Choice

Sept 2008 -- Short film produced for Discovery Channel contest...




Full Size Version Located Here

The Story of Stuff - Video

as mentioned previously, "The Story of Stuff" is a great video that shows how wasteful we are as a society. Its 20 min long but well worth the time! Really ties in with our blog...





full size version located here (link will take you away from this site)

Why do people continue to eat meat?

Conan the Vegetarian

There is a very simple reason why people continue to eat meat -- Tradition!

Their mothers and their mothers before that told their kids, "eat your meat to grow up to be big and strong!"But let's face it, our forefathers did not have the same scientific knowledge as we have today.

Reality check: Only 20 years ago there was no such thing as a fax machine! If there was it was certainly in its infancy! There were no cell phones or microchip computers either. A computer back then took up a whole room!

Rewind to 50,000 years ago were early man would sit in their tribe and watch the saber tooth tiger take down a deer for instance. Since then, the tribes thought that hunting animals might be a good idea and the tradition has been passed down from generation to generation.

But clearly we were not designed as carnivores. In case you haven't noticed, we do not look like wolves, or saber tooth tigers for that matter. In fact we have very long digestive tracts designed more for extracting nutrients over a longer period of time from plant based diets.

We have hands that were made for cultivating and growing things not long sharp claws used for ripping. Even Ben Johnson on steroids could not run as fast as a wolf to catch its dinner!


Did you know that adopting a vegetarian diet, automatically saves more carbon dioxide emissions than if you were to stop driving your car altogether!?

In fact all the cars planes trains automobiles on the planet do not create as much carbon dioxide emissions as the production of factory farmed animals! And that's not even including the poisoning of the water supplies created by factory farming! The factory farms are not even policed to the extent of say an oil refinery yet they pollute in most cases even more!

As Paul McCartney says, a vegetarian diet takes care of many things all in one shot --- Humanitarian -- animal cruelty- ecological- world famine All just by refusing to eat meat!

Do you know what a small change it is? it is as simple as moving your shopping from one aisle of the grocery store to the next! Instead of shopping in the meat aisle, shop in the vegetarian isle! Most grocery stores today support vegetarian diets (if yours doesn't, change stores) if you must have things that look and taste like meat, there are entire lines of products, veggie burgers -- look and taste like "real burgers" without the animals in them. There are veggie hot dogs that you could not tell the difference between your typical hotdog -- except that there are no animals in them in them.

if you saw a dead bird in your fridge, you would probably freak -- so why is it OK to see a dead chicken there?Why do cows get slaughtered, but horses get praised?Why do you love your pet, but in other areas of the world they are considered a delicacy?

Honestly now, if you were forced to have to go out, kill a cow (or a chicken or pig for that matter) -- no wait a minute..If you had to take a baby calf away from its mother when it was very young, then raise it all its life, nurture it for the two years it would take to grow to its mature size (factory farms have this down to 15 months) then one day, kill it, cut off the head and the legs, pull all the inners out, skin it, then eat what's left -- would you be able to continue to eat meat?Most of us wouldn't. It's just not natural.

When you go to the grocery store, and pick up a slice of meat or a chicken where all this dirty work is being done for you, you are contributing to that process. And you can avoid it by simply buying alternative foods! In fact you don't even need the taste likes that is just because tradition has rammed into our heads that we need to eat meat -- I don't even eat that stuff maybe once in awhile but it is a good way of weaning yourself off of meat to see that you really don't need it. We can have a completely balanced diet without animal protein.

There's something about protein:

Another thing, people are so hung up on protein! again because of the media, people are told to eat so much protein, but then they get hungry! We can't forget that carbs ( carbohydrates) are the body's fuel ( all things in moderation).

The body really doesn't need that much of it and what it doesn't need it gets rid of! The average person only needs .5 of a gram of protein per body weight per day! Bodybuilders ramp that number up to 2 g of protein per body weight -- and yet it is argued that not all of that is being used. Steroids contribute to the bodies metabolic rate.

If you're on steroids you may be able to metabolize more protein. But even that in itself will not make you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and less you intend to spend every day in the gym.In fact if you're still interested in bodybuilding and really concerned about your diet you should check outhttp://www.billpearl.com/career.asp Bill Perl is a famous bodybuilder who won practically every title there was going and he was a vegetarian! (Lots of steroids no doubt -- but no animals!) So if you can create a world famous bodybuilder physique through a vegetarian diet, there is no reason why the average person needs to consume animals.

Thanks for reading.

Why buy New when Used will do?

This goes for everything! (Except food maybe)

Along with our theme of saving the planet (before it's too late - December 21, 2012) any time you can buy something used will help the planet!

You need to see this short video www.thestoryofstuff.com for a full explanation.

