All round as always for some tasty treats – All very welcome visitors.
Regards Mark
Leading Restaurant Chain Launches Vegan Fish Burger In Response To Seaspiracy’s Roaring Success
Seaspiracy: Food Chain Launches Vegan Fish Burger | Plant Based News
Funky Mello’s Marshmallows Are Vegan, Gluten-Free, and Irresistible
Funky Mello’s Marshmallows Are Vegan, Gluten-Free, and Irresistible (chooseveg.com)
A Vegan Diet Is The Best For Fertility: Here’s Why
A Vegan Diet Is The Best For Fertility: Here’s Why (plantbasednews.org)
Going vegan to cure type 2 diabetes
Going vegan to cure type 2 diabetes — Plant Shift
Greggs Launching Vegan Sausage & Bean Melt And Other Top-Selling Products, Says Report
Greggs Launching Vegan Sausage & Bean Melt, Says Report | Plant Based News
77 Foods Develops “Mind-Blowing” Plant-Based Bacon After Two Years of R&D
77 Foods Develops “Mind-Blowing” Plant-Based Bacon After Two Years of R&D – vegconomist – the vegan business magazine
11 of the Best Vegan Chocolates You Can Order Online
11 of the Best Vegan Chocolates You Can Order Online (chooseveg.com)
Major Taiwan Silicone Manufacturer To Roll Out Vegan Leather As Global Demand Surges
Major Taiwan Silicone Manufacturer To Roll Out Vegan Leather (plantbasednews.org)
EASY VEGAN DINNER ROLLS
Easy Vegan Dinner Rolls – Loving It Vegan
Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat
Opinion | Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Why Factory Farming Is The Largest Cause Of Animal Abuse In History
Why Factory Farming Is The Largest Cause Of Animal Abuse In History | Animal Equality | International Animal Protection Organization
Regards Mark
EU’s farmed animal welfare rules need ‘serious and extensive review’
The European approach to animal welfare has recently been the subject of a renewed debate. The pandemic has stressed the importance of a strong and sustainable food system and highlighted the links between our health, ecosystems, supply chains, and consumption patterns. Notably the one with farmed animals.
COVID-19 and climate change have alerted us of the need for a systematic change in the treatment of animals, says Inês Ajuda, farmed animals programme leader at Eurogroup for Animals.
Polls across the block confirm our interest in the well-being of farmed animals.
“The welfare of farmed animals is a shared concern for Europeans and it is part of our shared identity to ensure that farmed animals have a life worth living,” says Olga Kikou, head of the charity Compassion in World Farming.
But animal welfare rules have not just come to the forefront during the pandemic and have been a hot topic for decades.
In the European Union, discussions started in the 80s, which led to the adoption of a series of directives to protect farm animals. But they are often criticised for being too vague.
The directives and recommendations advise on matters such as space, balanced diets, environment, and limitation of harmful procedures. But animal welfare laws vary across Europe with northern states generally more strict.
Globally, the animal welfare acquis should ensure they have good physical health, mental wellbeing, and the ability to carry out natural behaviour. But the current rules can be problematic.
“As current things stand, it is easy to have a vague interpretation of what the general farming directive means, and this can lead to serious problems for animal welfare,” says Ajuda.
Some companies do not comply with the directions, but what’s more important is that even when they do adhere, many irregularities occur because laws are so outdated.
For example, “there is no legislation requiring particular space or housing conditions for fish, or for transporters to provide for their welfare.”
Ajuda says science has considerably advanced since the rules were first established, so the “Animal Welfare acquis needs a serious and extensive review.”
The opportunity for change appears to be in the works
The European Green Deal has come to set core policy initiatives to make Europe climate neutral in 2050. A healthier and more sustainable EU food system is a cornerstone of this deal, and a special programme has been designed to achieve it, Farm to Fork.
The initiative has set an ambitious target for the European agriculture industry, which animal farming is considered an integral part of.
Good animal welfare standards have been shown to help reduce the dependence on excessive veterinary medication, which is also one of the key goals of the Farm to Fork strategy.
The extensive use of antibiotics is a concern because of the potential development of antibiotic resistance, which could compromise animal and human health.
When an animal is suffering from stress because it is, for example in a cage, like a mother pig that can’t properly interact with her piglets because she can’t turn around or reach them, “it usually leads to an impact on the immune system, which then leads to susceptibility, making them more prone to disease, and this means more antibiotic use,” says Ajuda, who is also a veterinarian.
