Conscious Precycling (Yes... I Spelled it Right)

Ok, I try to keep up with the times, but really, in all honestly, I'm just going through the motions, pretending, because I don't actually keep up with the times at all. I don't watch the news. Heck, I don't watch television. And when I read the local paper, I just end up writing letters to the editor so I try to minimize my exposure there too. So when the term "precycle" whizzed past my ears, they perked up. Precycle. What an ingenious word and concept. So, I went and Googled it, because isn't that what today's modern thinker does? We are Googlers with a capital G. And lo and behold, the concept of "precycling" has been around for years.

Well, not in our town. We're just talking about getting a RECYCLING program back in the community. Oh wait, let me rephrase that....the municipality is talking about getting a recycling program back in the community. There in lies a huge difference because we have a dedicated, albeit small group of people that are responsible for ensuring that there are at least some recycling options available in our communities. I am absolutely thankful for that and for their efforts and I totally take advantage of those options.

When I designed my home, I wanted to install recycle bins into my kitchen cabinetry. I felt that it would put me in a position of ensuring that I dedicated myself to recycling, and I have. I recycled before I built my house; it was just an uglier process that included exposed cardboard boxes in my garage. This new system has three big bins that spin on a caddy behind a corner cabinet; beautiful if I do say so myself. I had to special order those bins and it was worth it. I'm sure my builders thought I was coo-coo (Well, more coo-coo then they already thought...haha). Why on Earth would you waste kitchen cupboard space like that when each floor is only 650 square feet?! I was pretty adamant.

But in the back of my mind, I think to myself, if I'm recycling, and my neighbour is recycling, and people that live in communities that actually have a functioning municipal program are recycling, haven't we brought back enough tin and glass, and aluminum that we should never ever have to extract resources to make a new glass jar or aluminum can again? Why does more continue to be made, instead of just reusing what we've already used? People are obviously throwing away more than is being recycled, (still), so more resources continue to be extracted from our earth to make a convenient container for the non-recycler to drink out of and throw away again. Great. These people are definitely not precycling.

So then I started thinking about how much precycling actually goes on in my world, and I have to say that I've valiantly made a good start. Is it bragging to say that I may be ahead of the times? Precycling is based on the concept of making the decision before purchase and/or consumption as to whether that object really needs to be bought and/or consumed at all in the first place. It's conscious consumerism of weighing the pros and cons based on the environment and also based on actual need.

I'd like to brag and say that my choices are based on a conscious choice to save the world, but really it initially began because I was a starving artist/university student and had ingenuity. I wanted to make my measly income stretch as far as I could. And I was usually thinking about beer and how to get beer cheap. If I spent my money foolishly on gadgets and stuff, then I can't get a beer. Wait. I'll wash my clothes in my bathtub, cut my own hair and borrow my friend's jeans and live in them all year. Yup. I wore basically one pair of jeans all year, and then those quarters that would have gone down the wash, ended up going down the drain a different way instead. Beer consumption. It created a mind set. I realized early on that I could live a pretty decent life with a minimal amount and be just as happy, if not more happy, then I would be with money. And I was not surrounded by stuff. It was clarifying (and I was precycling).

Yet imagine that you didn't need to consider factors such as time or money in your life. Heck, while you're at it, imagine that you're a really buff movie star with all of the conveniences of the world laid out before you, including a personal chef, a nanny, a house keeper, an accountant...the whole bamboozle (no thanks, not for me, but let's play this game anyway). Ok, so we're some famous person who decides to go shopping. If that person doesn't need to consider the concept of making a quick, filling, and relatively cheap meal for their family before they head off to their night shift at work, they may consider buying healthier foods because they don't have to worry about having to find the time to chop vegetables. Who has the time to chop vegetables when you have to run out the door? People that have the option of hiring others don't have that concern. That's why they're all skinny and beautiful. *sigh* (Well, that and they're made out of plastic, but that's another blog.) But in reality, sometimes we compromise our health and our money and our time for quick, convenient choices. It seems that today, most choices are made this way. A lot of people don't have the time to even consider precycling.

