Freeing the Voiceless!

Legalized slavery: Does it exist?

• Yes, with billions of victims!

• Why are they denied freedom, a birthright?

Their only crime is that they are not human!

Shouldn’t non-human animals also be free from slavery and suffering?

Shouldn’t non-human animals also be free from slavery and suffering?

Shouldn’t non-human animals also be free from slavery and suffering?

Freedom =

Not just freedom from physical captivity,but also the right to lead an uncontrolled free life

Why are we indifferent to the animal plight: Centuries of conditioning

Shouldn’t non-human animals also be free from slavery and suffering?

One of the most crying social justice issuesof our time

• Sheer volume of the victim count• If the victims were human, we’d call this the greatest

barbarity on the planet.• Powered by ordinary people like you and me

• The victims are the most vulnerable• Rely entirely on our compassion for their liberation

One of the most crying social justice issuesof our time

• So, it’s especially crucial to • not just stop participating in their oppression• but also to become champions of animal rights

• Grant freedom to all, regardless of species• Align lifestyles with that ethical obligation

the antidote to animal exploitation=

veganism

What is vegan living?

(like meat) Milk and eggs also lead to animal killing and torture! Yes, that’s true in India too .

A lifestyle based on a simple logic:

Every sentient being – human or not –

deserves not to be hurt.

Even in traditional Indian tabelas/dairies, cows have to be subjected to unbearable repeated forced pregnancies and a lot of other misery.

Be universally fair, NOT selectively or conveniently fair.

A vegan avoids all animal products:

milk & its products, meat, eggs, honey, Wool, leather, silk,

pearl, fur…

The scope of impact of vegan choices

Make the planetsustainable

Feed a lot more people

Save billions from torture/death

Make you fit and disease-free in a lasting manner

Watch the video

http://youtu.be/3r8JpB2FbSc

before viewing further.

“But, don’t plants feel pain too?”

o A non-vegan consumes not just meat, eggs & milk, but also the plants fed daily to the farm animals for their entire lifetimes!

o Eating plants directly i.e. eating vegan does the least damage to plants too (not just animals).

If plants feel pain, that’s actually yet another reason to be vegan!

A user of animal products consumes many times more plants than a vegan does.

The majority view among scientists: Plants can not feel pain,as they don’t have a central nervous system.

Leather, wool and silk are NOT cruelty-free byproducts

The dairy industry is the most common source of leather. • Male calves have no use

in dairy!

• They are often intentionally starved, so that they can be skinned quickly.

• leather (and wool) buyers make meat much cheaper.

• Wool also causes many atrocities such as flesh stripping on sheep.

• A silk cloth leads to the exploitation and killing of tons of silk worms.

How is honey cruel?

To make one pound of honey, a bee colony must visit over two million flowers, flying over 55,000 miles! During a bee’s lifetime, she will only make approximately one teaspoon of honey!

We ruin that in minutes by invading their hive and stealing all their food security!

The queen bee’s wings are often cut off, so that she is confined to the hive, with the other bees.

Honey is nothing but bee-vomit.

It is the buffer food stored by honey bees, used during winter months.

Why love some and torture/kill the others?

Do dairy cows and chickens feel less pain or deserve less happiness

than the cats and dogs we adore?

Species-ism

When it is not fair to hurt beings from other castes & genders, how is it fair to enslave and torment beings from other species?

That too merely for pleasure, not survival!

Why should justice and kindness be confined to humans alone?

The exploitation of a set of species (animals) by another (humans).

“Animals exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans, just like black people were not made for whites, and women not for men.”

Similar to human slavery, but much worse

Imagine being born just to be enslaved & tortured for life!That’s exactly the story of the 10s of billions of farm animals

(several times the human population) we birth i.e. breed every year!

Cause of slavery: Centuries of powerful conditioning

Good news: Eventually, we chose ethics & reason over tradition & culture.

It’s high time we take the next leap in our ethical evolution: Eradicate animal slavery & oppression!

“200 years ago, Americans would have thought you were absurd if you advocated for the end of slavery.

150 years ago, they would have laughed at you for suggesting that women should have the right to vote.

75 years ago, they would have loudly objected to the idea of African Americans receiving equal rights under the law.

Sometime ago, they laughed at us for suggesting that animal slavery be ended. They are no longer laughing.”

- adapted from Gary Smith

Traditional does NOT equal ethical

‘Humane milk’, ‘humane eggs’, etc. can NEVER exist!

Mere enslavement or violation of consent is deeply cruel.

Why did we abolish human slavery, instead of making slaves’ treatment ‘humane’?

