A Response to the Mercy for Animals Undercover Investigation of Brutality on an Ohio Dairy Farm

Earlier today, I put a link on my Facebook page to the undercover video, posted by Mercy for Animals, of brutality on a dairy farm in Ohio. My post elicited many comments and questions, and it felt important to immediately address them, which I’m doing here so that everyone can read these thoughts. You can [...]

MOGO Hero: Lynn Henning

I’m going to start a new theme in my blog posts – MOGO Hero. Periodically, I’ll highlight a modern-day, ordinary hero whose efforts do the most good (MOGO). Today, I’m beginning with Lynn Henning, a Michigan woman who just won the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize for North America for her work to fight CAFOs in [...]

Why Sometimes, Against All Sense, I Grow Food

It’s bizarrely warm in Maine. The ice on our pond broke up a month early, and we haven’t had a snowstorm since January. The only remnants of snow and ice are deep in the woods. So on a 60-degree March day, I decided to work in the garden and prepare it for spring (I know [...]

The Hazards of Meat-Eating Hit the Mainstream Media

I’ve been vegan for twenty years. As I learned about the plight of animals in modern agriculture from Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, John Robbins’ Diet for a New America and numerous undercover films that showed the conditions under which the great majority of animals are raised for food, I knew I didn’t want to participate [...]

Outrunning Wildebeest?

A recent New York Times article, “The Human Body is Built for Distance,” (which follows several recent deaths of marathoners), has this to say about running: “Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because [...]

Widening Our Criteria for MOGO Food Choices

Food is in the news, and many people are considering what’s MOGO (Most Good) when they make their food choices. But making MOGO food choices can be complicated. Taking into consideration what’s best for people, animals, the environment, and oneself in a system that is extremely complex isn’t easy. Periodically, a food movement will emerge [...]

The Low-Carbon Diet

“Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top. “My carnivore’s lust goes beyond the DNA level. It’s in my soul. Even the cruelty of factory [...]

Telling the Ecological and Economic Truth

In an interview in this month’s issue of Ode Magazine, Lester Brown, founder of the WorldWatch Institute refers to Oystein Dahle, a former vice-president of Exxon in Norway, to whom he attributes this quote: “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth and capitalism may collapse because it does [...]

Why Would Bob Herbert Slight the Animals?

In his editorial, “State of Shame,” Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes about the plight of workers at a foie gras factory farm in upstate New York. He states: “Animal-rights advocates have made a big deal about the way the ducks are force-fed to produce the enormously swollen livers from which thefoie gras [...]

Replacing Red Meat With White?

With the Swine Flu (H1N1) scaring people away from eating pigs, articles like “Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat” in the New York Times, and environmentalists’ success at drawing connections between beef and global warming, more and more people are eschewing red meat. Unfortunately, many are replacing red meat with “white” — that is, [...]