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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. ” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
By Racine Hiet

Part One:

I have a riddle for you.  What do Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Leonardo da Vinci, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King–and many other free thinkers from our history, her story now forgotten, such as Anna Kingsford, Margaret Damer Dawson–all have in common?

They were all vegan/vegetarians!

With the Union of Concerned Scientists now urgently letting us know that the future for all life on Earth depends on human beings finding a way to stop destroying and live in harmony with all life, few subjects address so directly the heart of our challenge as that of veganism.  For veganism is more than a diet; it is an ethic by which to live.

Vegans aim to do the least harm possible by not eating or wearing animals and not supporting companies that exploit them in laboratories, entertainment, factory farms, and the leather, fur, silk, and many other industries.  This attitude of kindness extends to human beings as well and does not support sweatshops and the many other forms of human exploitation.  Astrology, Native and other religious prophecies, and many futurists say that we are being given an unprecedented opportunity to evolve as a species to become a peaceful, nurturing, creative presence on the planet.  Veganism, as an ideal, encompasses all creation with its awareness of the interconnected and Oneness of all. Read more

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COMMENTS (11) | animal consiousness, Issue 1, peace, Sprituality
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Change Your Diet, Change Your Life: The Rantings of a Former Fat Man
By Tim Kaufman

Walking out of the doctor’s office, reality had finally sunk in. I was not going to be around for another year. My wife and kids would very likely not have a husband or father within the year. My blood pressure was 255/115, I was on three medications to bring it down. My cholesterol (300) and triglycerides (279) were off the charts (literally). I was on a ton of heavy medications, I was also self-medicating, and I struggled with addictions of all kinds. My weight became so out of control that the doctor could no longer weigh me in his office. I was having trouble breathing and had severe sleep apnea. I was born with a genetic disorder called Elhers Danlos Syndrome and my joints are very loose and hyper mobile. The excess weight was too much for my already destroyed joints to handle.I was constantly on crutches, canes, and immobilizers. I was cast and fitted for very expensive leg braces that would stop my legs from buckling. My wife was actually putting my socks and shoes on me in the morning. Nothing was working and my life was spiraling out of control. I was going to die and I don’t know if I really cared. Read more

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COMMENT (1) | addiction, fitness, health, Issue 1
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One Soldier and PTSD: Going Vegan
By Michael Anthony

“Blood, blood, blood, makes the green grass grow,” was the mantra we used throughout basic training. Our young boots hitting the pavement, grass, and dirt, each heel giving the cue to yell the cadence “blood,” then again, “blood.”

This wasn’t done to turn us into blood-thirsty sadomasochists (as some would have you believe). It was done to prepare us for the realities of what we were facing. We were a platoon of soldiers, recruits, who had joined the military in 2004. Our country was in the midst of two wars, and we were being prepared to fight, to die, and to take lives. For the soldiers who came before us the question was always, “If we’ll go to war,” but for us, the question was no longer “If,” but “when.” We were being prepared to live, to fight, to kill, and to die for our country. There’s no other way to put it:

“Blood, blood, blood, makes the green grass grow.”

The problem, though, facing the modern military isn’t with training us to become soldiers and to kill, the problem is with training us to come home. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | health, Issue 1
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Cardiologist Kim Williams, M.D. Wants To Eradicate Heart Disease
By Rich Roll

Cardiologist Kim Williams, M.D. Wants To Eradicate Heart Disease

“There are two kinds of cardiologists: vegans and those who haven’t read the data.”
Dr. Kim Williams
Read more

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COMMENT (0) | health, Issue 1
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How Going Vegan Completely Transformed This Doctor’s Life [Dr. Angie Sadeghi Interview]
By Stephen Coote

Left: age 33. Right: age 41, after going vegan.

A doctor’s inspirational journey to veganism and fitness

“When I die, I want to leave a legacy of a plant-based doctor who actually cared about the health of her patients, and treated underlying disease with nutrition rather than pharmaceuticals.”

Cured her chronic health issues after switching to a completely vegan diet
Lost 30lbs in 8 months following a healthy whole foods plant-based diet
Completely transformed her life
Advises her patients to adopt a vegan diet
Gained confidence to compete in a fitness competition
Workout routine and favorite meals revealed below Read more

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COMMENTS (2) | fitness, food, health, Issue 1
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Exclusive EVEN Interview with Robert Grillo.
By Robert Grillo

Robert and Sweet Pea, Photo by Joe Branske.

Robert Grillo is the founder and director of Free from Harm, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that promotes farmed animal rescue, education and advocacy. Free from Harm strives to be a leader in online activism by building a strong online community and publishing content that empowers and informs activists as well as institutions and the general public. Grillo has a professional background in marketing and communications and leverages his 20 years of experience to strengthen his animal advocacy work. A typical day involves organizing events, coordinating rescues, writing articles or a letter to the editor, brainstorming ways to enhance the Free from Harm website and looking for the next viral video idea. He enjoys the outdoors, hiking, biking, gardening, cooking and the company of good friends.

