Widespread ambivalent, illogical attitudes toward a group of others are almost always a hallmark of an oppressive ideology. Oppressive ideologies require rational, humane people to participate in irrational, inhumane practices and to remain unaware of such contradictions.

Encouraging residents to raise animals from infants, get to know the them, and then kill them is risky business because – although many people eat meat – most people have not killed an animal. Why? Because most people would rather not see, hear or participate in killing an animal, for good reason.

When you take into account the fact that factory farms raise 99.9 percent of chickens for meat, 97 percent of laying hens, 99 percent of turkeys, 95 percent of pigs, and 78 percent of cattle currently sold in the United States, it’s shocking how much time we waste debating each other, rather than trying to actually change the system.

Animal agriculture serves well to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of elite corporate interests controlling the military-industrial-meat-medical-media complex that profit immensely from disease, environmental devastation, and war. In this, our cultural situation parallels that of a typical dairy farm or beef feed-lot.

So many images, references, newspaper articles and other manifestations of the sexual politics of meat have been flooding in, that we need a moment just to see them all in one place. Warning: be prepared to be depressed or outraged or that strange combination of both that results from living in opposition to the  dominant culture!

Last year I would have the exact same thing for lunch every single day. A salad with quinoa/sweet potato, a piece of fruit and rice cakes or g/f bread with nut butter…but if you care that your lunches are interesting, here are some tried and true options that are super yums and super healthy too.

Whether questions about the vegan lifestyle are meant to be sarcastic or not, they deserve a comprehensive response. So, here are some ideas to inspire your enthusiastic answer. Or if you are the questioner, now you don’t have to bug a vegan. (Just kidding- most of us actually love to talk about it!)

When I tell someone that I am vegan they often look at me quizzically (especially once they learn that being vegan is more involved than just what we eat), and, with a slight twist of the head, ask, “So where do you buy your clothes?”

The development of critical thinking skills is exactly what children need to be able to navigate the complex moral decision-making they will need to do in their lives, including how to treat people, animals and the environment.

The greatest compensation, perhaps, in knowing what is happening to animals, is the awareness that there is hope for the future. And we don’t just mean the future for animals. We mean the future for everything on earth.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous item of clothing is the T-shirt. Whether worn as a plain undershirt, or emblazoned with a written message or image, most people in industrialized countries have a plethora of them. Learn how to make most good choices when it comes to the t-shirts you buy.

There are many supermarket personal care products out there that claim to not use animal-derived ingredients but aren’t really vegan because they test their products on animals. Similarly, many companies tout their products as “Cruelty-free” but use animal derived ingredients in them. We present the solutions in this guide!

So you’ve made the decision to become vegan. You feel enraged about the truths of animal cruelty, inspired to create change, and ready to make a serious commitment to your newfound ethically conscious lifestyle. But in reality it’s just a phase, according to your parents anyway