Look at grocery store products. If you go to the produce section, not only can you buy an apple, but you can pick your choice of at least 5 different types of apples. But that apple does not have to be in its original form. If it's more convenient, you can buy that apple as apple leather, wrapped up in a little aluminum plasticy thingy. Or you can get the dehydrated apple rings that come in a convenient plastic resealable container. Or you can buy the individual, portion sized apple sauces that fit nicely into lunch bags. Or you can buy canned apple slices that already are coated in seasoning (and preservatives) so that you can make a "homemade" pie. And after consumption of that apple "product", you are left with a container that may or may not be recycled. You can get apple bits mixed with other fruit bits or dairy or crunchy things and this is put into plastic tubes with fun pop up lids, or that roll out or even ooze or spray. All of those products could have been made with that very same fresh apple that doesn't come in a package if someone just took the time and effort to chop it, or mash it, or dehydrate it. Heck, I wish I had that option. I've got a jar of apple sauce sitting in my cupboard. I'm not a saint. But at least it's a glass jar and I will recycle that jar. But if I was that movie star with more time on my hands, I'd be mashing those apples myself (or hiring some cute naked cowboy with an apron) and throwing the core in my composter. (Right now my dog is my composter. She eats apple cores like nobody's business! And she drools over brocolli stems and orange slices. My dog is a vegetarian.)

So obviously now I'm not washing my clothes in my bathtub (but I still cut my own hair most of the time). I can afford to live a bit more luxuriously and I can afford a beer here and there without having to wait for quarter draft night. So what do I do now as a conscious precycler?

Both Alexander and I pack our lunches in glass containers as much as possible. And my sister bought my son this really cool sandwich wrapper thingy that is washable, so I don't have to worry about wax paper or plastic wrap. If I knew how to sew well enough, I would make one for everyone I know, because they're just smart. Plastic wrap is the devil. We don't even own the stuff and really, it is not needed. It really isn't. When my dad wraps something in plastic wrap for me, I have to dedicate about a half an hour just to get the mummified food out of it. I buy a roll of it once a year for my art class when we do a watercolour unit because you can create a really cool effect with the plastic wrap. And I wash baggies and use them over and over again. But I try to avoid using them at all. I try to buy big ticket items second hand, such as my winter coats. They can cost anywhere from two to three hundred dollars if bought brand new!!! But my philosophy is that old men die and leave good coats, so I shop in the men's section at Value Village and other second hand stores for coats, and I've never been disappointed. This year I got a beautiful full length coat made out of llama and alpaca wool for $15.00! I affectionately call the coat "Tina" (after the Napolean Dynamite movie....if you've seen it you'll know what I mean.)

When I want to be frivolous and buy something for my house, I first see if it's available at a second hand store; especially picture frames. I'm in the process of painting a bunch of second hand picture frames white so that I can line my hallways with a variety of different art pieces and photographs I've created or collected. I buy furniture at garage sales and clean it and paint it. I have a funky purple vinyl chair that I got at a garage sale for $5 bucks! I've seen the exact same chair in modern furniture stores for hundreds of dollars.

And I know I keep on talking about money when I talk about precycling, but it is a huge factor in this concept. Look at it this way.....if I buy this product brand new, it will have to be transported to my little boonie town at the end of a two hour drive highway. That's gas consumption, pollution, shipping costs, and extra packaging. Did I really need that product that badly? Is my life going to be over if I don't have exact matching picture frames from IKEA? No, probably not.

And you know, I'm just as gullible as the next person. I like pretty packaging, and fancy looking labels. I'm an artist for crying out loud. I totally love that kind of stuff. But more and more I find myself looking at the product and wondering whether I need it that much just because its container looks all fancy schmancy. Artists are persuasive geniuses and know all of the tricks of the trade for visually manipulating you into buying crap you don't need. Standing in the hair product aisle is mesmerizing and overwhelming. My eyes go all freaky if I stand there for too long.

Hey, remember the day when occasionally mom would come home from the grocery store with a bag of cookies? Did you ever have "Dad's" cookies growing up? Remember how you would open up the bag that was made out of waxy paper, and there would be an accordion style piece of corrugated cardboard inside that separated the rows of cookies, and one of the most fun parts of getting the cookies was pulling that cardboard out? And then all of the cookies got put into the cookie jar and we carefully plotted our conquering of those said cookies, slowly, methodically. In the meantime, I snuck away with the zig zagged cardboard and turned it into some kind of craft. Have you opened up a box of cookies lately? It's plastic upon plastic upon plastic. Holy paranoid. Who complained enough about freshness for us to get to this point? If you want something to be fresh, go and get the ingredients and make those cookies yourself! That'll be fresh! And that'll be precycling.