EVEN: How did veganism become part of your life?

Robert: For me the turning point was identifying with the victim. Or, should I say, recognizing that a victim even exists, since we are conditioned all our lives to believe that animals can’t be our victims.It took time for me to see how our animal-eating culture teaches us to block our awareness of the suffering of the animals we consume, to deny the existence of any problem, and,worse, to stifle any critical thinking on the subject. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | Animal Activism, Issue 1
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Meet Debra Murphy: Founder of Vegan Bumble Bloom Honey
By Debra Murphy on Black Vegans Matter

What does it mean to you to be a woman of colour and a vegan?

Growing up biracial in a predominantly white community, I already felt different. And that experience makes you stronger, less afraid to stand out for other reasons, because you already do. Becoming vegan made me feel different from the mainstream in another way, and a positive one, in choosing to live as ethically and compassionately as I can. It also highlighted some preconceptions about what a black or mixed race person is. This idea that “Veganism is a white thing,” and that it’s elitist or exclusive. To me, it never felt that way. And with heart disease, diabetes, and other health problems being so prevalent in the black community, I was looking for a diet and lifestyle that would improve my day to day quality of life, and have longer-term health benefits as well. To me, veganism is about choosing an ethical and environmentally sustainable way of living, and about providing good quality plant-based foods and good nutrition for everyone on this planet we share. It’s accessible to everyone. It doesn’t have to be expensive – you just need to learn to cook. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | animal consiousness, Issue 1, sustainability
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Shelter To Soldier: Saving Two Lives At A time
By Vic Martin

Shelter To Soldier brings post combat veterans together with trained, rescue dogs to help both recover and move forward.

Kira the Service Dog is a Chocolate Lab/ Red Nose Pitbull mix. She is a former sheltered dog. She was rescued and trained by Shelter to Soldier and by volunteers of Specialty Dog Training. Her Handler is a Medically Retired Navy Mineman diagnosed with a Brain Injury, Severe Anxiety Disorder, Severe Depressive Disorder and PTSD. Kira and her handler are on a mission to change the world. Please visit sheltertosoldier.org to see how you can join us in our pledge to help sheltered dogs and Veterans in need. Read more

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COMMENT (1) | animal consiousness, health, Issue 1
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The Vegan Evolution – Our Hope For The World Of Tomorrow
By Angel Flinn

The vegan ideal embodies the highest of spiritual and ethical aspirations – non-violence, harmlessness, reverence for life, and the cultivation of compassion toward the innocent. It is cause for celebration that we are blessed with the ability to bring such noble qualities down to earth by simply eliminating from our lives the products and practices that require the exploitation of other beings.

And yet, even in a time when, more than ever, the world needs us to put these basic human values into practice, this powerful ethical stand continues to be marginalized by society. The example that is set by the increasing number of individuals who embrace these principles is too often vehemently opposed, trivialized, or simply ignored. But the effects of this paradigm shift in perception are far-reaching, and the rewards of making such a change are beyond measure. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | food, health, Issue 1, peace, Sprituality
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Beating the Genetic Odds
By Ellen Jaffe Jones

Ellen Jaffe Jones (The Veg Coach) is a best-selling vegan cookbook and health and fitness author, as well as a sought-after speaker at vegfests, foodfests, health fairs, book festivals and many other venues. She has published 6 books with the oldest and largest vegan publisher in the US, and is currently working on a 7th. She is legendary in engaging her audiences and conducting her Q and A while holding a plank contest. Her record was 10 minutes at the Tampa Vegfest. She is a certified personal trainer and has coached high school girls cross country and track.

Ellen was a 2-time Emmy-winning TV investigative reporter for 18 years, while she watched her mom, aunt and both sisters get breast cancer. Her family became part of the original BRCA1 and BRCA2 breast cancer gene studies. Figuring out how to beat her genes and continue remaining the only adult female in her family without cancer became the investigative reporting job of her life. At the age of 28, she almost died of a colon blockage and saved herself from a hysterectomy by going on a vegan diet.  (Watch her powerful Video below on how “your family genes don’t determine your destiny.”)

Read more

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COMMENT (0) | fitness, health, Issue 1, weight loss
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Heart and Soul: Finding the Place Where Spirituality, Compassion, and Veganism Connect
By Prarthana Jayaram

What lies at the intersection of spiritual health and ethical choices? How can diet speak to our beliefs and our holistic health? What are the connections between spirituality and a sense of community? These are questions the growing vegan spirituality movement seeks to answer.

Promoting compassionate living, spiritual vegans align themselves with the broad themes of universal peace and love. As the name suggests, vegan spirituality focuses on the spiritual implications of a vegan lifestyle – the connections between heart, body, and mind that manifest in vegan living and a respect and compassion for all life.

