What they’re saying about Living Cruelty Free over at Moxie Reviews TM

Even this wee fella will be reading the review (once he gets a haircut, so he can see)

This week I’m delighted to have Living Cruelty Free reviewed over on the fantastic Moxie Reviews TM site.

To check out the review, click here

One of the most highly regarded sites on the net, Moxie Reviews TM is a fantastic beauty blog with cruelty free, natural & organic product reviews. To be featured on the site, companies must be cruelty free, which means NO animal testing.

Moxie has also done an interview with me where I explain what inspired me to write the book.

I’d like to thank Moxie for spreading the word about Living Cruelty Free. The book was very much a labour or love for me and the more people who read it the better.

We can all make the world a more compassionate place.

You can follow Moxie on Twitter and Facebook as well as on the Moxie Reviews TM blog.

Choose Organic Splendor for cruelty free cosmetics

Since I started this blog, I have been lucky enough to meet some amazing people. People who believe like me that the world can be a more compassionate place to human beings and animals.

One such company is Organic Splendor. Their handmade mineral make up, bath care and skin care products are completely vegan (the company is run by a vegan) and even better, titanium dioxide free.
You can visit them here

Living Cruelty Free is on its way!

Yay, Living Cruelty Free is now completed and is in the hands of the publisher. After auch a long journey to publication, I am looking forward to seeing it published. First as an ebook in January 2012 and then as a traditional book later on in the year.

One thing I am particularly glad of is that I no longer have to research the topics in the book. Things like veal, fur, foie gras. Reading about how these things are derived from such extreme cruelty has been heartbreaking.

What has been uplifting is reading about how so many people are turning their backs on things that come from such cruelty. In the UK where I live, people who wear fur are seen as social pariahs.

Another fact that makes me happy is that people's eyes are being opened to the cruelty involved in bringing low cost fashion to our high street chains. What's more, people are saying 'not in my name' and are shunning stores that sell wares made by slave labour (often child slave labour).

Together we can all make a real difference, I genuinely believe that and that's why I wrote Living Cruelty Free.

To be human is to show compassion to our fellow human beings and to animals. Those are words we can all live by.

6 Ways to be kinder to animals (without going vegetarian)

Not everyone is cut out to be vegetarian or vegan. Some people just can’t live without eating meat, or don’t think they should.

If that applies to you it doesn’t mean you can’t do your bit to make the world a kinder place for animals.

1. Don’t bet on or attend the Grand National. Between 2000 and 2011, 20 horses have died on the world famous Grand National course at Aintree in Liverpool in the UK.
2. Don’t eat Foie gras. If there wasn’t a demand for this ‘French delicacy’ ducks and geese wouldn’t be force-fed until their livers smell to several times their natural size. Imagine how painful that must be.
3. Eat free range wherever you can. This doesn’t guarantee that animals have lived a better standard of life than their caged counterparts, but there is more change than they haven’t lived their lives out in cramped cages in dark sheds.
4. Don’t buy fur. There is NO humane way to produce fur. Animals die in agony, without any pain relief. And it’s not just wild animals that suffer that fate: in China, dogs and cats are killed for their fur. Most of that fur finds its way to the USA and the UK.
5. Consider adopting a retired greyhound. Many greyhounds who don’t make the grade are killed. Animal rescue centres have the ones who are lucky enough to be given away.
6. Don’t get Botox. Every batch of Botox is tested on animals because it is treated like a medicine. Yet whilst medicine is essential, having a wrinkly free forehead is not. And, let’s face it, it never looks natural.

5 Reasons Not to Eat Free Range Eggs

We keep on being told that free range eggs are cruelty free. The research I did found differently.

1-Many hens die even before they make it to farms on conveyor belts where they are roughly handled and thrown about.

2-Whether the birds go into cages or not they have their beaks cut off.

3-Being free range does not mean birds live the perfect life. The spaces they occupy may be outdoors, but they are often cramped.

4- The male chicks are killed because they don’t lay eggs. They are usually gassed or put in a mincer and killed in a method called IMD (Instantaneous Mechanical Destruction). Eating free range eggs or any eggs means more hens and chickens and therefore more chicks that are killed.

5-Free range in America does not mean the same as in the UK. In the US, eggs can be described as free range when the birds have been given as little as five minutes in the sun each day. 

As a result of the disturbing facts I found, I have stopped eating eggs.

Footnote – Viva (the Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) filmed undercover in two hatcheries. Here’s the footage (be warned it contains highly disturbing images) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUr4Hk8Efxc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6i2zg-dkOs&feature=player_embedded

5 reasons to go vegetarian

1-You are saving animals from a miserable existence where they are caged, abused and then killed usually in a less than humane way.

2-Being meat free is better for the environment as the Rain Forests are being chopped down to make more way for animals to graze that will be killed for food. 

3-Meat production is uneconomical. You get a lot less food from animals than you need to put into them.

4- Meat takes much longer to digest than any other foodstuff. This is one of the reasons vegetarians and vegans get less meat related cancers like cancer of the bowels.

5-Once you make that step towards thinking it’s acceptable to bring animals into the world to kill and eat, it’s much easier to make the step towards thinking all animal cruelty is okay.

The cruellest things on the planet

I'm currently doing the research for my cruelty free book for a chapter on things that can never be cruelty free. Even if you're not veggie or vegan, simply by avoiding the filthy five you can be kinder to animals.

Here's my top five of particularly cruel foods -

1- Foie gras - force feed a goose or duck eat until it's liver gets several times its natural size. Then kill it to eat.

2- Veal - Put a baby calf in a crate and deprive him or her of sunlight and a mother and don't ever let this baby go outside.

3- Fur - Furry animals in cages. Some, if they're lucky, will be dead when they are skinned. Others will be skinned alive.

4- Lobster - How would you like to be tossed alive into a burning pot and cooked alive? If you did that to a pet the cops would cart you off.

5- Down (sometimes called feather down, duck down or goose down) – It may be well known that fur production is cruel but what many people don’t know is that goose and duck down involves animal cruelty. Many birds have their feathers plucked whilst their still alive, especially in China the major down manufacturers in the world.