I love college towns like Northampton, Massachusetts, where I recently spoke at Café Evolution (a vegan restaurant) about my book and Farm Sanctuary’s work.  Befitting the neighborhood, the audience included artists, entrepreneurs and activists, and the presentation began with a slide show by a local artist, Derek Goodwin, who has taken amazing photos at Farm Sanctuary over the years.

Before the presentation, I had a chance to walk along Main Street, which is lined with cafés and small business, catering to a young, forward looking population.  It was a hot, humid evening (nearly 100 degrees), and I picked up a refreshing ginger and juice drink. I also spoke with a college student working behind the counter at a store specializing in hemp clothing.  Not surprisingly, she was a vegetarian, and interested in animal rights and related issues.  I often leave college towns inspired by the hope and idealistic energy residing there.

I recently visited the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, MA to give a talk at an annual gathering organized by the Boston Vegetarian Society. The Peace Abbey is an interfaith organization that promotes peace and a vegan lifestyle, and actively opposes violence to both human and nonhuman animals.   I visited the Animal Rights memorial at the Abbey.  It was erected over the grave of Emily, a cow who lived at the Abbey after jumping over a fence to escape from the slaughterhouse.  Like Farm Sanctuary, the Peace Abbey urges religious and spiritual communities to include all of creation (including farm animals) within our circle of compassion.

When I travelled to Minneapolis to speak at the Midwest Animal Advocacy Conference, I was happy to see grassroots activism alive and well.  The conference was organized by Compassionate Action for Animals, and prior to attending, I read and very much appreciated the group’s core values. Around 200 registered for the event, including some who had visited and worked at Farm Sanctuary and several who had attended our demonstration at the South St. Paul stockyard back in 1991 to call for an end to the suffering of downed animals.  I’m glad to say that all farm animal suffering has ceased at the South St. Paul stockyard, which closed earlier this year.

I recently had an opportunity to speak at WorldFest 2008, Los Angeles’ largest Earth Day celebration.  It is a vegan, solar powered event that promotes sustainable living. Besides nonprofit organizations and conscientious businesses, thousands of citizens attended, enjoying a wide range of plant foods, informative presentations, and wonderful art and music. WorldFest challenges the harmful status quo and points toward a better way.

When it comes to how food is produced and how most people eat in the U.S., “bad has become normal,” and the tragic consequences are becoming more and more apparent.  Billions of animals are brutally slaughtered, and millions of consumers suffer from preventable health problems. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Sometimes people assume certain ailments, allergies for example, are “normal” without realizing that their food (eg. dairy) causes them.  I’ve spoken with individuals who had allergies and routinely took medication to remedy them.  But those ailments, and the need for medication, subsided when they became vegan.  Eating vegan solves many problems at the root.

In 1986, Farm Sanctuary was one of the few places in the U.S. where vegan was “normal”, but thankfully, that is changing.  And although vegans currently represent a very small percentage of the U.S. population (perhaps 1 or 2 percent), there is a burgeoning awareness about the benefits of vegan living, and change is in the air.

Gene 

I visited Chico, California to speak at a Barnes & Noble bookstore.  Like with other talks, I appreciated the participation of audience members, especially when questions come up that I have difficulty answering, like whether or not cats can be vegetarian.  Often, someone in the audience offers a more educated perspective than I.  In Chico, I described some easy vegan dishes, including how I sometimes just heat up noodles with a sauce made of margarine, nutritional yeast, Braggs, salt and pepper.  A woman in the audience grimaced when I mentioned margarine because it can be so unhealthy.  And the group was reminded that it’s better to use certain oils, like olive oil, in place of margarine. 

I also spoke to two agriculture business classes at California State University, Chico, comprised largely of students involved in the farming industry.  They spouted various assumptions that support animal production, including the notions that meat is healthful, that producing it is efficient, and that consumers around the world want more meat. I encouraged them to examine these assumptions, and to consider whether growing plants instead of animals is a more efficient and healthful way to provide food for consumers in the U.S. and abroad.

Gene 

After speaking at Borders Books in Los Gatos, California, I went out to dinner in nearby San Jose with a dozen activists involved in a major campaign.  They played a key role in collecting signatures to place an initiative on the California ballot for this coming November, which aims to ban three cruel confinement systems: veal crates, gestation crates, and battery cages.  Thanks to the hard work and dedication of these and other caring citizens, Californians voters will have a chance to lessen the suffering of nearly 20 million animals in the state on Election Day this November.  (More information on the campaign is at www.humanecalifornia.org.)

Gene

I spoke in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on the Delmarva Peninsula, an area known for intensive poultry production. A woman who attended the talk is an accountant and works for a contract poultry grower (an individual who raises chickens on his/her own land under contract for a large, integrated poultry company).  The accountant agreed with my book’s description of how contract growers often live like surfs on their own property.  They provide most of the capital and labor to raise chickens that are owned and controlled by corporations.  Contract growers often go into debt to meet their contractual obligations, and when they receive checks for their labor, it often goes directly to pay off debt.