Activists approach this movement in a number of different ways. From yoga and meditative practice to public speaking to avid discussions, spiritual vegans are seeking new ways to form and cultivate community. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | Issue 1, Sprituality
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Trans Veganism
By Calvin Neufeld

“Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place. . . . I am a woman with a foot in both worlds, and I refuse the split.” – Cherrie Moraga, 1979

As a vegan transsexual, I have found myself suspended between two worlds, two spheres of activism, two separate communities committed to justice and equality. I believe that the time has come to break down the barriers between these intrinsically connected anti-oppression movements. Naming suffering as our common enemy, I am proposing a trans-vegan alliance.

Trans people know what it is to be perceived as different, judged as inferior, and denied rights (or worse) on the basis of that difference. Yet we ourselves use this same corrupt equation to oppress animals. How can one form of oppression end without the other? Read more

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COMMENT (0) | Animal Activism, Issue 1, trans people
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Rishikesh: Ten Things To Do In India’s Most Spiritual And Vegan-Friendly City
By Franceska Lynne and Warren Gang

Photo by Sole Mare Images.
Rishikesh, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, is a holy city on the Ganges, and is made up of a cluster of smaller areas: Ram Jhula, Laxman Jhula, Tapovan, Laxman Mandir, and Swarg Ashram (the “main drag”). Although famous for its yoga, meditation, and spirituality, the area around Rishikesh is also a popular site for hiking, trekking, and whitewater rafting the Himalayas. It is also an all-veg city, meaning that it is a vegan paradise!

How to get there – domestic airlines fly to Dehradun from major Indian cities like Mumbai and Delhi, or you can take the train to Hardiwar. Taxis are available for the ride to Rishikesh, which takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

What to expect – India is an intense sensory experience – its sights, sounds, smells, and tastes are truly unique. Rishikesh is an oasis on the banks of India’s most sacred river, the Ganges, known as “Mother Ganga,” the giver of life. Many Indians vacation in Rishikesh, and it is the site of year-round religious pilgrimages. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | Issue 1, Sprituality, travel
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Sistah Vegans – The Satya Interview with Dr. Amie Breeze Harper
By Sangamithra Iyer

What’s it like being a black female vegan in this country? What’s the source of reproductive health ailments among African American women? How can veganism resist institutional racism? These are some of the questions Dr. Amie Breeze Harper, a graduate student at Harvard, was seeking answers to when she sent out a call for submissions from black identified female vegans for her Sistah Vegan anthology project. The resulting book, Sistah Vegan! Black Women, Food, Health, and Society, was published in 2007 and is comprised of a collection of critical essays, narratives and poems from female vegans of the African Diaspora.

Harper is also looking at how black female vegans use cyberspace for health activism and create virtual communities of like-minded people. She started a Sistah Vegan Yahoo! discussion group where members discuss a wide variety of issues. Experienced Sistah Vegans mentor newbies on how to organize to get access to healthy foods in their communities, and they trade secrets on which plant-based foods shrink uterine fibroids and ease menstrual discomfort. The women also discuss body type issues. What does it mean to be a full-sized black female vegan in a culture that associates veganism with thinness and whiteness, or a thin Sistah Vegan in an African American community that embraces full figured women? Read more

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COMMENT (0) | health, Issue 1, racism
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How I Found My Passion As A Vegan Globetrotter!
By Wendy Werneth

My interest in veganism began with concern for my own health and for the environment. In November 2013, as I watched my father on his deathbed, lying in excruciating pain from a long list of complications caused by Type 1 diabetes, I was struck by the truth of my own mortality and knew that I never wanted to end up in such a miserable condition.

A few months later, as I began to learn more about plant-based diets, I found out about studies showing that the casein in cow’s milk can trigger the onset of Type 1 diabetes in people who, like me, are genetically predisposed to the disease.

Once I knew this, it made it difficult to enjoy eating dairy products, wondering with each bite if I was writing my own death sentence. As I continued to research the subject, I found out about more and more health benefits to plant-based eating.