And I love that people are really starting to get inventive with re-using packaging in creative ways. Susan at Junk n' Java makes really cool bags out of used coffee bags and vegetable bags. They're durable and easy to clean and hold a lot of stuff. My colleague at school made me a change purse out of ironed plastic bags that she cut, painted and sewed. I use reclaimed papers in my artwork all of the time. I have hired a woman to crochet a shopping bag for me out of all of the plastic bags I gave her. I make really cool camera bag/sunglass cases for my friends out of neck ties. I've seen purses made out of old jeans. It's nice to see, but in all reality, I think all of these crafts are made out of desperation. Many of us just can't possibly bare to put another piece of plastic in the landfill so we're making choices and changes and crafts.

Ask yourself these questions in all consciousness before you buy anything; absolutely anything:

1. If I buy this product, is there a "purer" form of it that is not over-processed?
2. If I buy this product, how long do I expect it to last in my home? Is it durable enough to last even a year?
3. If I decide I don't want this product anymore, where will it end up?
4. If I buy this product, and it won't end up in the recycle bin, how can I ensure that it doesn't end up in the landfill? Can I transform it into anything else?
5. What can I buy in bulk so that I'm not buying individually wrapped items?
6. Is it possible to buy this product second hand instead of buying it brand new?

Precycling is a big word. It entails preservation, preconceiving, and preparing. Those are words that take effort and conscious thought and I think we are getting well past the point of just considering those options, in all reality. How long can we deny truth and live in oblivion where if we don't precycle and recycle, someone else will. It doesn't work that way. It's not balancing out. And we can't all have naked cowboys chopping vegetables in our kitchen, but at least we can imagine that we do when we buy unpackaged, pure products that haven't been mummified in plastic. There's a reality that is manageable and available to everyone.

(Hey, are you thinking about that naked cowboy right now too?*grin*)

Love is in the Air...

....or so it would seem when I walked in to the pharmacy yesterday and was bombarded with Valentine-commercialism this and lovey-dovey that. Oh yeah, I thought....Valentine's day is coming up. It's easy to forget when you're single and just trudging through winter. Ironically, Valentine's day always reminds me of being sick, because when I was a little girl, I was always drastically ill on Valentine's day and usually didn't make it to school for the great card exchange. Instead, I was at home hacking up a lung (I was always allowed to be in my parent's bed when I was sick, surrounded by Archie comic books), visualizing that moment when the guy I had the brutal crush on went and put the card into my envelope, delicately decorated with paper lace hearts, wishing that I was there so that he could tell me how deeply his love for me travels. *sigh* And that of course is never how it went when I got back to school a few days later. Usually my Valentines were either stuffed in my desk or my older sister was ordered to bring them home, much to her chagrin. And the guy that I had a crush on usually gave me a good sock on the shoulder and called me a name like "fruit cake" and asked if I wanted to play soccer. That was as good as it got in the romantic department when I was a kid, but I didn't mind. I was a tomboy and brutally shy....yes, I was brutally shy (I still am) and a sock on the shoulder was better than nothing. And there in lay the beginnings of my introspective analysis of the male breed and this interesting mating game that continues to confuse and mesmerize and down right baffle me at times.
I have learned to laugh at my experiences with love and have yet to give up on the prospects of what love holds for me. But in the mean time, I'll leave you with some interesting things (some may consider them rules?) I have learned about love and dating and the mating game and all that stuff we like to reflect on, every year, smack dab in the dead of winter when we're freezing our asses off. (Who decided on February 14th anyway? It's got to be one of the most depressing times of year! Everyone's feeling all fat and lazy and hairy, and far from sexy and romantic. I vote that Valentine's day should be in July, when everyone's basking in the glow of the sun.) Until that day happens, here's my advice:

1. Don't date the guy that smells like bologna and still lives with his parents.

2. Don't date the guy that agrees with absolutely everything you say and do. You will eventually tire of the flattery and wonder if he has a single thought of his own in his pretty little head.

3. Date the guy that likes going to folk festivals. He's open minded and probably cute too.

4. Don't date the guy that says his body is just a "sack of skin" carrying his energy and it's almost ridiculous that he needs to carry it around when really that energy can just transport anywhere it wants to. You will spend time wondering and worrying whether he will chose to leave his sack of skin behind at any given time.

5. Have sex in a horse shoe pit at least once in your life just so you can say you did.

6. You might want to reconsider dating the guy that says, "How are you about nose picking?" Don't take it as a sign that he's comfortable with you. He's going to pick his nose in front of you whether you're comfortable with it or not, and the crappy part is that he'll probably do so while driving YOUR vehicle and now you'll have to worry where the product of his nose picking ended up.