Robbing a being of the freedom to make her own choices in itself causes immense suffering. Myth: Cows “give” milk to us.

Fact: The only thing that a free cow in the wild would give us, if we tried to milk her, is a kick.

‘Humane milk’, ‘humane eggs’, etc. can NEVER exist!

A lot of barbarities are inherently attached to the very economic & environmental viability of animal products.

• Repeated rapes for a constant cycle of pregnancy, birth and milking

• Selling male babies to be slaughtered (or starving them)

• Keeping calves largely deprived of mother’s milk

• Even in the “free-range” egg hatcheries, male chicks are killed, as they are useless egg-wise (and grow too slowly to be viable for meat).

• Hens meet the same fate once they become spent i.e. unviable.

Hypothetically if 'humane milk' did exist, the already high eco-footprint of regular milk would be hugely exceeded, since many times more cows would be needed.

Vegan celebrities are on the rise!Tobey Maguire aka ‘Spiderman’ is a staunch vegan who doesn’t allow anyone wearing animal skin (e.g., leather) in his house. He even sent back a Mercedes with leather seats!

Another inspiration is former Citibank vice president Philip Wollen, for whom, being vegan is ”to be able to look in the mirror without feeling profoundly ashamed”.

Germany’s strongest man, Patrik

Baboumian, is vegan!

“Avoidance of animal products is the single biggest thing that an individual can do to combat climate change”. - ‘Avatar’ director James Cameron, whose initial motivation to be vegan was environmental conservation.

Aamla Akkineni, acress and founder of Blue Cross, Hyderabad

Animal rights – a growing trend worldwide

• The European Union and India recently banned all animal-tested cosmetics!

• The number of vegans in the US alone:– 22 Million, as per the Public Policy Polling Survey, 2013

Vegan for food securityGrowing loads of crops for animals and then feeding on

them is a terribly inefficient way to feed ourselves!

As much as 50% of India’s maize becomes cattle feed!

We can feed a lot more people if we all eat vegan!

Up to 10 kg of grains 1kg of animal food

Vegan for the environment

• Animal products deplete resources such as land & water massively, since the animals have to be daily fed and hydrated all through their lives.

• A UN study deems animal products culpable for – 70% of the world’s agricultural land– 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions– Considerable deforestation.

There is simply not enough land & water to sustainthe world on animal products!

Does it harm employment? Not at all A vegan world will not have fewer jobs.

• The reduced employment in the animal products industry will be compensated for by increased openings in the vegan products industry.

• Jobs decline when the demand diminishes, but veganism doesn’t reduce the demand. It only changes the demand.– And, history shows that the market is very adaptable.

• From tobacco to chemical weapons, there are many unethical things wherein people are employed, but, do we approve of such things? No, because there exist enough cruelty-free means of employment.

Agreed, but what about mosquitos?

• The idea is to try one’s sincere best to cause the least amount of cruelty necessary for survival. – Rather than killing mosquitos, keep them at bay through

cleanliness, mosquito nets and/or repellents.

• It’s one thing to inflict pain in occasional self-defence or accidentally, and totally another to do so when there is no necessity!

Humans are plant-eaters, NOT omnivores

From laterally moving jaws to long folding intensities, humans possess a dozen physiological traits that makes us

plant-eaters, not omnivores.

Our so-called canine teeth do not make us omnivorous, as canines are also found in several herbivores.

Our natural instincts

What would a 2 year old (unconditioned) child pick up when offered an apple, and a live chicken?

Conditioned v/s Natural

Ever wondered why milk and eggs are the only unbranded foods being advertised?

Because natural, instinctive foods like fruits and vegetables never need to be marketed!

When babies grow, they wean themselves off milk, and start eating other foods……

…except human babies!

Is there any species in nature drinking another

species’ milk?!

OR any milk at all post infancy?!

Why were cows – and not apes like gorillas – picked for milk?Because cows are gentle/docile - easy targets for exploitation!

Otherwise, there’s no reason to take cow’s milk, which is hormonally/biologically totally unsuitable for humans.

Plant-based food: The healthiest choiceMilk, eggs and meat account for most of our cholesterol and saturated fat, and contain no fibre. Plant foods are rich in fibre (good for digestion), and contain no cholesterol.

Alarming summary from a number of independent studies, including the biggest study ever to link food and health [Undertaken by Oxford University, Cornel University and others under the name 'The China Study’]:

Milk, eggs & meat cause or worsen many dreaded diseases including heart disease, high BP, cancer, asthma, diabetes and bone weakness!

So, vegan food does way more than the removal of excess body fat, and improvement of fitness/energy & digestion.

It’s essential for good health.