I recently visited Atlanta, Georgia where I spoke at Borders books to a standing-room-only crowd.  Many citizens heard about the horrors of factory farming for the first time.  From Atlanta, I traveled to Athens, Georgia where I spoke at the University of Georgia and at a Montessori School. 

Some agriculture students came to my presentation at the University, where I said the “natural” label was meaningless in terms of describing farmed animals’ lives, and that meat from factory farmed animals given hormones and antibiotics was being sold as “natural.”  A stunned ag student said I was wrong and that “natural” meat was not produced with drugs and hormones.  I responded that while some farmers may sell “natural” meat from animals who are not given stimulants or drugs, the “natural” label is commonly and legally used on packages of meat from chemically enhanced, abused animals.  As with other labels, the “natural” label does not comport with consumers’ expectations. 

The morning after my talk at the University of Georgia, I spoke with more than 200 children at a Montessori School.  When asked if they liked animals, the whole group enthusiastically raised their hands, and then erupted into stories.  There is such a natural connection children seem to have with animals, and they also have an innocence and sense of wonderment, which was joyfully apparent as the teaming mass of childhood gathered for our discussion. 

Click here to watch the full presentation video.
For the audio version, click here.

Gainesville
My book tour recently brought me to five cities across Florida – Gainesville, Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale, and Miami.  The last time I spent this much time in Florida was during the initiative campaign between 2000 and 2002 to outlaw gestation crates.  It was great to reconnect with activists who worked on that successful effort (enacting the first U.S. law to ban a cruel factory farm confinement system) as well as to see many new faces.

I spoke at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and met enthusiastic activists working to protect animals. The animal rights group on campus was founded to help during the initiative campaign, and I was happy to see it’s still going strong.  The day I visited, the campus group fed hundreds of students free vegan food! 

A woman who came to my presentation said she is studying for a career in animal agriculture and knows the manager of the University of Florida pig farm who I mention in the book.  After my presentation, I told her that I hoped the farm manager was happy with what I wrote about him, and that several industry officials, including a vice president of the National Pork Producer’s Council, have agreed with his insight.  When the pig farm manager and I met during the initiative campaign, he commented that “pigmanship” is missing on today’s farms.

Orlando
It was great to see a burgeoning vegetarian community in Orlando, along with restaurants providing a variety of tasty vegan options.  My presentation was hosted by Ethos Vegan Kitchen, where I had an amazing vegan Philly Cheese Steak sandwich.  I had heard about several places serving vegan Philly Cheese Steaks when I was in Philadelphia, but was not able to try one there, so I was happily satisfied to enjoy one in Orlando.  The owner of another veg friendly restaurant came to the presentation and explained how she was a meat eater when she went into the restaurant business, but after learning more about the food industry, she became vegetarian and has moved her establishment in that direction.

Tampa
I stayed with a friend in Tampa and grabbed a juicy refreshing grapefruit from a tree in his back yard.  I love being able to obtain food in such a direct way.  

At my talk at Borders, a concern was raised about cloned animals entering the food supply, which is shockingly allowed by the Food and Drug Administration despite widespread public concern and opposition to the practice.  The notion of eating cloned animals is upsetting to most people, so in response, the industry has put a “voluntary” moratorium in place.  Let’s hope it becomes permanent.

South Florida
My last two presentations in Florida were in a warm, sunny part of the state with famous beaches.  One was at Sublime Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale and another was at Books & Books near Miami. Both were attended by long time Farm Sanctuary members, as well as citizens just becoming aware of problems associated with animal agriculture. Sublime is a phenomenal vegan restaurant, serving quality food in a spectacular venue, and I enjoyed an amazing meal there after my talk.

I had a chance to visit with several Farm Sanctuary supporters, including some who have lived in Florida since the 1940s.  They described how profoundly the state has changed.  Unspoiled natural areas have been ruined as our human foot print has gotten bigger and bigger.  Sadly, this is too common an experience in many parts of our country. As one of my favorite artists sang, “you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone… they paved paradise and put up a parking lot… .” 

We’re finally beginning to recognize the importance of adjusting our behavior, and taking small steps to lighten our impact, including correcting mistakes.  I recently visited a grassy field that had been covered with asphalt and made into a parking lot.  But given the area’s significance (it was where the University of Georgia played its first football game in 1892) and in an effort to create more green space, the asphalt was removed, and the area returned to a more earthy state.

There is a forward looking Animals and Public Policy graduate program at Tufts University veterinary school, and I was invited to speak to the class.  The students raised a variety of thoughtful questions about how we treat other animals, and we had an engaging discussion.  Afterwards, I spoke to a larger assembly of students and faculty members at the veterinary school, and fielded their questions and comments, which reflected common attitudes and assumptions that are still embodied in many veterinary programs across the U.S.  Sadly, veterinary students (like medical students) often become hardened to their patients’ suffering, while individuals hoping to help animals by becoming veterinarians have abandoned the idea because they didn’t want to engage in inhumane practices and attitudes, which are in conflict with their values. In fact, many of the folks who work at our sanctuaries with the animals followed this path. While there is an increasing awareness about the importance of promoting compassion and ethical conduct in veterinary (and medical) practice, we still have a long way to go….