7. Don't go out with the guy that is afraid to tell his parents who you are, regardless of your age.

8. If you have children, don't introduce your boyfriend to them for a long amount of time. They could become more attached to him than you are. The boyfriend should not be a replacement for their father. Their father is their father.

9. If a man insults your home decor, kick him out immediately. Your home is a reflection of your personality and it won't be long before he's insulting you.

10. Date the guy that likes his dad, and has a healthy relationship with his dad.

11. Don't date the guy that prides himself on going 19 days without cleaning himself. You'll eventually be subjected to that and it won't look or smell nice.

12. Have sex on the golf course at least once in your life just to say you have.

13. Do not sleep with a man that is engaged or married. He will not leave you for his fiance or wife. If anything, he'll go back to his fiance/wife more determined that he picked the right one. He loves her, not you.

14. It's not cool if a guy hitchhikes for 5 hours to visit you, especially if you had no idea he'd show up at your door. It's creepy.

15. It is even creepier if same said hitchhiker guy pulls out a black balaclava and asks if you want to see him wear that later. Try to avoid dating guys like that, unless you're in to balaclavas.

16. Guys that like to taxidermy birds may make you feel like you're in a perpetual Hitchcock movie.

17. Date the guy that compliments you verbally. Don't be happy with "just knowing he does...". You deserve to hear it, just as you would say it to him.

18. Wait until he's through his "religious phase" because ultimately you'll be competing with God, and that's hard to do.

19. Guys with ham radios are hard to understand so brush up on your knowledge of Morse code and antennas if you're going to date a ham radio guy. Pick up a book on sound waves too.

20. Date the guy that tells his mom openly that he loves her without embarrassment.

21. If he's non-communicative at the beginning of your relationship, he'll be rendered a mute by the end of your relationship. You won't be able to get him to speak or open up to you. Go find someone that will speak instead.

22. Men that cry at the sight of rainbows may be just a little bit too sensitive.

23. Date the guy that doesn't care if you ate garlic the day before and it's permeating out of every single pore in your body.

24. Date the guy that likes to read in bed.

25. It's ok to be picky. Don't pick the guy you "kinda like" or "will grow to like"...date the guy you really, really like. Be true to yourself and trust your instinct.

Well, it seems to me that I could probably continue with this one, but now I'll put it into your hands. What's the best advice you've ever given yourself regarding that big old intense word we call love? And by the way, Happy Valentine's Day, eh?

Meat Matters

I am embarrassed by my naivety. What I’m about to discuss may be obvious to you, but I’ve been ridiculously blindsided by the wealth of information that I’ve recently been reading and researching. To be honest, I don’t even really know completely what to do with this knowledge because I’m so overwhelmed by it all, and feel that my perspective on practically everything in the world has been altered, and not in such a good way. So bare with me as I bumble along here, trying to make sense of what I have learned. Also note that what I’m about to share is completely my perspective and in no way is a judgment of you and what you choose to do in your life. I’m simply in a stage of self-enlightenment.

This started late last year, when my friend called me up and said, “You should see the guy that is on Ellen. He’s talking about meat. He wrote some kind of book about meat.” That piqued my interest. People that know me know that I’ve been sitting on the vegetarian fence for some time now. God damn it, I love vegetables and I’m not going to be ashamed to show it! (Even though I actually get teased about eating vegetables, especially if it’s tofu, which I’ll always think is kind of weird. It’s like teasing someone for wearing glasses. I’ve never understood that one either.) So, I got the book. And I waited until after Christmas to read it because I knew that I would be eating meat at Christmas and I wanted to continue to be ignorant of the truth one last time.

Then I read the book. It’s called, “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I have this habit of folding the bottom corner of pages in books when there’s something poignant that has piqued my interest, and then I go back to it and re-read that information and absorb it again. Well, about twenty pages in, I noticed that I had folded every bottom corner and I was in a conundrum because if I fold the corner on page 21 then I won’t know that there was something stimulating to go back to on page 22. So, I started highlighting information instead. Then after I read the whole book (which actually kept me up at night a couple of times) I started writing down those highlighted points in a word document. Wouldn’t you know it, I ended up extracting information from practically every page about things I didn’t know; I had no idea what was occurring in our world. (Refer to my blog called “Happy Facebook Bubble World” written in October of 2009.)