Unclog arteries merely with food! Terrified of heart disease, hyper tension

& repeated bypass surgeries?

Source: “Reversing Heart Disease”, by Dr. Cardwell Esselstyn

‘The Last Heart Attack’, a CNN documentary, features many eminent doctors/researchers advocating vegan food, aside from Bill Clinton,

who is vegan and has cured his heart disease through it.

Myths: Calcium & Protein

There’s absolutely no nutrient that vegan food cannot provide!

[B12 deficiencies equally likely in non-vegans]

Calcium: Plants are better than milk

• Calcium is present in some quantity in every food that we take. Plus, most plant based sources have a much higher calcium absorption ratio than animal milk, and do not have harmful side-effects.

• Many plant foods also contain more calcium than milk. Here are some:

How milk causes osteoporosis (bone weakness)

Calcium loss is a bigger problem than its intake

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has actually substantiated, with the help of a number of scientific studies, that animal milk protein actually leaches calcium from the bones, resulting in bone weakness!

When animal protein enters the body, it breaks into amino acids very quickly, making the body Ph too acidic. To balance that, the body has to leach out alkaline minerals such as Calcium and Magnesium from bones.

Vegans get more than enough protein!

Protein is a building block of any food. So, if you consume enough calories, you are bound to get

enough protein! o Protein deficiencies mostly found in malnourished people.o In fact, excess protein leads to serious harm!

There are plenty of protein-rich plant foods:o all pulses (dal)o soya productso all legumes (peas like chana, beans such as rajama)o almonds & other nutso seeds, etc.

Vegans get more than enough protein!

Many have also sustained babies and pregnancies on totally vegan food, and are healthier for it!

Quite a few world-class vegan athletes and body builders:

Long-distance runner turned renowned bodybuilder Robert Cheek

A vegan since birth;Two-time Olympian

Animal foods – a cocktail of toxins

Alarmingly high in antibiotics, pus cells, hormones (natural and artificial), mercury and pesticide

Much higher pesticide concentration than in plants

A 7 year study by Indian Council for Medical Research, across 12 states, found pesticides residues in all milk brands beyond permissible limits.

“68% of India’s milk contaminated”- Food Safety Authority of India

Awareness rising in India too!

Dr Nandita ShahWorld-renowned for reversing diabetes and heart diseases merely

through vegan food!

Dr Suketu, CEO, Asha Parekh hospitalReversed his heart disease through vegan food.Their nutritionists exclusively prescribe vegan food to patients.

Dr Kajal Bhatia (nutritionist), Dr Rupa S, Dr Pramod Tripathi (Pune) and many more

Be it tea, curd, ice-creams or cheese, it’s all there in vegan form!

Being vegan is easier than ever!

Be it sweets, chocolates, cakes, ice-creams, curd, paneer, cheese, pizza or tea/coffee…

…almost all your favourite tastes can be found/made without animal ingredients.

• Tons of recipes that use plant based [cashew, coconut, soya, almond, rice] milk to veganize everything you love!

• Food aside…

• Ample options for non-leather furniture, footwear & accessories• Shampoos, soaps & cosmetics involving no animal testing/ingredients• Wool, silk, fur and honey can be easily avoided too.

Cruelty-free alternatives

Animal milk –> Plant milk from almond/coconut/soy/rice/cashewCurd –> Peanut curd, coconut curd, rice curd, cashew curdCheese –> Vegan cheeses made with cashews or tofu Butter for spread –> Nut butters (peanut, cashew, almond)Meats –> Mock/Fake (plant-based), soy nuggetsPaneer –> Tofu (same taste, better health)Tea –> Soy/cashew milk, green tea, masala tea, lemon tea, herbal teaCoffee –> Black coffee or with vanilla flavoured soy milk/coconut milkChocolates –> Nestle’s dark chocolate, Ritter Sport (2 varieties)Cakes & Ice-creams –> how-to-order info on the blog and bookletWool -> cotton, polyester, acrylic, etc.

Chocolates: Nestle’s dark chocolate, Ritter Sport (2 varieties)

Biscuits: Oreo, Parle’s Bourbon, Hide-n-seek,

Monaco, etc.

Ice-creams:Berrys (soy-based),

sorbetsTofu: An excellent healthy

alternative to Paneer

Soy milk: easily available in different flavors

Sweets: Haldiram’s classicSoan Papadi (2 flavours) and

Badaam Halwa

Almost every food product you are used tois now available vegan!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/hyderabad.vegans~1700 members… and countingOpen not only for vegans, but anyone interested

Blog: http://hyderabadvegans.wordpress.com

Thanks!