Environmental sustainability has always been of great concern to me, and that concern grows each day as the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise ever higher, and as I watch all the destruction we humans are wreaking on this planet. I knew that the ecological footprint of a plant-based diet was much smaller than that of a meat-based one, and this had been the catalyst for my previous forays into vegetarianism, beginning when I was in college. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | food, health, Issue 1, travel
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Don’t Despair, Animal Activists: Your Vegan Advocacy Is Never In Vain
By Psychologist Clare Mann

Are you an animal advocate or vegan who wonders if the world will ever change? Every day, do you feel you’re taking one step forward and two steps back? Do conversations become more difficult with non-vegans, with people seeming to ignore the message of animal cruelty and instead opting for the latest fashions, foods, cosmetics and practices that contribute to animal suffering? Maybe you wonder if a vegan world is possible and once you leave your little bubble of a vegan get-together, festival or social event, you feel outraged with a world that seems so selfish? If you feel like this, you’re not alone but feeling and thinking that a vegan world is impossible to achieve, is counterproductive to what needs to be done to usher in this new era. It’s also incredibly hard to live in a place of desperation and despair and be a good example of what it is to be a happy, healthy vegan. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | health, Issue 1
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Loving Swimmer, Our First Dog
By Nicola Sark

Since going vegan in 2013, my view of animals has changed so much.  I used to be that person who thought of animals as “just animals” and that eating cows, pigs, and chickens were “just the way things are”, never giving them any thought beyond that.

In June of this year, Julian and I adopted our first dog, something I know I would never have done had I not been vegan.  Even the animals we are conditioned to love and care for and not eat, I viewed as more of a nuisance or obligation; I didn’t really “get” the love that people had for their pets and I certainly didn’t see those pets as individuals or companions, mainly because I’d never experienced it before.  We had a dog when I was about 4 or 5 who was returned to the shelter when she tore the kitchen curtains up.  We had a cat when I was in grade school who was given away when we moved cities.  This attitude of animals being disposable if they inconvenienced us continued when my brother was old enough to get a dog (I don’t know what happened to his dog because I had moved out of the house by then. All I know is the dog did not stay long).  By the time I was on my own, I knew I never wanted pets, which, on one hand was good because I still viewed animals as expendable but it was also–to use an expression I’ve learned from therapy–a missed experience.  Had I developed a better understanding of animals and a proper empathy toward them, I could have provided a loving home to one for many years.
Read more

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COMMENT (0) | Animal Activism, animal consiousness, Issue 1
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Making Peace With The Food On My Plate: Healing Anorexia
By Gena Hamshaw

Personally speaking, I haven’t always loved food, and food hasn’t always loved me. I was hit with anorexia early in my teens, and I struggled for thirteen years after to regain balance and health.

In my early twenties, I put my weapons down and committed to making peace with the food on my plate. In working toward a lasting recovery, I became attuned to the suffering of animals within our food system and started to explore a vegan diet. Veganism allowed me to see that the act of eating could be more than a source of personal anguish or an outlet for self-control.

Eating can be a powerful means of doing good in the world–good for the body, good for the planet, and good for our animal neighbors.

Becoming vegan was also my introduction to the joys of cooking, which I began to explore in my tiny, postage-stamp-sized New York City kitchen. Read more

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COMMENT (1) | animal consiousness, food, health, Issue 1
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The Vegan Librarian: Teaching Empathy To Children Through Language
By Madison Bishop first posted in Acti-Veg

Since I began working with kids, I’ve gotten used to a lot of unexpected questions. “Why do you have hair?” is one I answered my first week on the job as the public library’s new children’s librarian, directed at me by an accusatory preschooler who did not seem to realize that everyone in the room with him (save a few bald infants) had hair, too. I thought for a moment before responding, “I think we all have hair to keep our head warm. But we can research it together, if you want.” In the time since, I’ve answered inquiries about sharks, Judy Blume, peanut allergies, and everything in between.

But the most common question, the one that every parent and teacher knows well, is “Why?” Read more

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COMMENT (0) | children, Issue 1
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Eating: It’s Not What You Do, It’s Who You Are
By Laurie Cossar

I met an old friend of mine last week in the parking lot of our local grocery store. I almost passed him by as I didn’t recognize him immediately.  He had lost a lot of weight since I had last seen him. He mentioned that he had undergone gastric bypass surgery nine months earlier. I had known of his constant battle with his weight and the impact it was having on his health. I remarked that he must be feeling better. He said that while he was lighter, he was till prone to strong cravings and despite the weight loss he wasn’t any happier.  Nothing had changed to improve the underlying discontent with his life.

Happiness was elusive and he was still chasing it.

Is your life still a mess despite your best intentions?

Read more

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COMMENT (0) | addiction, food, health, Issue 1
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Finding The Spark Of Life In People With Dementia
By Jane Verity and Hilary Lee

Hilary Lee, President (left) & Jane Verity,
Founder (right) of Spark Of Life
 Spark of Life Philosophy is a way of being with the highest intent to lift the spirit, awaken dormant abilities and heal relationships. The focus is on How to connect, How to communicate and How to care. The aim is to foster kindness, compassion, empathy, respect and an attitude of unconditional love.

The philosophy is about redefining what it means to have dementia, opening up new possibilities for improvement. It is also about revitalizing the culture of care, enriching the quality of life for people with dementia and giving joy and renewed energy to carers.

Watch the Spark of Life Philosophy in action as implemented by trained facilitators. Read more

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COMMENT (0) | health, Issue 1
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