Ok, so then I sorted through the information I documented and decided to make topic headings so that I could begin to put this information into organized sections. These were the topics that I ended up coming up with: pollution, “designer” foods, cruelty/suffering, sanctuaries, cognitive abilities, “Big Daddy” companies, kosher?, human rights, efficiency, change/growth, health, employment, disease, pharmacy, memories, vegetarians, vegans, pasture farming, ecosystems, reality, evolution, manipulation. Holy shit. How am I going to turn this into a nice little bloggy something or another for everyone to sink their teeth into and get my thoughts across to not only myself but my readers? I’m at a total loss so I’ll just babble and highly recommend that you read the book for yourself.

Ok so, first of all, I just keep on thinking, “Geeze, I don’t want people to think that I’m trying to convert them to being a vegetarian,” because ultimately, I’M not a vegetarian and I hate being preached to about anything, even if it’s something I believe in. It’s definitely the anarchist in me that just likes to rebel from everything. I think that we as humans just hate being told that we’re doing something wrong, even if we know it’s wrong. I can connect this to my years as a smoker. There was a lot of fear connected to the prospect of quitting because I really liked smoking. I liked feeling like I was a part of a club in a way that had great conversations while we stood outside together, and when we walked back in to the non-smoking space, it was like we knew something more than everyone else. Kinda ironic, isn’t it? And there was a lot of fear with the idea of quitting smoking, and ultimately it’s easy to make every excuse in the book. The brain is powerfully manipulative, especially to oneself. I played some crazy tricks on my own mind to convince myself that it was ok to have just one or two cigarettes here and there. I met someone not too long ago that justified his smoking by saying it was his way of screwing over the government. Wow. His mind certainly went through a labyrinth to get to that point.
But this is about eating meat, not smoking. So the next thing I started thinking about was my memories with meat. (Get your mind out of the gutter, where I know it is right now. Oh, maybe that’s just me. Haha) I started thinking about how growing up in my home, we always had some kind of dead animal hanging in our garage with its tongue hanging out and blood dripping into a bucket. I thought about the humongous, delicious hamburgers that my dad makes every year on the barbecue for Mother’s day, stating that they’re “better than McDonalds by a long shot” (and they are). I think about sitting at the dinner table as a kid, passing my pork chop bone to my dad so he can suck the marrow out of it. I think of the summer sausage that used to hang over the kitchen sink so that it would dry and the fats would slowly drain out of it, and we’d have to ask to cut a slab off. It was a genuine treat. We’re Polish/Ukrainian, so meat was always a BIG DEAL in our home. But the farm meat that my dad and mom grew up with versus the farm meat I’ve grown up with are two completely different things. Absolutely 100% different and that’s petrifying.

Go ahead and find a kid that you know, or even one that you don't know, and ask them to draw a picture of a farm. Ask them specifically to draw a picture of where chickens, pigs and cows live and I bet you they’ll draw a picture of a barn and a silo and pigs rolling in mud, and cows in a pasture, when in reality these animals are just extensions of machinery and do not have access to the outdoor world at all. We live in a world of factory farming and until a couple of months ago, I was pretty damn oblivious to what the hell that actually really meant and what that means to me as a consumer.

This is what that means:

*99% of all meat is “created” in a factory farm.

*More than 250 million male “layer” chicks are killed each year, live, wood-chipper style. What do you think happens to that “meat” once it’s ground up? What is chicken meal?

*Many cows die slow painful deaths on factory floors simply because they haven’t been given water. They’re called “downers”. They’re tossed, live, into dumpsters.

*After a layer chicken has been forced to lay eggs over the course of one year, (they are unnaturally pushed to produce 300 eggs which is 2/3 more than their normal amount) they are killed because it’s more economically efficient to kill them and start again then it is to have chickens producing less eggs the second year. Chickens can normally live around 20 years.

*“Free range” chickens are 30 000 chickens on a factory floor with a small door at one end that opens to a 5x5 foot dirt patch. Do you think the chickens have come up with a rotational system so that all 30 000 of them have an opportunity to get some “fresh air”? (Also, the similar terminology of “cage free” or “free run” that you will find on egg cartons also applies to this concept.)

*KFC should never be consumed under any circumstances.

*A kosher slaughterhouse is as rare as a virginal bride.

*Chickens, turkeys and pigs are genetically designed to grow fast. They cannot bear their own weight and end up disabled by their own body.

*Many chickens are smarter than people but their sense of pain is not considered by most.

*If you cut a dog or cats throat open and ripped their trachea and esophagi out while they’re alive, you’d go to jail for a long, long time. But not if it’s a cow.