The Farm to Fork strategy is calling for a review of the EU’s animal welfare legislation, which brings many promises to change current standards and ensure that the welfare of farmed animals is substantially improved.
“Phasing out cages is indeed one of the most pressing issues that require the EU’s attention. Another key issue the EU needs to tackle is the transport of live animals and their exports to third countries,” says Olga Kikou.
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I watched the following on the BBC last night – the ‘Our World’ is a series of special investigations and reports on issues of concern around the globe. The Brazilian elections are to be held in 2022; and the current President, Bolsonaro; shows that he cares very little about protecting the magnificence of the Amazon rainforest. To him, like many global politicians, the end game is all bout money and how much they can make; regardless of the destruction.
Justin Rowlatt (BBC) returns to the Amazon which he reported from a decade ago. The report is very disturbing; as you can see in the video. More than ever it is now time for a massive change to save the remaining Amazon and the indigenous peoples that live within it. Despite what Bolsonaro says, it is not about gold, diamonds and the riches of the Amazon; it is about protecting the environment, the lungs of the planet and the people of the forest.
Cattle ranching as the main farming system in the Amazon basin. Since the beginning of the colonization in the 1960s, around 15% of the Amazon forest has been removed through agricultural practices.
While there are many causes, one of the main causes is cattle ranching, particularly in Brazil. Trees are cut and the land is converted into a pasture for cattle grazing. According to one report, an estimated 70 percent of deforestation in the Amazon basin can be attributed to cattle ranching.
The environmental impact of meat production varies because of the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. … Some of the environmental effects that have been associated with meat production are pollution through fossil fuel usage, animal methane, effluent waste, and water and land consumption.
Undercover of Covid, the Amazon rainforest is under attack. Deforestation is at levels not seen for more than a decade. Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, talks of opening up the forest to development while the environmental policy is under attack from loggers.
Our World obtained a recording of the Environment minister talking about using the cover of Covid to “change all the rules” in the Amazon. For Our World, Justin Rowlatt is on a mission to find out how a tribe he visited a decade ago is faring the face of this assault.
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18 years ago, Brazilian photographer Sebastian Salgado* and his wife Lélia decided to reforest their 600-hectare land in Aimorés, Brazil. With their friends, they planted more than 2 million trees!
Today there are 293 species of plants, 172 species of birds, and 33 different animal species, some of which were endangered.
It was just then that his parents signed the farm over to him and his wife Lélia.
Salgado was shocked: There was nothing left of the magical forests through which he roamed as a child and first consciously perceived the magic of light and shadow.
Livestock farming and erosion had turned the farm into a lunar landscape.
“When we got this piece of earth, it was just as wounded, yes, dead as I was.
Once it was an ecological oasis. When I was a kid, half of the farm was forest and I grew up in a paradise. But now there was less than half a percent forest left. “
His wife finally had the idea, says Salgado. Lélia said: “let’s rebuild paradise, let’s replant the forest.”
Continue reading “Sebastião Salgado-a great visionary of our time”
Vegan Conservatives welcome Business Secretary’s comments on growth of veganism
We must be the last generation to industrialise animals
The Vegan Conservatives group has welcomed Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s call for more people to give up animal products in order to meet the UK’s target of cutting carbon emissions by 78% by 2035.
Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Kwarteng, the MP for Spelthorne, said, “There are challenges in terms of people changing their lifestyle, but that is happening already, without government legislation. The number of people who are vegans, who are reducing their meat intake, is going up all the time. I think that there is a lot of societal change that will actually help us and drive the progress to 2035, where hopefully we will hit the 78 per cent reduction target.”
It’s the strongest signal yet from the Government that it is impossible to address climate change without reducing meat and dairy consumption.
The industrialisation of meat and dairy contributes a triple whammy to the environment: the emissions and pollution created by the animals themselves, the destruction of forestry to feed and graze them, and the haulage and distribution involved. That’s not to mention the £6.1bn annual cost to the NHS, the loss of food sovereignty and the obvious welfare consequences of the industry.
Co-chairman of the Vegan Conservatives, Alison Knight says, “Kwasi Kwarteng is spot on with his call for more veganism in British society. Meat and dairy are environmentally-destructive and categorically not essential elements of a healthy diet and we should follow Canada’s lead in ignoring industry-sponsored “science” in formulating Government policy.
“The alternatives to cheap meat are better for health, better for the environment, better for growers, better for food security and better for the animals – not to mention reducing the risk of global pandemics.
