Compassionate Cooks
Food for Thought - Vegetarianism and Animal Rights
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Diseases of "Civilization"
According to the World Health Organization, people who live in high-income countries and middle-income countries predominantly die of chronic "lifestyle" diseases or "diseases of civilization"(Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, asthma, cancer, chronic liver disease, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease …
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Honoring the Animals We Eat - Just Like the Native Americans
With a penchant for romanticizing their consumption of animals, many people declare that they "pray over meat" or "weep over the animals who sacrifice themselves for us - just like the Native Americans." Not only does this attempt to assuage our discomfort make no difference to the animals we kill ( …
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Compassionate Gift Guide
Today’s episode is a special one. With the holidays coming up, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite things to provide inspiration for compassionate gift-giving during the holidays - and anytime. If you’re seeing this episode after the “holidays” have already passed, please don’t tune it out. T …
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Drawing the Line: How Vegan is Vegan?
What if I had my own hens and ate her eggs? What if I had my own cow or goat and drank her milk? What about honey? Is it considered "vegan"? These are some of the questions people ask as they begin to consider the ethical issues of consuming animal products. Though I don't pretend to have the one de …
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Are You Serious? Strategies for Good Communication
Vegetarians learn pretty quickly that when they "come out" - when they declare their vegetarianism publicly - they become the recipient of some statements or questions that are, let’s say, not very well thought out, such as "If everyone went vegetarian, the world would be overrun with farm animals!" …
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Food for the Road: Packed Lunches and PIcnics
Whether you’re packing lunches for your children for school or your partner for work or for yourself to take to the office; whether you're a teenager packing your own lunch or a college student looking for quick and easy meals; whether you're someone who works outside - as a gardener or landscaper, …
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Little Boy Pig: A Genetically Modified Tale
At Animal Pharm, an anomaly is born. Whether a piglet with the hands and feet of a human baby or a human baby with the head and tail of a piglet, Ziggy only wants to find what we all seek. It is my pleasure to read this moving tale by the talented Shad Clark.
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The Shearing of Sheep
Though sheep play a huge role in the consciousness of our culture (through nursery rhymes, children's stories, fables, and religion), our primary relationship to them is through our exploitation of them. Whether it's their wool we're shearing, their skin we're wearing, their flesh we're eating, or t …
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The Secret Goldfish: A Short Story by David Means
With sensitivity, humor, and keen insight, David Means tells the story of a goldfish who witnesses the dissolution of a family. I think Means beautifully captures the way the animals in our lives can become pawns in our greater human dramas – whether we’re aware of it or not. I think it’s really won …
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Drawing the Line
What if I had my own hens and ate her eggs? What if I had my own cow or goat and drank her milk? What about honey? Is it considered "vegan"? These are some of the questions people ask as they begin to consider the ethical issues of consuming animal products. Though I don't pretend to have the one de …
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Blood: A Short Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
For the last 35 years of his life, Isaac Bashevis Singer was a proud and vocal vegetarian, and he often included the themes of vegetarianism and animal suffering in his works. Affected deeply by early memories of an animal market in Poland, where animals were brought to be slaughtered, Singer began …
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Conversations with Strangers (on Land and in the Air)
Though I love talking about all things vegetarian with like-minded friends, my favorite people to engage with are strangers, whether on land or in the air (on planes). The more time we invest in conversations about vegetarianism and animal rights, the better advocates we will be and the more seeds w …
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Watch the Animals
After being diagnosed with lung cancer, Diana Frick, the main character in "Watch the Animals" focuses more on who will take care of her menagerie of animals after she dies than on her own fatal illness. Told from the point of view of her fellow wealthy neighbor, who doesn't quite understand Diana's …
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Greening Your Life
Calorie for calorie, dark green leafy vegetables are perhaps the most concentrated source of nutrition of any food. There are over one thousand species of plants with edible leaves, including Arugula, Beet Greens, Bok Choy, Brussels Sprouts, Collard greens, Cabbage, Chard, Chicory, Dandelion Greens, …
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How Does Your Garden Grow? (Without Animal Products!)
Just as humans need the nutrients from plants to thrive and grow, so do the plants need the nutrients from the soil - such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, calcium, iron, and magnanese. In this much-requested episode, learn how organic matter from plants (i.e. compost) enriches the soil, how …
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The Boy Who Talked With Animals
Another story by well-known writer Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), "The Boy Who Talked With Animals" is a very touching tale that illustrates the power of intervening on behalf of those who have no voice. In the presence of compassion, transfor …
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Leather: Not an Innocent By-Product
When confronted by the ethical considerations of leather, many people exclaim that it is a mere by-product of the meat industry and is thus absolved of culpability. The truth is quite different. Far from the altruistic industry this perception implies, the leather industry is inherently linked with …
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Beyond Lies the Wub
This short story by writer Philip K. Dick (A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, Total Recall) takes a look at how humans relate to other creatures. More than that, it asks the reader to grapple with the definition of "human." What does it mean to be "human"? Are others - non-human beings - capable of pos …
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Compassionate Clichés
A culture’s language reflects the values of that society, and our shared use of that language reflects our agreement with those values. Today I want to examine how our use of common idioms and proverbs denigrates animals and contributes to our violence against them; I'd like to take a look at the or …
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The Safety of Supplements
Though I lament the fact that so many people look for easy solutions to their health problems and think that the answer lies in a pharmaceuticals, I also worry that people look to vitamin and mineral supplements as a shortcut to health. Though supplements may be essential when there is a true defici …
Compassionate Cooks