*Grab a ruler and measure out a rectangle that is 7 x 8.5 inches. That is the size of the cage a chicken lives its life in. Cage free birds also have about that much space because there are so many of them on the factory floor, so “cage free” is just as cruel.

*Most factory farmers calculate how close they can keep their animals to death without actually killing them to save on water and food.

*Upward of 95% of chickens become infected with E coli.

*Chlorine baths are commonly used to remove slime, odor and bacteria from meat.

*Chicken meat is soaked in a big bath, along with their feces, pus, and harmful bacteria. This makes the chicken you eat “plumper” looking. Sounds tasty, doesn’t it? They can call this “brine” to give you the impression that they were nice enough to marinate the meat for you. Mmmmm.

*While Americans ingest approximately 3 million pounds of antibiotics each year, factory farmed animals ingest approximately 17 million pounds of antibiotics. The factory farm industry is in alliance with the pharmaceutical industry which doesn’t give the public health professionals a lot of support. Go figure.

*Scientists at Columbia and Princeton Universities have actually been able to trace six of the eight genetic segments of the most feared viruses in the world directly to US factory farms.

*Vegetarians and vegans meet and exceed requirements for protein.

*Animal protein intake is linked to osteoporosis, kidney disease, calcium stones and cancers.

*Nearly one third of the land surface of the planet is dedicated to livestock, mainly in the form of factory farms.

*Real farmers do not work on factory farms. Use of the term "farm" is hypocritical.

*In the states, animal manure is not put through treatment plants, and large lagoons are created to hold acrid animal manure. People have actually died in them. Pigs have been inhumanely forced to run in to them and die.

*Alexander and I did some math based on a pig plant in Brandon, Manitoba. They get 75 000 pigs going through their plant in one week. In our community of 5000 people, that would mean getting 15 pigs each per week, resulting in 780 pigs per person per year. That is one plant, and one town. Who is eating all this meat? A family of four can live off the meat of a moose for a whole winter.

*Factory farm animals (cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, even if babies or pregnant) are repeatedly abused the following ways: bludgeoned with wrenches and rakes, poles rammed into rectums and vaginas, slammed onto concrete floors until their eyes pop out, cigarette butts put out on their bodies, strangled, thrown into manure piles to drown, electrically prodded in the eyes, ears, anus, mouth, beaks ripped off, stomped on, spit on, body parts such as the ears and nose sliced off while alive, urinated on…..does that help in making the food tastier, I wonder?


I know what you’re probably thinking right now. Stop already! Stop giving me the gory details!!!! Yet again, our mind does not want us to know this information because it’s easier to eat McDonalds or canned meat or a reuban sandwich if we have no idea what actually happened in the process of creating that meat. We are so separated from the food that we consume that we don’t even think about the prospects of whether it was an animal or not, let alone how it was treated or raised (and I use the term “raised” loosely). We just don’t see “whole foods” anymore in the grocery store. A friend of mine said, “You’ll know if you’ve got a good chicken because it will be packaged with its feet still attached.” I can’t say that I’ve EVER seen a chicken in a grocery store with its feet attached, but I bet there would be an outcry in our community if that happened. They would be grossed out. People buy food in fancy boxes with bold labels that tell them how much fat and protein they’re ingesting. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the freezer section in grocery stores seems to be getting bigger and bigger, expanding on the amount of processed foods there are so that we forget that there is a chunk of animal in that box. Meat is being mulched and pressed into cute shapes and covered with sauces and breading and given exotic names. Would you buy something called “Pig Meat in a Box”? People get grossed out when I ask if they've ever accidentally "crunched" on something in a chicken burger or chicken fingers, and then tell them that the bones and feet of the chicken are also ground up with the chicken meat when those "burgers" are created. They should be grossed out. They wouldn't eat it if it was called "Breaded Ground up Chicken Feet and Bones and Rotten Meat Patties".

I remember when I was in New York last summer with my friend we were hard pressed to find a decent grocery store and when we did, we found that the prices of everything were astronomical. Nobody in New York cooks at home. Everyone eats in amazing restaurants and not so amazing street vendors. It’s actually more economical to do so and the factory farm owner thinks that‘s awesome. As long as people are not handling meat, and seeing blood, and touching real flesh, they won’t have to concern themselves with what actually happens in the process of getting that meat to the table.