Some people believe there is a stigma attached to buying used stuff, but look what you say when you buy something previously enjoyed;

1. First and foremost, you are not contributing to the demand for that item
2. Second and possibly most importantly, for the most part, people buy used stuff nearby them, therefore you're saving shipping
3. Don't get me started on politics but in the number three position is tax savings! This is so hypocritical -- I mean there's no way for the tax man to go around to all the yard sales and find out who's making what on what item and try to grab them for another tax. However it when you buy a used item through a secondhand store, you have to pay tax! Tax it was already paid on that item! If you buy a secondhand car from a dealership, guess what?more tax! Anyway the point is, to buy things secondhand and avoid the tax.
4. Of course it's great for the seller as well. While the seller might not make money on it (sometimes they do) they stand a chance of recuperating some of the money that they paid for the item in the first place.
5. The item doesn't go to landfill! Whether you pay for the item or get it for free, the fifth reason to deal with used goods is to save them from going to a landfill site!
6. Did I mention you will be saving money as well?

Once you see the video www.thestoryofstuff.com, you will totally agree with this post!

Why hybrid cars won't help

Hybrid cars won't help stop global warming or emmissions at least not in the short-term.

For the most part, people will have a car to trade on a new hybrid. (For the .1% of the population that doesn't have a car and this is their first car ever, please ignore this post) When you trade in your car on a hybrid, the dealer is not going to scrap your car. Chances are he's going to sell it to somebody else -- whether that's another dealer or a public buyer. Your car will be going into the hands of somebody else who will still be using it -- maybe more than you did! Therefore from our little exercise of buying a hybrid, means there are now two cars on the road. Your old one and a hybrid! Cars may get old and rusty but they still run. It usually takes an accident to send them to the scrap pile or many years of use and abuse.

I believe the hybrid is nothing more than a marketing scheme to get the public to buy more new cars! Oil companies still love the hybrid car, because instead of saving, overall oil consumption and gas use will go up!

Maybe in the long term, the hybrid cars will help out a little bit, but in order for that to occur many things have to happen;

• The hybrid car must outlast the old car that you traded in! I mean with today's cars, who's to say that the hybrid car will last longer than your old car? wouldn't it be a total drag if you're trading kept running and the hybrid packed it in? in that case there would be no savings in the short term or the long-term!
• As much as I love to support the economy, buying a new car hybrid or not, simply adds to the problem. You need to watch the short video; www.thestoryofstuff.com the video talks about how our whole system is set up for failure.
• Once you see that video you'll realize how much simpler it is just to stop eating meat! Contributing to anything new, simply feeds the machine!

It's no wonder so many sourcespoint to the date of December 21st 2012! This is the date of the Mayan calendar predicts will be the end of the world! Not only the Mayans, but Nostradamus, Edgar Casey, and even the Web Bot Program -- a program set up initially to attempt to predict stock market trends, found itself making other predictions! It also pointed to the date of December 21, 2012! What's more concerning is that all these predictors with seemingly accurate pasts, all point to that same date! And they did so hundreds of years apart, from different corners of the globe!

How could all of these different people (and even a computer program) that never knew each other predict the same date in history, hundreds of years in the future?

Their predictions were made at a time on earth when there was no way of these different parties collaborating! It wasn't like Nostradamus could phone up the Mayans and say what you think we should predict for today?

When you look at the way the world is going, one has to wonder if we are on such a path?

How much can this planet take?

• Raking the seas of life
• Chopping down rain forests at the rate of 150 acres per minute!
• Decreasing the amount of oxygenating plant life!
• Wiping out entire species of plants and animals at the rate of approximately 100 per day!
• Using up life-giving resources such as freshwater to process cattle with!?

And most people just shrug their shoulders and go on with their day.

You don't need to go out and buy a $30,000 hybrid car. All you need to do is stop eating meat.

Getting back to the subject of cars, a better option would be to buy a 100% electric car or better yet, convert your existing car to electric!

If you Google it, you will find some companies that will do this for you. Generally they are based in California and it is expensive to do so. Probably less expensive to buy a fully electric car.

The advantage of buying electric car is seen right away. Although your old car might still be on the road, there is an immediate benefit, because one car doesn't burn any gas at all!

But the key to the fully electric cars is that we have to make sure that they are recharged using renewable sources! That is the power to read charge the cars must come from solar wind and wave, or other fully renewable sources. It would be totally backward to have to add more coal burning power plants in order to keep up with the power demand of electric cars wouldn't it?

Can you do it?

I think until we are prepared to bring up a baby animal from birth for two years, then one day decide to kill it, tear the skin off, throw away the parts we are not going to eat, that is cut off the head and legs, and the inners -- until we can do that, I don't think we should be getting someone else to do it for us. For those that say that man was meant to eat animals, you can't tell me it's natural -- it's about as natural as a pack of cows going out hunting together running after a deer, taking it down, and ripping apart! That's obviously not natural and neither is man killing animals.

It's something we can clearly live without.

We live in an age, where information has never been more abundant to the average person. Television, radio waves and Internet signals are sent through phone lines, cables, and even through the air via satellites. The entire globe as in touch with itself as it has ever been!

Don't forget even 50 years ago we didn't even have fax machines! Go back a hundred years, do you think any of our grandfathers knew about how much protein was available in nuts, grains and other products like that?

