Here's a little full circle story about myself and animals.
When we were younger, my mom and step dad took us (five) kids camping at Watkins Glen. This was one of our best camping trips (despite my chopping fire wood turning into a goose egg).
One day my parents took us the the Farm Sanctuary. (Check out the website for more info http://www.farmsanctuary.org/). This day literally shaped the rest of my life. I was so upset to learn of the treatment of animals, that I became a vegetarian. And later I became a vegan. Then even later, my convictions waned due to convenience and to please others (I was a difficult dinner guest!).. and I began eating chicken and fish for a few years. In the last couple years, I have honed my eating to only have organic free range chicken, and fish, and limited amounts of organic eggs (p.s. there's no such thing as an organic coffee creamer!).
Recently my convictions have been creeping up on me. There were a growing number of contributing factors... like my children, and negotiating their diet with my husband, along with more reading, research, the documentary "Food Inc", a couple Oprah epsiodes... Everything seemed to come together around Christmas this year. I got three cookbooks from my mother in law. All of them are great, but I was really re-inspired by "Skinny Bitch-The Ultimate Everyday Cookbook" (http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Skinny-Bitch-Ultimate-Everyday-Cookbook-Kim-Barnouin/9780762439379-item.html?ikwid=skinny+bitch&ikwsec=Home). The preface was soo interesting to me. So over the next bit I began to do lots more vegetarian cooking, and really thinking about my meals.
Then my renewed interest in becoming more vegetarian and healthy came when I discovered one of my fave blogs. http://www.hol-fit.com/ where Ange inspired us to take part in the "January Challenge". I learned a bunch of healthy habits to incorporate into my life. The end of the challenge pushed us to eat plant based for a week. I was already doing so, but this reaffirmed my path for me.
And finally the story comes to today. I finally finished reading Skinny Bitch (the book, not the cookbook) http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Skinny-Bitch-Kim-Barnouin-Rory-Freedman/9780762424931-item.html?ikwid=skinny+bitch&ikwsec=Home. This book was great. A funny, crass read. But full of facts and information that is not necessarily common knowledge anymore. I would totally suggest it to everyone to read (and for the guys- there's "Skinny Bastard" lol). And on the final pages there were reccommended websites. Among them the Farm Sanctuary. See. Full Circle. Twenty years later. Needless to say, I went on the website. For too long, and checked out the virtual tour. I spent a while on the "investigation" part. A lot of this I already knew, but learned some new things.. It is soo soo sad how the animals are treated. This refers to factory farms in the the US. I would be curious to see how this translates North of the border. I wish that someone would do a documentary - movie or book on the treatment of farm animals in Canada. I'd be very interested.
Anyways, now I think I need to step up my vegan. The milk, and eggs sections of the virtual tour were pretty sad. I have been trying. One of my resolutions for this year was to be vegan by Dec. I really don't think it will take that long. And I'm sure shortly my sweet husband will stop offering me tuna sandwiches for lunch and the occasional egg for breakfast! :)
Thanks for the shout out girl!! Love the new blog & look forward to following! All of the books you cited made a huge difference in my life - it's hard to ignore the truth once you know it!
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