And then I was reminded of my time in Luxembourg, in 1999. We had stopped in a quaint little town, and I remember being shocked by a display in the butcher shop’s window. It was a display of a Mamma pig and her piglets, taxidermied, of course. I remember commenting on how disgusting that was, to actually see what you’re going to eat before you buy it! That’s about as ridiculous as thinking it’s gross to see a cantaloupe or a bag of potatoes. My, how my perspective has changed. The Europeans don’t have any secret diet. They simply know what they’re eating.
And still after all this contemplation; I STILL played mind games with myself. I said to myself, “Well, this is just happening in America! This isn’t happening in Canada.” So again, I did my research, and it is ultimately the same, and most meat factories and food processing plants in Canada are run by “Big Daddy” companies outside of our country. The lines get blurred between what happens in Canada and what happens in the states. There’s even a Canadian form of the PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) called CETFA which stands for Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals. And when you start reading on their site, you see that it’s all the same everywhere, which is not good. That research took me to other sites and other sites, and I became more and more skeptical and ultimately had to make some choices and that is why I have chosen to not eat any factory farmed meat again.

Now, this really limits my choices in some ways if I want to eat something out of a can, because meat is thrown into a lot of things, like Habitant split pea soup and Libby’s pork and beans. I borrowed a can of Chef Boyardee from a friend because I was curious to see what they say about the meat products on their labeling. It says that it is “prepared for ConAgra Foods” This company is responsible for a high percentage of all canned foods. The company touts itself as “foods you’ll love”. Check out their website, and then do a google search with their name and add the word “fine” to it, and you’ll get a different story about their “food” (Yes, I am purposely putting the word “food” in quotations.) I’m more than willing to give that up for wholesome, fresh foods that come as close to the original source as possible.

And that can still include eating meat because on a positive note, it has made me realize in my research that there seems to be a revolution going on as well. As people are seeing the truth of meat, they too are making changes. Canada has a lot of “grass roots” farmers that are interested in the humane treatment and slaughter of animals, and the care of our land. These are the people I want to talk to and learn more from, and buy products from. And they’re not far away from where I live either, so I can actually make that trip down the road and make that choice instead of having a big company that hides their (half dead) animals behind big locked steel doors make that choice for me.

It also made me really proud of the people in my community that hunt. That may sound like a paradox to you, but I have never heard a story of a hunter in the area beating a moose to death with a shovel, or slicing off its nose alive or urinating on it as it slowly takes its last breath. Animals that are killed in our community are given the respect they deserve and completely appreciated. I know one woman that uses absolutely every single part of that moose that she kills, including the bones, which she turns into beautiful jewelery. These hunters have my respect. They are given a lot of flack by “city slickers” who think our practices are cruel. The irony is that they’ll go to a restaurant and order veal or foie gras while having the discussion about their barbaric neighbours to the north. Hmmmm…….

It’s kind of amazing actually how far we’ve come. We don’t allow PCB’s to be used anymore. We refuse to use CFC’s because of what they’ve done to the environment. Most of us recycle what we can. Composting is becoming a common household practice in many homes (What? You’re not composting yet?). Many of us refuse to buy products that have first been injected into the eyes of lab bunnies. And the only way this has come about is by someone that has been bold enough to expose the truth. A lot of the information that Mr. Foer received for his book was shared by people from the factory farm industry itself that couldn’t keep their mouths closed about what occurs on factory farms. Exposure is what creates truth, and I’m feeling enlightened.

If after reading this, your mind continues to play tricks on you about the reality of these facts, perhaps you’ll have the ability to watch “Meet Your Meet”. I’ll provide that link along with some other interesting cites at the end of this article.

Now, where’s that tofu recipe……..

The Canadian Ethical Treatment of Food Animals

Jonathan Safran Foer's link to his book "Eating Animals"

Canadian Vegan online shopping

"Meet Your Meat"

Niman Ranch

Polyfarming

*Most of the information extracted for this blog is from "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

**I am including a map of the Dryden area that a friend just passed on to me. These are local organic farmers that have humane and healthy practices. Something to think about at least, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood. There are choices out there. Hooray!

Spring Wind

A seed catalog came in the mail today, reminding me to put my order in so that I can start my veggie seedlings in my kitchen this March. The air was incredibly warm outside this afternoon, which is typical because I've been living without heat in my classroom for a month in -40 weather. I've been more-than-normally attracted to green recently (I can be seen longingly hovering around the broccoli and spinach in the produce section) and have been desperately yearning to see a patch of fresh new grass. I shoveled down to some for myself the other day just as a reminder that yes, this white coat will eventually melt away. Then this song randomly popped up on my computer, and it solidified that I definitely have Spring fever, three months too soon.