So-called ‘clean meat’ and plant-based meats are on the rise and will be responsible for 35% and 25% of meat consumption respectively by 2040. The Vegan Conservatives are calling for the UK’s Industrial Strategy to include incubators, National Centres of Excellence and national prizes for discoveries and commercialisation, if Britain wants to lead in these areas.
Mrs Knight continues, “Veganism is not at all a political statement – it’s an ethical and pragmatic one. As Conservatives, we want to leave the world a better place than we found it.”
London Assembly Member Andrew Boff says, “Veganism is growing by itself, but were the Government to introduce incentives to drive it, set targets and nudge societal change, those climate targets start to look considerably easier.
“Switching to an electric car is an excellent step, but it’s much more effective to stop consuming animal products.”
Baroness Anne Jenkin says, “It needs to be really easy for people to make better choices. Anybody who has made the change already feels healthier and saves money, as well as knowing that they have cut carbon emissions, so it’s a win-win. As with tackling obesity, the Government needs to make sure that healthy choices become the default option.”
Co-chairman Graham Godwin-Pearson says, “Our grandchildren will look back and wonder why on earth people chose to consume animal products, knowing the cruelty and damage that these products caused.
“People still need to eat and so agricultural reorganisation and retraining is required but the Government can help by offering conversion grants for industrial animals farmers to switch to vertical farming, and for intensive fish farmers to switch to seaweed.
“We must be the last generation to industrialise animals.”
Regards Mark
Alt Tellin: For the meat industry, the Alt Tellin fire is something like the Fukushima reactor disaster is for nuclear power.
In the pig breeding facility Alt Tellin (one of the largest in Europe), more than 55,000 animals perished in agony on March 30, 2021. (https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2021/03/30/germany-hell-of-fire-in-europes-largest-pig-fattening/
There was no effective fire protection, the rescue services could not save anything from the stables, only 1,300 pigs were loaded back into the trucks alive and driven to the next slaughterhouse.
The stables were completely burned down.
The worst prognoses of the animal rights activists, even from the time before the establishment of the fattening plant in 2012, have been confirmed.
Because of attacks against the environment and animal welfare, there was then a court case as to whether the facility could be granted a permit.
101 violations alone were registered between 2011 and 2014, according to a response from the ministry to a request from the left-wing parliamentary group. Even then, that would have been enough to revoke the approval of the fattening operation.
During the trial, animal rights activists said that in the event of a fire it would be impossible to evacuate animals. The number of animals alone would not allow it and because the fire protection system of the fattening facility never worked anyway.
There had been repeated citizen protests and demonstrations against this form of factory farming because not only animals but entire regions suffered from the mega stables.
The stall was approved by the local council many years ago, despite many concerns and even an accompanying survey of citizens with rejection.
The stable complex (with 18 stalls) belongs to one of the largest pig breeding companies in Germany – Agricultural Piglet Breeding Germany (LFD) Holding. This was taken over by the Swiss company Terra Grundwerte AG in the previous year.
And now we read that it is a decided matter: the burned down mega-stable in Alt Tellin is to be rebuilt – and the politicians are selling the new business as a “model project with a nationwide model”, which wants to rebuild modern slave breeding with our tax money.
Now it’s no longer about the pain, now it’s about the anger, and it comes up dangerously!
The question is: who approved this?
It is said that the approval process was independent of the country.
In clear words: The approval documents were drawn up by another planning office commissioned by the Straathof company (do you remember him?).
That means: a permit for the new factory in Alt Tellin is feasible even without the involvement of the state, according to the Ministry of Agriculture!!
Now the Ministry of Agriculture has other worries anyway; is trying to get up to 3000 tons of carcasses into the landfill, but the costs are high, and therefore a cheap solution has to be found for the “hazardous waste”!
Such animal factories have nothing to do with agriculture, they are just the business of unscrupulous farm owners and their lobbyists in politics.
We don’t need mega stables, we have to abolish factory farming.
It is no longer a matter of feeding one’s own population with it. Germany is the world champion exporter of pork.
It is always and only about criminal business, of criminal farm owners and their accomplices in politics at the expense of the animals
They must be banned, we will fight hard for this.
My best regards to all, Venus
Pigs stand in front of a building after a fire broke out in a large pig farm in Alt Tellin, Germany, on Tuesday, March 30. Photo – Stefan Sauer/dpa via AP
Venus will probably have more on this from Germany later. Probably the first time they have ever been outside and stood on grass !
