unfold.

In the meantime, vegan travellers to France, beware!

See : Quaint ideas on Vegetarianism and Veganism in France, http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/60261

This article was written by Guenady, a native Californian and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, who has lived as an expat in France for over thirty years. Guenady is also a member of the French Syndicat des Journalistes et Ecrivains.

__________________________________________________

Go Vegan – download a free starter kit today

Choose a starter kit

Help vegetarian DJ raise £1 Million

DJ Mark Wilkinson is running marathons to help raise £1million for charity. Please make a donation now at http://www.markwilkinsonsmarathon.com where you can also find out about more of Mark’s fundraising events. Please also consider helping Mark reach the million mark by donating to one of the vegan hunger-relief charities below. Thank you.

More Information

Four years ago, music producer and DJ, Mark Wilkinson (Kidology Records), was diagnosed with an incurable Rheumatic disease that left him struggling to even stand. Doctors told him he would always have pain and would have to take prescribed medication for the rest of his life.

His life was “completely ruined” for over 18 months.

While in Ibiza last year, however, Mark made a decision that would prove pivotal. Determined to banish all toxins from his system, he started saying no to “alcohol, drugs, meat, dairy, wheat, sugar and caffeine”. This move to a healthy lifestyle paid remarkable dividends, bringing a full recovery and an eventual end to medication.

The highly regarded DJ describes the result on his Myspace page as “bang, no disease, amazing!”

Energised by his new lease of life and inspired to “put some positive vibes out there in the world”, vegetarian Mark is now aiming to raise £1 million pounds for charity. His chosen beneficiaries are MACS Childrens Charity, Breakthrough Cancer Research Charity and Shelter for the Homeless but he says that those who would like to help him reach his goal are welcome to donate to any charity that’s close to their heart.

Vegan Future is encouraging people to help Mark reach the million mark by making a donation to the following vegan hunger-relief charities:

[Help Mark keep a tab on the donations made in his name - after making your donation, forward a copy of your payment receipt (or thank you message from charity) to djmarkwilkinson@mac.com ]

Vegfam – Feeding The Hungry Without Exploiting Animals

Established 1963. Registered charity number 232208

HIPPO – Food Aid With A Purpose

HIPPO (Registered charity number 1075420) works with local organisations to help the poor to obtain plant foods for direct consumption, water supplies, and other basic essentials. “We try to foster self-sufficiency. We support orphanages. We never supply animal foods or live animals and work at home and abroad to create awareness of the benefits of using plant foods direct instead of processing them inefficiently through farm animals.” the group outlines on its website. Donations may be made in the form of cheques made payable to HIPPO and posted to HIPPO, The Old Vicarage, Llangynog, Carmarthen SA33 5BS, U.K. Details for direct payment to the HIPPO bank account will be provided on request to afb@wananchi.com)

and

Food For Life Global

With volunteers serving more than 1 million free vegetarian meals daily from free food restaurants, mobile kitchens, to schools and to disaster areas, Food For Life is the largest vegetarian/vegan food relief charity in the world. Food For Life Global is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization registered in Maryland, USA.

DJ Mark Wilkinson in training for the London Marathon 2009. His participation in the marathon is part of a tremendous effort to raise one million pounds for charity.

DJ MARK WILKINSON LINKS

http://www.myspace.com/djmarkwilkinson

http://www.markwilkinsonsmarathon.com

http://www.kidologydsi.com

__________________________________________________

Go Vegan – download a free starter kit today
Choose a starter kit

Henderson’s Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurant (Edinburgh)

If you are visiting Edinburgh in Scotland, a visit to Henderson’s Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurant is a must! It’s the city’s oldest vegetarian restaurant and offers a fantastic selection of delicious, healthy and affordable dishes. There are also over a dozen freshly prepared salads always available.

The restaurant is situated on Hanover Street (off the city’s main thoroughfare – Princes Street). More details on their website – www.hendersonsofedinburgh.co.uk

You can also download the restaurant’s leaflet by clicking on the link below
Henderson’s Leaflet

(If you have friends travelling to Edinburgh, please email them a copy of the leaflet)

Milk harms your body

Milk harms your body

This excellent video outlines the harm that milk does to your health and reveals alternatives to dairy products that are healthy sources of calcium.

Please forward a link to this video to everyone on your email list:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75sek_milk-harms-your-body_lifestyle

VeganFuture Video Wall

The monthly VeganFuture video wall includes features vegan recipes, health advice, celebrity interviews and insights into the animal suffering caused by the meat industry.

October 2008

June 2008

May 2008

April 2008

Important info for pregnant vegans

Vegan Vitamin K for Newborns
from Vegan Society website. 2008-03-25
http://www.vegansociety.com/phpws/index.php

Newborn babies are routinely injected with vitamin K at birth to protect against rare but serious haemorrhage (including brain haemorrhage).