Spring Wind by Greg Brown

I lived awhile without you,
darn near half my life.
I no longer see our unborn children,
born to you my unwed wife.
But yesterday I had a vision,
beneath the tree where we once talked,
of an old couple burning
their love letters so their children
won't be shocked.

Love calls like the wild birds--
it's another day.
A Spring wind blew my list of
things to do...away.

My friends are gettin older,
so I guess I must be too.
Without their loving kindness,
I don't know what I'd do.
Oh the wine bottle's half empty--
the money's all spent.
And we're a cross between our parents
and hippies in a tent.
 
In a mucked up lovely river,
I cast my little fly.
I look at that river and smell it
and it makes me wanna cry.
Oh to clean our dirty planet,
now there's a noble wish,
and I'm puttin my shoulder to the wheel
'cause I wanna catch some fish.
 
Children go to sleep now--
you know it's gettin' late.
I know you don't like to miss nothin'
and school ain't that great.
Oh, I'll dance with you when you're happy,
and hold you when you're sad,
and hope you know how glad I am,
just to be you're Dad.

Darlin' it's been a hard go
but I think we'll be okay.
I know I say that all the time
like everything else I say.
Oh, I've been gone so often,
but every time I miss you,
and I don't really know nothin',
Except I like to kiss you.

 See you in the Spring, Spring. 

Click here to hear Greg Brown's Spring Wind

Scat scoot Skeedum Doo

I did an interesting experiment the other day as I was sitting in my studio creating some art. (It's so nice to be back in the studio after a good two month hiatus as I dealt with some drastic carpal tunnel issues). Well, as you may have seen in previous blogs, I am keeping an on-going documentation of right brained flub-ups that occur when I blurt out the words to songs while deep in a creative zen. I find it fascinating how the words are floating in my mind, getting mixed up with the imagery that is being trancended through my finger tips and erupts ludicrously from my mouth. As in the past, I once again apologize to any musicians that I may have offended. (You can see that blog, by the way, if you go to my archives...I wrote it last September.)

But on this day, CBC had a radio documentary on about jazz, and you can't talk about jazz without talking about scat singing. Now, I highly recommend that if you are in the least interested in doing a google search of scatting, that you ensure that your filters are set at the highest restrictions and I beg that you include the word "singing" in the phrase or you will be as disgusted as I was. The world is an incredibly deplorable disturbing place....but I digress.

According to Wikipedia, (thank goodness for Wikipedia) scat singing is vocal improvization with nonsense syllables with random vocables.  I don't know about you, but when I think about jazz, just off the top of my head, I think of scat singing; bopdee-boops and the like. So, I decided to do a bit of a reverse of my usual song documentation experiment and instead, consciously tried to write down everything that the woman that happened to be scat singing at the time said. This is what I was able to get before I gave up:

Skitty-yo-ee-yo-yo-yo
Sumba-yah-yoy-oy
I-yooooo-pow-bow
Yeah-idi-oooooooo
A-yoy!

I shook my head, giggled and turned back to my art work, listening to the radio documentary and not giving it another thought.

Then today, I was driving down the road with my dog by my side. I just bought a new jacket at Value Village about a month ago and the fur is made out of llama and alpaca wool. My dog likes to sniff one specific spot on the sleeve of the jacket and I like to joke that she is sniffing the llama. Then I just started chanting to her and no one in particular:

Sniffin' the llama, sniffin' the llama, llama jacket, sandy's sniffinthellama, sniffinllama, lllllaaaaammmma, llama, llama, llllaaaaama.........

I was off on a monestary like tantric chant. I was scat singing about my llama jacket and it was fun. I then realized just how often I actually do scat sing, and I bet you do too. It's fun to just play around with words in our mouth and let them slip around in there and come out with unintended meaning, or absolutely no meaning at all. And it's very entertaining to do this "game" with kids, entertaining the idea of rhyming words and coming up with nonsensical, rhythmic gibberish. Hey, I'm no Ella Fitzgerald, and I certainly don't mean to deteriorate the fine art that is associated with scat singing. I'm the first to get offended when someone looks at an Abstract or Minimalist painting and say, "I could have done that" because ultimately, it comes down to appreciation.

I guess I just appreciate words. Wordery, birdery, doo bee, woo bee, woo bah, boo. Words.

Hoots the Owl on Sesame Street Teaches Scat Singing