McCruelty Petitioning and Protest

So last Friday, June 26, I focused on Peta's McCruelty campaign. I started the day with petitioning in D.C. with Peta2. Regina, Peta2's D.C. coordinator, and Ryan, Peta2's college coordinator, organized the petitioning in McPherson Square where the Animal Liberation Project was temporarily set up. Although this location was less than ideal for petitioning since most of the people walking through the area were business people rushing on lunch break or homeless people giving us a hard time we did collect a good number of signatures and explained our cause to everyone willing to listen. I also got to walk through the Animal Liberation Project, which was great because I had heard about it but hadn't seen it yet.

After the petitioning I drove up to Philly and did a demonstration at a McDonalds in South Philly. We had ten activists, including one in a chicken suit which attracted a lot of attention from everyone driving by. If the chicken suit didn't catch their attention our posters were sure to. We had a graphic poster of a chicken reading "Scaled Alive", as well as others that read "Boycott McDonald's Cruelty", "Broken Legs and Wings", and "McCruelty, I'm Hatin' It". We also gave out free UN-happy meals. My next McCruelty event will be a huge demonstration in D.C. that is being filmed for a documentry on July 11.

Olympic Shame Day

Last Tuesday, June 23, I organized an Olympic Shame Day Demo for the Canadian Seal Slaughter that was held at the Canadian Consulate in Philadelphia, PA. It was the first demo I've ever organized and it was a great experience! Peta sent me several posters and a stack of leaflets, and I made several posters as well. A fellow activist had told me that creating posters was like therapy to her, and I couldn't agree more. Ten activists showed up for the demonstration, and for the most part everyone was really receptive and willing to take leaflets and even talk to us about the cause, which was awesome. I'm doing a tour through Pennsylvania with Peta for the boycott of Canadian Maple Syrup to stop the Canadian Seal Slaughter next week, so I'll let you know how that goes!

Sunshine Burgers = Amazing

So I am absolutely in love with sunshine burgers. They are one of the few kinds of vegan veggie burgers that are soy free and gluten free out there. I have only tried the original and garden herb but both were fantastic! I personally like to eat them Food for Life Brown Rice toast, since I have yet to find a hamburger bun that I can actually eat. In addition to original and garden herb they sell barbecue, southwest, falafel, and breakfast, so I'll let you know how they are once I try them! All of their burgers are vegan, soy free, and gluten free!

Philly Zoo "Zoobilee" Demo

So I went to my first zoo demonstration tonight. The Philly Zoo hosts a "fundraiser" every year called "Zoobilee" that actually LOSES money every single year yet they continue to host it. Just over a year ago, one of their elephants, Petal, died after collapsing at 4am and being unable to rise for 5 hours until she finally died at 9am. Her necropsy report showed that she was suffering from undiagnosed arthritis and a chronic heart condition. The arthritis was so severe in her hips, elbows, and knees that it prevented her from rising. These conditions are only found in zoo captive elephants; they are never found in elephants in the wild. The Philadelphia Zoo is currently planning on sending its two remaining elephants, Bettie and Kallie, to a breeding facility. Both Bettie and Kallie are 27 years old and breeding for the first time at their age is not only unlikely to happen, but also puts them at an increased risk of health problems. Through petitions, it is our goal that the Philadelphia Zoo will decide to send Bettie and Kallie to a sanctuary instead.

Grilled "Cheese" for the Kids at Heart

As a soy-free vegan I've never tried any cheese alternatives, up until now, because almost all of them are soy based. However, I recently decided to attempt to make grilled cheese. Considering I despise every gluten-free bread I've ever tried, I was skeptical about how it would turn out. I was pleasantly surprised to actually like it!

For the grilled "cheese" I used Kinnikinnick's Sunflower Flax Seed Bread and Galaxy Nutritional Foods American Flavor Rice. I cooked it using a George Foreman Grill, the cheese melted great, and the bread grilled great! I made Ian's Alphatots and steamed broccoli with it. For those of you who have never heard of Ian's check out their website here, they have a lot of allergy friendly foods that actually taste good!

About my Allergies

Alright, so since I'm going to be posting a lot of recipes and tips and tricks here for my fellow vegans with food allergies I figured I should give you the low down on my allergies. I'm allergic to dairy, eggs, and shellfish, but being vegan naturally takes care of those allergies. In addition, I'm allergic to soy, gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, cocoa, vinegar, tomatoes and olives. My diet may sound pretty restricted, but there are a lot of foods and recipes out there that you would never think to try that are actually really good! More on that in the future, but for now check out the Enjoy Life website, all of their foods are vegan and free of the 8 most common allergens (wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish, and shellfish)! They sell cookies, snack bars, trail mix, granola, bagels, chocolate chips, and chocolate bars. So far I've only tried their Gingerbread, Happy Apple, and Snickerdoodle cookies but all of them were excellent, especially heated up!

Shrine Circus Demo

I attended my first demonstration ever yesterday. It was a Shrine Circus Demo in Plymouth Meeting, PA with the Animal ACTivsts of Philly. There were only three of us there, but Marianne and Gigi were awesome and it was great to meet people who actually understand my passion about animal rights. During our demonstration the trainers actually allowed the two elephants to graze in the field behind us, we suspect to make passerbys believe our signs about animal abuse were false. However, while the elephants were grazing the two trainers paid no attention to them and allowed one of them to wander quite far away, which put everyone at extreme risk if they were to get spooked. (See photo above) I was also bothered by the fact that they did not even take the harnesses off of them while they were not performing.

Marianne and Gigi attended a prior showing of the circus to see what they were forcing the elephants to do. They informed me that the announcer persuaded the audience to believe that the elephants were performing because they said the magic word "please", when in actuality it was because the trainer picked up the bullhook. I was shocked when they informed me that one of the elephants they were forcing to perform was injured. While the elephants were grazing in the field behind us, it was very obvious that this elephant was extremely injured as she barely moved around and was not putting any weight on her back left leg. (See photo above)

To read more about the horrors behind Shrine Circuses, click here.