In the past, the injection was vegan but it now includes a carrier made from cow bile, making it unsuitable for vegans.

There is, however, at least one oral version available on a named patient basis. This means that it must be prescribed and ordered through a doctor.

If you wish to use this product, do allow time for it to be sourced and prescribed. If your doctor is unaware of this, your local or hospital pharmacist should be able to help.

Please feel free to ring the Vegan Society on 0121 523 1735/6 if you have any queries.

Why violence doesn’t work

Why violence doesn’t work

Essential article on why non-violence is the only effective long-term strategy for campaign groups – taken from the website of Nonviolence United.

Key points:
Visit www.nonviolenceunited.org/nonviolenceguide.htm for the article in full.

Nonviolence works to win the support of people and society; we want people to join us. Whereas violence has the opposite effect — most people don’t want violence in their lives.

Nonviolence promotes love and compassion; violence promotes hate and fear.

Nonviolence is like a glass of clean water. Even one drop of blood (violence) makes all of the water bloody. Once you bloody the water it takes enormous amounts of clean water without any additional blood to hope to ever again have clean water. And even then, it will never be completely clean.

When you are perceived as part of a movement and you are violent, the movement is perceived as violent regardless of the ratio of violence to Nonviolence.

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” – Mohandas Gandhi

All over the world lasting, positive change is the result not of trillion-dollar armies, but of Nonviolent people power. Why don’t we hear about these remarkable revolutions? The information blackout is no accident. Perhaps we don’t learn about Nonviolent revolution because… it works! Nonviolent people power can change the world. That’s a scary thought for the miniscule minority hanging on for dear life to the helm of power.

Nonviolence can be a way of life. And Nonviolence can be a strategy. But for powerful, long-lasting change, Nonviolence as a way of life is the strategy.

“Violence is a method by which the ruthless few can sudue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.”

“We are convinced that non-violence is more powerful than violence. We are convinced that non-violence supports you if you have a just and moral cause…If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.” – Cesar Chavez

Nonviolence groups are often deliberately infiltrated by members of the violent opposition hoping to dismantle the movement. It is often easy to recognize these infiltrators because they will advocate and provoke violence pretending that violence will lead to justice, but knowing it will cause society to turn against the movement. When we practice Nonviolence, we quickly expose our opponents.

Violence is easier, but it makes everyone’s job harder.

An oppressor (whether a government, an industry or an individual) has no power if we don’t give it to them. Stop giving it to them. This is a very basic component of Nonviolence — non-cooperation with the oppressor.

Nonviolence isn’t about winning power over your opponents; it is about attaining a more just society… together. Your fellow humans are not the enemy. The enemy is violence.

It’s only right to be outraged by injustice. Anger provides powerful energy — use it wisely. Transform your anger into creative Nonviolent ways to be active, focused and more effective. This transformation will help you sustain your energy and your hope.

Banners

Ban cruel shark fin products

Westchester County in New York State is currently considering a law which would outlaw the sale of products containing shark fins. If passed, this would be the first legislation of its kind in the United States and could act as a catalyst for a nationwide ban on these cruel products.

Please send a message of encouragement to the officials listed below. If you would like to find out more about the suffering caused to sharks, please see the wikipedia article below.

Please send the message “Shark finning is cruel – please ban shark fin products in Westchester County” to:

Legislator William E. Burton
Chair, Legislation Committee
Send messagefrom:
http://www.westchesterlegislators.com/comments.asp?bolID=9

Legislator Thomas Abinanti
Chair, Environment & Energy Committee
Send message from:
http://www.westchesterlegislators.com/comments.asp?bolID=12

Obscene: A fin cut off the back of a magnificent shark and dried out for eating

About shark fin soup
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup for full article and references.

According to wildlife conservationists, much of the trade in sharks’ fins is derived from fins cut from living sharks; this process is called finning.[14] Because shark meat is worth very little, the finless and often still-living sharks are thrown back into the sea to make room on board the ship for more of the valuable fins.[14] When returned to the ocean, the finless sharks, unable to move, either die from suffocation or are consumed by other sharks or animals.

However, according to Giam Choo Hoo, the longest serving member of the CITES Animals Committee, “The perception that it is common practice to kill sharks for only their fins – and to cut them off whilst the sharks are still alive – is wrong…. The vast majority of fins in the market are taken from sharks after their death.”[15] However, this discounting of an international phenomena is facile, and refuted through extensive examination of fin sourcing and fisheries data as reported by Dr. Shelly Clarke in Ecology Letters The first real-data study of sharks harvested for their valuable fins estimates as few as 26 million and as many as 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide—three times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, according to a paper published as the cover story in the October 2006 edition of Ecology Letters.

