Thom Milkovic / Unsplash
Because I Must
I'm a writer. I write because I must. I've done so since I was a child; thirty years of putting words to paper (real or virtual), of extracting thoughts from…
Gemma Evans / Unsplash
No Other Choice
Children are born with compassion, but are often taught to disregard animal suffering by their parents, educators and peers. My mother tells a story where she took 3-year-old me to…
99paginas / Freepik
One of the Greatest Sins of all Time
The history of mankind is peppered with horrendous acts once deemed normal: slavery, child labor, and even cannibalism. Oftentimes, these atrocities were said to be essential for a functioning society. With…
Luke Stackpoole / Unsplash
Veganism: Common Sense Waiting To Be Common
I have a T-shirt that says “I am vegan because I love life.” That is how simple it really is to me. I deeply love the idea that I can…
The Vegan Society
Remembering Donald Watson – Vegan Pioneer
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.
Nicolas DC / Unsplash
A Light Inside
I will always live vegan because, ever since the moment my eyes were opened to the horrors and atrocities of the culture of animal exploitation pervasive throughout our current global…
Gerd Altmann / Pixabay
My Only Certainty
They say that the only things that are certain in this life are death and taxes. My imagination begs to disagree. The philosopher in me has debated death—the form of…
Ode to Joy
This is a reprint of a previously posted article. It was originally written and published in 2012. When I was five years old, I unhappily discovered that I was the only…
Mohamed Nohassi / UnSplash
Making the Vegan Resolution
The commitment to living the vegan ideal brings with it a truly new year, along with new possibilities, opportunities for creativity, and the new lease on life that comes from doing something that you know is right.
Ivan Torres / Unsplash
Kicking the Cheese Habit
For many on the threshold of welcoming the vegan shift, cheese is the final dietary challenge to overcome. But most people don't yet realize that it's an addictive substance being deliberately pushed by those who profit from keeping the population hooked on it.
ipopba / Freepik
The Ultimate Freedom
Merriam-Webster defines the word 'soul' as the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. The actuating cause of an individual life—what is veganism if not that…
rozum / Freepik
Paradise Bound
Veganism is as essential to peace as peace is to Paradise. It topples the foundation of violence and cruelty upon which our terribly imperfect governments, cultures, societies and religions are built. It frees us from the self-absorption that fuels our conflicts. It inspires an expansive and inclusive way of living heretofore unknown to our species.
2017… and here we are
Veganism is non-violence in action; a sure, safe, practical, painless, easy, highly effective and absolutely free choice that everyone can make to help save all who live from humanity's most destructive, dangerous addiction.
Javier Allegue Barros / Unsplash
Which Will We Choose?
Is there any hope at all for a peaceful resolution of the opposing forces in our nature, which are driving us mad? If so, the answer must be the pillars of sanity we call reason and compassion.
Fabricio Macedo / Pixabay
No Going Back
I was brought up in a very carnivorous environment in Brazil. My father strictly made sure my brother and I ate all kinds of foods. I remember my brother crying,…
Alison Burrell / Pexels
Reborn
There was a time when a girl, with her family, raised chickens. She trapped one or two to sell for money or dinner. She wove coconut leaves and made them…
bellito / Freepik
When Your Actions Create Victims
When your actions cause unnecessary violence and suffering to innocent beings, you have left the realm of freedom and are entering the realm of domination.
kalhh / Pixabay
If We Were They
The other animals, although born into different physical bodies are, like us, victims of circumstance. Like all people, they are who we might have been, there but for we know not what. They too, are us, if we were they.
wirestock / Freepik
My Way Home
I grew up in South Africa and experienced a number of transformative, life-changing events at an early receptive age, like trying to bargain with a female witch doctor who worked…
photoangel / Freepik
Not a Second to Lose
I was raised to eat animals, just like most children in our society. I spent 58 years condemning sentient beings to lives of ruthless exploitation that would end in brutal…
Richard Gatley / Unsplash
Holding Ourselves Accountable
We may not always be able to cross the fences and save the animals pleading for our help, but the least we can do is hold ourselves accountable for how much or how little we perpetuate an archaic system of violence.
Pexels / Pixabay
I Knew Something Wasn’t Right
For 25 years I had been living my life like most other people in my culture and society, consuming the flesh from other animals, their milk, their eggs, their honey,…
Envato Library
Pushing Through to Freedom
I will always be vegan: Because of the bear trapped in a tiny cage, continuously drained of the bile so prized by humans. The elephant whose family was shot so…
jcomp / Freepik
Why?
Why don't those who make the laws do so with respect for our essential needs, and deepest feelings? Why do we continue to cause so much suffering and death to others? Why is there so much cruelty and violence in the world?
