Christine Wells

What’s Wrong with Leather?

February 1, 2013 ethics
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Unlike some animal ingredients, leather can usually be spotted quickly, but since it’s also so ubiquitous it can just as easily be overlooked.  You’ll find leather in clothing and personal accessory items, like shoes, belts, gloves, and handbags.  It can show up unexpectedly on some of these items, such as in the case of leather [...]

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Why Vegans Don’t Use Silk

December 1, 2012 ethics
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From blouses to sarongs, suits to ties, and lingerie to pajamas, silk is still widely used by the textile industry, finding its way into sheets and pillowcases as well as handkerchiefs and headscarves. What some people may not be aware of, however, are the less-obvious places silk shows up, including parachutes, bicycle tire casing, cigar [...]

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Is Your Bread Vegan?

August 31, 2012 food & recipes
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Any processed food, including bread, is likely to have a block paragraph of polysyllabic ingredients printed on its packaging. From duck feathers to pancreatic enzymes, commercial bread provides a whole new collection of reasons for everyone to learn how to decipher an ingredients list.

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What’s Wrong with Backyard Eggs?

March 31, 2012 ethics
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As we look more closely at the reality of the backyard chicken trend, it becomes increasingly clear that it is the same commodification of animals, packaged in niche marketing to appeal to the modern “conscious consumer”.

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What’s Wrong with Wool?

December 31, 2011 ethics
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Wool often tends to be overlooked by animal advocates because its cultivation does not necessitate the death of the animal. However, the cultivation of wool is far from the pastoral idyll one might imagine.

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Remembering Donald Watson – Vegan Pioneer

November 16, 2011 ethics
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Donald Watson’s legacy extends beyond providing a name for our movement, but creating the term ‘vegan’ is certainly one of the most salient and perhaps widest reaching of his contributions. The vegans of today and tomorrow can look to Watson as a major catalyst for the formation and proliferation of our principles.

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