Regards Mark
Fire at German Farm Likely Killed 55K Pigs
Some 7,000 sows and 50,000 piglets were listed as being at the facility at the time, and only about 1,300 animals were rescued.
Apr 1st, 2021
BERLIN (AP) — A fire at a pig-breeding facility in northeastern Germany is believed to have killed more than 55,000 animals, the operator said Thursday.
The fire broke out on Tuesday at the facility in Alt Tellin, in Germany’s northeastern corner. It spread quickly, in part through ventilation shafts, and destroyed the stalls where the animals were kept.
A spokesman for operator LFD Holding, Ralf Beke-Bramkamp, told German news agency dpa that over 55,000 animals died. Some 7,000 sows and 50,000 piglets were listed as being at the facility at the time, and only about 1,300 animals were rescued.
The cause of the blaze remains unclear. Police spokesman Andrej Krosse said it was an “incredibly difficult” investigation and a drone was being used to survey the devastated site.
The Alt Tellin facility was one of the biggest of its kind in Germany. Groups of demonstrators, carrying placards with slogans such as “Stop animal torture,” gathered at the scene on Wednesday.
Fire at German Farm Likely Killed 55K Pigs | Manufacturing Business Technology (mbtmag.com)
All life deserves respect, dignity, and compassion. All life.
These animals are not voluntary sacrifices. The sacrifice of their life is forced from them by force.
All of these animals feel and think. They feel fear and pain, joy and hope, lead a conscious life, and want to grow old with their feelings and thoughts.
Therefore they have a natural right to their life, to protection, to freedom.
The power of the fittest, but not morality, enables their death.
Murder is murder.
There is no murder made in China
made in India
made in Italy
or in Germany
Don’t take part in this murder.
You can do a lot for the animals if you don’t eat them.
regards and good night, Venus
Conservationists across Europe are shocked by the Italian government’s plan to allow 7.5 million specimens of the endangered turtledove to be shot down this autumn.
The European Commission estimates that there are only between 2.9 and 5.6 million breeding pairs in the EU.
The shooting was decided at a meeting of the government with representatives of the regions, whose representatives, under pressure from the influential hunting lobby – above all the European hunting association FACE – almost without exception voted against a four-year closed season proposed by Rome.
Now each of the 500,000 Italian hunters should be allowed to kill up to 15 lovebirds in the coming hunting season!!
The Committee Against Bird Murder and its Italian partners are fighting against the hunting clearance and have received unexpected help: The anti-mafia hero Sergio De Caprio, legendary in Italy, who became famous as a police officer in 1993 after the arrest of mafia boss Totò Riina, also sits down in his Region of Calabria against the shooting plans.
EU Commission to finally enforce Europe-wide hunting bans for endangered species.
And I mean…The fauna and flora of Italy are extremely rich.
94,771 different animal species live on the boot south of the Alpine chain.
But Italy is also the country where, so say the animal welfare organizations, eagles and otters are still being shot, where a good thirteen regions abuse legal loopholes to permit the hunt for nationally protected species or to extend the hunting season.
Where the regional legislation in the matter of hunting is sometimes in stark contrast to the laws of the EU.
Where hundreds of volunteer game rangers try in vain to stop poaching, which is now threatening at least ten protected species with extinction.
Where you can shoot ducks from concrete bunkers.
Where every year thousands upon thousands of migratory birds are killed with the help of decoys and illegal electromagnetic decoys.
In hardly any other country in the EU is the overlap between licensed hunters and criminal poachers as great as in Italy. Almost three-quarters of all convicted poachers have a hunting license.
The turtle dove is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a globally endangered species, the population of which in Europe has declined by around 40% in the last 16 years.
In some countries and regions, the loss is more than 90%, here the species is on the verge of disappearing.
The shooting of lovebirds is a sadist passion that has nothing to do with sustainable hunting but is rapidly accelerating the extinction of this species in Europe.
Nevertheless, the Italian hunting association and its European umbrella organization have pulled out all the stops to prevent the moratorium proposed by the government in Rome.
The EU bird protection directive gives the member states the possibility to release protected bird species for catching or shooting if it is a “tradition”, only “small amounts” are concerned, if there is “no other satisfactory solution” and if there is sufficient control the requirements are ensured.
The 7.5 million turtledoves are certainly a small amount, so the EU doesn’t have to worry about them !!!
My best regards to all, Venus