No it's clearly tradition mixed in with some brainwashing from corporations.

The pig dance

Years ago I attended an ethnic wedding. About halfway through some men come out of the kitchen dancing around carrying a plate above their heads. I didn't really know what was going on but as they got closer I realized that there was a dead pig on the plate!

To add insult to injury, there was a fruit stuffed in its mouth and its eyes were gouged out and in its place where some other type of fruit. Other than that the carcass was fully intact.

The concept was that from tradition, you're supposed to spot these guys some money and they will come by and cut a piece of the pig off for you!

I wouldn't give them $20 just to stay away -- Fuck tradition! Again this is something that has been carried on from generation to generation! Who's to say that today's so-called intelligent people are supposed to succumb to something that was invented years ago when they couldn't even communicate with each other?

I don't care if I upset anybody, but I wasn't getting near that pig.

Regardless of tradition -- what more horrific thing could you think of doing at a wedding!? It's supposed to be a time of gathering word to people are coming together as 1 -- a time of celebration and thought of the future -- like a birth if anything but what did they do because of tradition? Dance around with the dead carcass of the pig and try to feed it to you!

Does that make any sense at all? Am I talking to anybody?

Don't lie to yourself!

For me one of the biggest factors in the decision not to eat meat, was simply one of truth.

The majority of the population, me included for most of my life, turns a blind eye to where dinner comes from.

One would think that most people know where comes from, but few actually do anything about it. Most just shrugged their shoulders and say "well that's just the way it is".

In the previous post we talked about in neurolinguistic programming (NLP) -- I can tell you 100% for certain that "the way it is" is only a personal view! It's a programming -- a script that runs in our heads and it was more than likely program there by people that we don't even know! Even if we think we didn't pay much attention to the McDonald's ad on TV, robotically, the script keeps playing in the back of our head, and the corporations have made it very simple for us to go and buy their food. Now you don't even have to get out of your car! You just drive through tell them what you want and give them your money and "food" appears on the other side -- far removed from the factory farms were portions of it came from.

Fact number two, contrary to popular belief, animals do not have to die for humans to live! Nobody ever died from starvation from eating a well-balanced vegan or vegetarian diet.

There are alternatives, there are choices! You have the choice! We have choices! But the animals do not! Because as you are reading this, millions of animals are in slaughterhouses waiting for "their turn to be served" "can I help the next in line please?"

Let me tell you if you make the commitment to date not to eat any meat for the next 30 days, after five to 10 days, your mind will open up to the alternatives and you will see that it's not that hard. It's no harder thinking about what to cook for dinner on a vegetarian diet that is on an animal based diet -- it takes the exact same amount of thought process.

Your receptors open to it! -- it's like if you bought a red car, all of a sudden, you notice so many more red cars on the road! It's because the receptors in your brain are open to this now.

And believe me it's not that hard if I can do it anyone can! Instead of buying from isle number one you will be buying from isle number two -- that's about the only difference!

I'm not going to rewrite the book on recipes because there are all kinds of that on the Internet but I will provide you with some links;

Recipes etc.

Making the Transition

This page has lots of recipes and additional info

What about a simple spinach ricotta and Manicotti?

Recipe for 10 Manicotti: 10 dry lasagna noodles (the 4 " wide, straight noodles), 1 cup frozen spinach, thawed and drained, 1 1/2 pound ricotta cheese, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 2 cups tomato sauce, salt, pepper, freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Bring 2.5 litres of water to a boil and drop the lasagna noodles inside one by one. Stir gently to make sure they don't stick together and boil for 12 minutes. Drain the noodles and immediately cool them down in iced water for 1 minute. In a mixing bowl combine the spinach, ricotta cheese, egg and garlic powder, and season to taste. Spread the filling over the lasagna noodles, leaving about 1/2" at the end not covered, and roll them. Spread 1 cup of tomato sauce on the bottom of a baking dish and arrange the manicotti with the edge of the rolled noodle facing down. Spread the rest of the tomato sauce over the manicotti and bake them in a preheated oven at 450 F, until they are soft and the sauce becomes thick. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the manicotti and cook for 3 minutes more. Cooking tip: The leftover manicotti can be wrapped in cling wrap and frozen for whenever you need a quick lunch.

Or, easier, you can buy it already made in Loblaw's! Just dump on your tomato sauce, cook it up for about an hour and serve it with a salad!

Or what about this product called "Tofurkey"?




it looks and tastes like "meat". It comes in different shapes and sizes like sausages or steaks or whatever you want to look like but it is not made from animals! Heck, it's even packaged like animal meat! Again you can buy it from your supermarket -- and it's likely only one aisle over from the "real meat" (if you wanna call real meat "real meat" because of actual fact the only once and know what's in it for sure are scientists and God perhaps) Tofurkey It's also really packed with protein!Approximately 30 g per sausage! Compared to about 6-8g per sausage that you would get in a regular sausage!