We have a sick fish in our house and while searching for advice I came across RSPCA guidelines on euthanasing fish (interesting) and RSPCA guidelines on killing fish for food (more interesting).
Personally I have never fished in my life because even as a child I found it an abhorrent bloodsport. However, as I'm sure we all have, I have witnessed my fair share of fishing. Now, the accepted method of fishing sees fish being pulled from the water and left out in the air to die by suffocation (how 'fun'!). Occasionally I have also seen them put into containers of icy water.
Interestingly, the RSPCA states that both of these methods are "not suitable for killing fish as they do not result in a rapid or humane death". Honestly, I was very surprised (pleasantly surprised) at this considering that the RSPCA endorses practices such as 'barn laid' eggs. So what are the killing methods considered 'humane'? A forceful blow to the head rendering unconsciousness followed by bleeding out, or spiking the brain (which should render the fish unconscious as soon as the spike enters the brain). So, how many people have you seen doing that?!
Unfortunately, despite all Australian animal welfare legislations covering vertebrates (which fish obviously are) in WA and my home state of SA fish are specifically excluded from cruelty protection. This is totally unacceptable and ridiculous! Animals are animals, pain is pain, suffering is suffering. Again, surprisingly the RSPCA agrees (it's not often that we see eye-to-eye) stating that "Because there is clear evidence that fish are sentient animals capable of experiencing pain and suffering, RSPCA Australia believes that fish should be uniformly protected under State and Territory animal welfare legislation."
So be a voice for sea kittens! Share this information and hopefully fish-killing-type-people will start to re-think their actions.
Happy reading and advocating! :)
I have a bit of a difficult situation facing me. I am going out for dinner tonight with some old work colleagues. The dinner was organised months ago and I have not seen them for about the same time. When they booked the dinner, they were very concerned about making sure that my vegetarian dietary requirements could be met. Most places serve vegetarian food but these colleagues always worry that there won't be any food for me. They are very lovely and I really appreciated the effort they put in and the concern they showed. However, in the months since I have seen them, I have become vegan. At the present time it is quite unusual for a 'mainstream' restaurant to serve vegan food.
I really feel that I have to go, and I can't now turn around and say, "Oh I know you made such an effort to find somewhere that made vegetarian food, but I'm vegan now and there's nothing here I will eat". This leaves me with only one option. I must eat non-vegan food. I must eat dairy and eggs, thus supporting the very cruelty I want to cut out from my life.
This is a very difficult choice for me but I feel that I should support the effort that my colleagues put into having dinner with me. It does mean that my money will be funding the industries I no longer wish to support, and therefore feed the cycle of consume and demand, but at the same time I will be supporting people who have taken it upon themselves to learn so much about vegetarianism and accommodate their own views as a result.
So I guess this means that my vegan challenge will have to be suspended for one night so that I can support the gradually changing views of these old colleagues. I feel really bad but I know that at the same time I am doing good. I will therefore be extending my vegan challenge by an extra day (to Easter Monday), to make up for this day involving non-vegan eating.
I'm also a bit worried about how my body will react. Since going vegan, I have felt so much healthier and I have so much more energy. Over my years of being vegetarian, there were a few times when I accidentally ate something containing meat. On these occasions I got quite sick, and it wasn't psychological! Apparently it's quite a common occurrence, that the more people cut out meat and animal products, the better they feel, but the reverse is true if you go in the opposite direction. I believe that cutting out dairy has been a big factor in how healthy I feel today, so I'm worried how I will feel after eating a meal no doubt covered in cheese. I guess only time will tell!
So I have been doing a lot of thinking about veganism, how I want to go vegan, and the barriers to me doing that. The main thing holding me back is dairy. I eat a lot of it, it's in most of the main meals we cook, and I don't like vegan alternatives. Also, Jeff not even being vegetarian makes me going vegan difficult. What will we eat? Will we have to make separate meals? I don't want him to miss out on anything.
When I went vegetarian in 2007, I knew it was something I personally would be able to do. The question was, how would it work within my non-vegetarian household? After talking to my family, I decided I would go vegetarian over lent. At the end of lent we would sit down and review how the past 46 days (there are actually 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, weirdly) had gone and whether we thought my being vegetarian would be workable. We decided it was all working fine so I stayed vegetarian. However, my mum said once that if I wanted to be vegan I'd have to wait until I left home. I have left home now but that still doesn't make it any easier because now I live with Jeff.
After a night of barely any sleep, worrying all night about dairy cows, chickens, and queen bees, I was racked with guilt. I looked up the dates for lent 2012 to show myself that I'd already missed the boat but... lent starts this Wednesday! Now I'm faced with a whole new set of problems and worries. Do I trial being vegan over lent to show myself that I can do it? What will I do then? Stay vegan? Aim to do lots of research, collect recipes, etc and then do it again next year with the aim of staying vegan? How will this work living with Jeff? What about parties, dinners, etc that are already organised for the lent period? Where will I go out for dinner? What about on holidays and stuff? It's hard enough to find vegetarian food in some places, let alone vegan. What about family members who cook for me? What about Jeff's poor mum who, bless her, tries so hard to cook vegetarian food. She'll die if I say I'm vegan. How, oh how, can I live without dairy? And mead! I love mead! And crunchy nut cornflakes,and milo, and nutella, and porridge! The honey porridge with the bear on it that I've been eating my whole life! I feel very sad but at the same time I know that I can't keep supporting the cruelty I am supporting.
So I'm thinking I'm going to try it and play it by ear. I'll start on Thursday though because dinner for Wednesday is already planned and has cheese in it. I'm worried I don't know enough recipes off the top of my head to stop me from becoming vitamin and mineral deficient. It's far too easy to eat a crappy diet when you first become vegetarian or vegan. I'm also not a big fan of tofu.
Ok, so now that the first, heavy, posts are done, congratulations if you read them and now onto a slightly shorter one!
Here's a dilemma! What if you want to be vegetarian but your partner doesn't? Don't let it stop you I say! My partner, Jeff, is not vegetarian and it works well for us. It's all about negotiation and figuring out what's going to work for you.
As part of this blog, readers will see all of the food I eat each day, Jeff's diet is very similar to mine as we have the same dinner and we do not have any non-vegetarian food in our house. However, if we go out to eat, he will usually have something with meat in it. He also buys pies etc for lunch while at work. Having a non-vegetarian spouse is sometimes very difficult, it hurts me that he doesn't feel the same way I do about animal rights and ethics but I have to accept that I can't force him to experience the word as I do.
If he wants to become vegetarian, he has to come to that conclusion himself and for his own reasons. If you're in the same boat as me then I suggest you learn to accept the same thing! If a person is not committed to the cause then they're going to 'give in', not truly understand or care about what they're doing, or be able to give passionate arguments to others. For this reason, I encourage you to educate others, but don't try to 'convert' them.
