On August 8th, 2011 Canada saw its first annual Canadian Empathy Awards. The event was organized by Empathy Unlimited to celebrate and honour some of the most diligent and courageous Canadians working to improve the lives of animals our society.

Most people are very intimidated by the idea of eliminating animal products from their lives. This isn’t surprising, considering we live in a society that’s largely built on the use of animals for food, clothing, as raw materials and also to test new products. Going vegan is like rejecting society itself, and that obviously doesn’t seem like a lot of fun.

The is perhaps no issue facing the animal rights movement that draws out the kind of tension around campaigning and protest the way animal experimentation does. There is a long and rich history of diverse action against various vivisection-related industries. Some of it has been legal, some of it has been decidedly illegal.

Activism can only take place when we reach out of our vegan comfort zone into the world of non-believers. Or, we should say, not-yet-believers. For that reason, we wouldn’t classify conferences and other inside-the-vegan-bubble events as activism per se. Rather, they are benchmarks in between the real work.

There is a reason mainstream health organizations are trying to get the public to eat more fruits, veggies and whole grains. Plant-foods are high in fiber, phytochemicals and antioxidants, have no cholesterol and are generally low in saturated fat. Conversely, animal products are high in both cholesterol and saturated fat

Bloody beauty? No thank you. Think only leather and meat are murder? Think again. Dead animal ingredients lurk even in your makeup, so watch out. Even if you’re not vegan, staining your lips with dead insects’ extracts won’t be appealing or truly aesthetic to say the least, so why buy it in a sanitized, attractive package?

For those of us addicted to running a long way, it’s important to have the ability to fully and quickly recover after a long, tough endurance event – ready to resume training, or to take on the next big race. One of the things that vegan ultra runners often find is that they have a good rate of recovery from the exertion of running events that could be 50 to 100 miles or more