Finning of living sharks on an industrial scale does occur and has been witnessed and photographed within the protected marine area of Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park by the crew of the conservation vessel Ocean Warrior.[16] The practice is featured in the documentary Sharks: Stewards of the Reef which contains footage from W. Australian waters and Central America and also examines the cultural, financial and ecological impacts of shark finning Link.. This incident was also recorded by underwater photographer Richard Merritt who has witnessed finning of living sharks in Indonesia where he saw the immobile finless sharks lying still alive on the sea bed under the fishing boat.[17] Finning has been witnessed and filmed within a protected marine area in the Raja Ampat islands of Indonesia.[18]

Finning is vigorously opposed by animal welfare groups; both on moral grounds and also because it is listed as one of the causes for the rapid decline of global shark populations.[14] On the IUCN red list there are 39 species of elasmobranches (sharks and rays) listed as threatened species (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable).[19] The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) lists three sharks in Appendix II: the basking shark, the great white shark and the whale shark. Appendix II lists those species that are not in danger of extinction, but which require controls on international trade to maintain their populations. It is estimated that 10–100 million sharks are slaughtered each year for their fins, with a median figure of 38 million.[20] The industry is valued at US$1.2 billion; because of the lucrative profits, there are allegations of links to organized crime.[21][22] They also raise questions on the medical harm from the consumption of high levels of toxic mercury reportedly found in shark fins.

Numbers of some shark species have dropped as much as 80% over the last 50 years.[23] Some organizations claim that shark fishing or bycatch (the unintentional capture of species by other fisheries) is the reason for the decline in the populations of some species and that the market for fins has very little impact – bycatch accounts for an estimated 50% of all sharks taken[14] – others that the market for shark fin soup is the main reason for the decline.[23] Tommy Cheung, the legislator representing Hong Kong’s catering sector, said: “I don’t believe sharks are an endangered species. Some species of shark may be, but not all shark’s fin comes from certain species. There are a lot of species that are plentiful.”[24] Since many countries do not allow shark finning there is no reliable count for the numbers taken in the shark fin trade and thus it is hard to prove the claims on either side of the argument.[14] Sharks are caught for their fins and meat all over the world.

According to Giam’s article, “sharks are caught virtually all parts of the world. Despite the strongly declared objectives of the Fisheries Commission in Brussels, there are very few restrictions on fishing for sharks in European waters. The meat of dogfishes, smoothhounds, catsharks, skates and rays is in high demand by European consumers…The situation in Canada and the United States is similar: the blue shark is sought after as a sport fish while the porbeagle, mako and spiny dogfish are part of the commercial fishery…the truth is this: Sharks will continue to be caught and killed on a wide scale by the more organized and sophisticated fishing nations…targeting shark’s fin soup will not stop this accidental catch. The fins from these catches will be thrown away or turned into animal feed and fertilizers if shark’s fin soup is shunned.”

New laws have been passed to prevent finning; though much of the international waters continue to be unregulated. The United States recently issued a ban on finning, applicable only to U.S.-registered vessels, even in U.S. territorial waters; and shark fins cannot be imported into the USA without entire carcasses. International fishing authorities are in the process of banning shark fishing (and finning) in the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Finning is banned in the Eastern Pacific,[25] but shark fishing and finning continues unabated in the rest of the Pacific and Indian ocean.[14]

Hong Kong Disneyland dropped the dish from its wedding banquet menu after international pressure from environmental groups, who threatened to boycott its parks worldwide despite the high demand for the delicacy in China.[26] The University of Hong Kong has banned shark fin being served on campus.[27] 97% of respondents in the WWF Seafood Awareness survey said if fish species were threatened they would stop eating them (39%) or reduce the amount they ate (58%).[5]

NBA All-Star Yao Ming pledged to stop eating shark fin soup at a news conference on August 2, 2006. Yao’s comments were largely unreported in the Chinese media and drew a reproach from Chinese seafood industry associations. Ironically, one of the items on Yao Ming’s wedding dinner menu was shark fin soup.[7][28] Australian naturalist Steve Irwin was known to walk out of Chinese restaurants if he saw shark fin soup on the menu.[29] US basketball player Tracy McGrady reportedly said that he was impressed by the soup when he tried it for the first time, but was criticized by the Hong Kong branch of the WWF for his remark.[30] The Chinese-American chef, Ken Hom, sees double standards from the West, with little being done to protect stocks of cod and caviar-producing sturgeon while there is outcry over shark-finning, but he also stresses the wastefulness of harvesting only the fins.[2]

On September 15, 2007, Malaysia’s Natural Resources and Environment Ministry Azmi Khalid banned shark’s fin soup from official function menus as commitment to the Malaysian Nature Society (for conservation of sharks species).[31]