108motiongraphic / Freepik
The Only Way to Exist
There was a time when I was unconscious, wrapped up in superficial wants. My mind was fixed on my materialistic needs. I existed purely in a little bubble of simple…
Iva Rajović / Unsplash
To Restore the Promise of Life
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a sow? She is not the “mere animal” you think you know. She senses and smells your presence. She can see your silhouette cast against the light. She advances, timidly, and seeks your eyes. Her orbs measure you, depose your shield of solid convictions and seek the empathic spark that is dormant within you.
byrdyak stock / Freepik
To Make Life Truly Just
I was born into a fog. That hazy, dreary, fog surrounded me. Everyone around me was part of that same dark haze. So normal and right it seemed to be. I never questioned, never pondered, a non-murky life. I thought life was good, and fair, and just.
Lukas Hartmann / Pexels
To "The Conscientious Omnivores"
Special thanks to JoAnn Farb for allowing us to reproduce this article from her March 2015 newsletter.
Johan Nilsson / Unsplash
Let Your Conscience Be Your God
The conscience is the one and only place inside us where reason and compassion live harmoniously, side by side. Its purpose, as should be that of any God figure, is to guide us to our better nature.
Bernhard Falkinger / Pixabay
Do Hens Care About Their Eggs?
Perhaps a more accurate way to look at a hen’s attachment to her eggs is not its presence, but its forced absence.
tirachard / Freepik
Humanity’s Next Step
I've been vegan for 36 years, therefore it is safe to say I will always be vegan. I committed to vegan living before any health benefits of the vegan diet…
gajus / Freepik
Taking Our Ethical Commitments Seriously
For me, veganism is an indispensable cornerstone, and a minimum standard, of taking the well being of others seriously. I could do more, and sometimes do, but being vegan is the very least I can do in taking my ethical commitments seriously.
RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ / Pixabay
The Power is Ours
If we want a gentle world, we must reject violence. If we want a free world, we must be willing to free our human and non-human slaves. And if we want a peaceful world, we must first find a way to make peace with ourselves and one another.
Jordan Mcqueen / Unsplash
A Better World for Us All
It’s been nearly 14 years since I had my vegan epiphany and vowed to never again partake of or participate in anything offered by the machine of violence that we…
Aenic / Pexels
The Foundation of our Higher Selves
In the heat of the summer of 1966, revolution was in the air. Black people were revolting against the injustice of whites, women against the domination of men, and young…
Jahoo Clouseau / Pexels
They Can Count On Me
This is the first irrefutable truth I discovered in my life; that eating and using animals is, no matter how you look at it, an act of abject cruelty. When…
cocoparisienne / Pixabay
Why Vegans Don’t Eat Eggs
The idea that family or backyard farms can provide an ethical alternative to battery farming ignores some of the fundamental issues at the heart of the egg issue.
PublicDomainImages / Pixabay
Nonhuman Animals Are Mothers Too
When domesticated animals become mothers, their children belong to someone else. They are nearly always separated from their young shortly after birth, and they have no power whatsoever over the future their baby will be forced to endure.
cottonbro / Pexels
The Biggest Feminist Issue There Is
In September of 2013, Gentle World's Angel Flinn was interviewed by activist Ashley Maier, whose blog explores many issues, including the interesectionality of veganism and feminism.
Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary
And These Are The Lucky Ones…
Joanna Lucas' essays on The Peaceful Prairie blog offer remarkable glimpses into the emotional lives of those who have been given ‘a second chance at life.’
Marc Pascual / Pixabay
Backyard Chicken Farming Leads to Abandoned Hens
Even for those select backyard chicken "farmers" who plan to keep their hens for the 12+ years or so that they will not be laying, there is a trail of tortured layer hens, and dead chicks in their wake.
aleksandarlittlewolf / Freepik
Could You Kill An Animal?
To actively participate in the death of an animal forces people to deaden a part of themselves, with consequences that we may not even be aware of. Is it fair to place that burden on those who carry out this despicable task in order to allow the rest of us to partake of the spoils while avoiding getting our hands dirty?
Hudson Hintze / Unsplash
Why I Love Vegans
Vegans recognize the inherent right of every animal, human or otherwise, to be the sole owner of his or her body, and they acknowledge our ethical responsibility to treat every body with respect and even reverence for the mystery that gives them life.
cookie_studio / Freepik
The Yogic Path
One rarely avoids animal products to aspire to sainthood, but it may be true that saintliness is impossible to discuss without first cleansing the body and mind of needless suffering of sentient beings.
Light and Sun Celebrating 43 Years of Veganism / Gentle World
Our Dedication Will Never Waiver
We didn't know that there was a word "vegan" at the time. There were no health food stores, no tofu, and no animal rights movement that we knew of. We have been spreading the word since we knew there was a word to spread. If we kept silent and that silence allowed more animals to suffer, we would wonder if our words could have saved their lives.
Derek Story / Unsplash
Don’t Tell Me What To Do
The following is intended to be a satire. It is an ironic look at some of the things people say when attempting to dismiss concerns about the ethics of using animals for personal gain. When these same statements are employed to defend other forms of unethical behavior, we can clearly see how absurd they really are.
Andrea Bohl / Pixabay
Something Almost Primal
It seems that the directors of the puppet show are aware that ‘primal’ is a concept that plays to the perverse desires of the lowest parts of our selves. After all, this base and brutish lust for blood has such a hold on people that we are willing to turn a blind eye to unthinkable acts of cruelty in its name.
Alison Burrell / Pexels
A Hen’s Relationship with her Eggs
During my time working around chickens, there were a number of experiences that changed my perspective on eggs and opened my heart to the hens that laid them. The first started with making a homemade “farm fresh” omelet out of eggs a friend had collected.
Lolame / Pixabay
Cage-Free? Not Free Enough.
Do these labels really indicate an improvement in ethical standards, or are they simply a way for the animal industry to regain consumer confidence in their products?
photoikigai / Freepik
A Call to Feminists
Animals of both sexes suffer under institutionalized exploitation. However, the female of the species often experiences more prolonged abuse, including an ongoing cycle of forceful artificial insemination, physical abuse of her mammary glands, and invariably being separated from her young.
wirestock / Freepik
“I Couldn’t Wait To Get My Elephant”
Teressa Groenewald-Hagerman, like every other recreational hunter, was probably weaned on the flesh of more socially-acceptable victims. When her story made news, many chose to vilify Teressa as the heartless animal abuser of the day.
wirestock / Freepik
“Dog, Horse… It’s Good Food for Us”
To be deeply saddened by the murder of a family dog is a sane reaction to a horrific occurrence. The hypocrisy begins when we shut off that sadness in reaction to the murder of other animals.
Brett Jordan / Pexels
What’s Wrong with Backyard Eggs?
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”.
Element5 Digital / Unsplash
A Beginner’s Guide to Vegan Advocacy
Given the burgeoning opportunities, advocates can pick and choose what methods and media suit their talents, personalities, preferences, and geographic locations.
Stefan Cremers
Occupy Humanity
Even many of the most progressive among us, seemingly without thought, continue to exclude certain sentient beings from the shelter of their compassion by accepting, condoning, supporting and even applauding the most unspeakable injustices perpetrated against those they see as "others," because they happened to have been born other than human.
rawpixel.com / Freepik
Animal Cruelty: Who is to Blame?
While institutionalized exploiters certainly have a lot to answer for, it is consumers who are primarily responsible for animal cruelty through their purchases of animal products.
atstockproductions / Freepik
Making a Killing with Animal Welfare Reform
The animal welfare model overwhelmingly benefits industry – not only by providing guidelines which help producers to adopt a more effective business model, but also by assuring consumers that it is possible to breed, raise, exploit, and slaughter animals in an ethical way.
formatoriginal / Freepik
Shellac & Food Glaze
Many people may not be aware that the glaze that covers some of their favorite products – including vitamins, pharmaceuticals, candy and even some fruit – may actually be made from shellac; a resin from the secretions of the female lac insect.
frimufilms / Freepik
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
The vegan concept is not a fad that will pass with time. It is a necessary shift in thinking, that will lead to a heightened empathy and concern for others.
RitaE / Pixabay
Legal Slavery in the 21st Century
As surely as the abolitionists of the past knew that no man or woman should be the property of any other, the abolitionists of today know that the legal property status of animals stands in the way of their ever receiving any meaningful rights or protection, let alone being granted the freedom to live according to their own needs and desires.
Laurent Doussot / Pixabay
An Irrefutable Truth
What a boost to my self-esteem to discover that I knew something that was absolutely right; something that no one, no matter their station in life, could convince me was wrong.
seventyfour / Freepik
Mother’s Milk
Humans are far from the only animals to experience the deep connection between mother and child. In fact, this might be one of the very experiences that is universal -- crossing all boundaries between species.
azerbaijan stockers / Freepik
Rennet
Rennet or rennin is a natural complex of enzymes produced in any mammalian stomach to help a nursing baby digest mother’s milk.
oatawa / Freepik
We Will Be Heard
In the dark days when the horrific custom of enslaving our fellow human beings was accepted behavior, the abolitionists could not, in good conscience, remain silent. We too, will continue to speak on behalf of freedom, until all beings are free.
Olga Oginskaya / Pixabay
Natural Flavors & Castoreum
Natural Flavors… The name sounds innocent enough, but these mild-sounding words are an umbrella term for some pretty horrible stuff, including certain ingredients that come from extreme animal abuse.
Jo-Anne McArthur - We Animals Media
A Call to Ethical Vegetarians
Ethical vegetarians might not be aware that the production of milk and eggs involves both tremendous cruelty and also the deaths of billions every year. Not only are these animals killed just like those raised specifically for meat, but they are kept alive longer and subjected to a tragic lifetime of slavery, including the horrific violations that come from the brutal exploitation of their reproductive systems.
Pixabay / Pexels
A Call to Environmentalists
The vegan solution contains the power to revitalize the environmental movement, because it embodies exactly what is required to inspire the necessary change: a revival and restoration of our core ethical values.
bilanol / Freepik
Humane? Ask the Animals.
Terms such as free-range, grass-fed, and humanely-raised have not only taken over the dialogue around the animal use debate, but have come to symbolize “it's okay – you can eat me now.”