Conversations

Me: Babe, Did you pack my toothbrush?
Hubbs: Yes.
Me: cool
Hubbs: And I put it in the tooth brush case and I washed the case too.
Me: good. the case hadnt been used in a while.
Hubbs: And I packed another toothbrush, just in case you had a problem with the brush i packed or the case.
Me: ;-D
Hubbs: I have a contingency plan for the contingency plan.
Me: Thats called being married for 7 years ;)

Its December

And time for some resolutions..

lets see. self talk begin.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Though for 350 days in the year I dont. There are always some days that creep in.

Instead Start finding other things to keep yourself occupied. Since house hunt seems like it is going to take a long time and you are in a cooking funk, find something else! like maybe a job

Stop getting bothered by how you look. This is an old problem from even when I had symmetrical features. Now one of my eye droops half shut, and I have 100 bald patches on my scalp. well not that many, but enough to bother me. baah. first world problems.

Instead get read every morning and make a plan for the day. I have no clue how i am going to do this, I always work instinctively in the kitchen. The best food that comes out is when i just walk in there and start cooking/baking. no plans, no deadlines. Thats why i am always a bit more stressed when hosting a party. deadline and requirement of good final result. meh

Stop getting too emotional and stressed about inconsequential things. The pain and cruelty in the world is not going to reduce by my stress.

Instead Do something about it. Keep working your ass off - you recently holiday lazy-ed up bum.

Stop letting low priority things make your days bad.

Instead focus on improving your health and stamina. the better you are, the more you can do. Work on the stupid PTSD and balance problems and get on a plane and go meet all the family and extended family who you havent met in 7 years.
Virtual flight simulator here I come(the real airports will throw me out for all the ruckus that I might create:)

Surround yourself by positive, encouraging and similar minded people. Make time to find them and put in an effort to make that bond, since it is always difficult to start and maintain new friendships.

Lets get it going shall we. Snap out of the funk. And heres to a fantastic 2013!

Food for thought

Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhog, mice and fox by the million - in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billion and eats them. This in turn kills fellow man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative and fatal health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. 

So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals, or because of environmental disasters caused by global warming which in turn is in part caused by green house gases produced by animal agriculture.  ~adapted from David Coats.

Reality check

Just when I start to pity myself for not having anyone around that cares.. the world throws me a reality check..
Many many animals and people out there who are in a way worse situation than me.
Ah well, the ranting helps though, to get the head screwed back straight. Back to doing what I do best. Work as much as I can can for what I believe in.
And as always, I cannot thank hubbs enough for being there.

In the meanwhile, if anyone has suggestions on how to proceed next after a high Rheumatoid Factor test result, please ping me.

The Lonely Vegan

Lately I have been going through the lonely vegan state of mind. It doesnt help to have my disposition though. I try to be like hubbs, more moderate, calm, and thoughtful. But In any discussion, I have a very high probability of taking things personally and not speaking the thought out stuff. For example, people insisting on having meat at Thanksgiving because a TG dinner isnt a TG dinner without it, will tick me off and I will most likely go into things like, it isnt even our tradition to blindly follow, we being Indian. It is almost like people who visit or settle in India would want to follow traditions like Dowry(a load of money or gifts that a Bride's family "has" to give to the Groom and Groom's family) or Child marriage or other not necessarily moral traditions. Not the right argument.
Instead of saying all that, I requested a change in the menu. I felt that I could probably request a menu change, if that helped me be comfortable.
And as I know would happen, no one will step up.

Hubbs says that everyone respects our choice and no one forces us to eat anything, nor do they mock us. I agree that our current circle has mostly thoughtful people. But not asking us to eat meat,  is that respect? or just We dont care enough either which way you choose.
This might seem like a rant, and that I expect too much out of friends.. Maybe I do, maybe I am just on a completely different plane of thought.

It is difficult being me. I have always had limited close friends, probably because of expecting too much out of them. And then post surgery(7 years) and loads of other problems, it is even more difficult to maintain old relationships, or make new ones.
Very many times I cannot make it to the gettogethers.
When I am there, it is difficult most days to keep standing and talking to people. I have to sit at a decent stable place to keep my balance and hence continue to enjoy the activity. And while I sit, no one comes by to sit with me.
It is difficult to keep looking at people in the eye at certain angles.
It is difficult to deal with too much loud noise when more than 3 people are talking or more like yelling, all at the same time. It hurts my ears, my head and my balance, but I interrupt to reduce the noise and adjust, which many times works only for 1 minute.
It is difficult to answer a barrage of questions with appropriately thought of(non offending, non mean) answers with statistics, esp when my balance is off and I am anxious. (Sure, this is the new problem I have got onto myself, by turning Vegan)
I cant drive myself to meet anyone, new or old friends.
I cant sit in most restaurants or locations outside because of the non stable seating.
I cant shop for long and all the other things that people do together to cultivate close friendships.
It is so difficult to do so many things...

Yes, I am disabled(it is still very difficult to think that way). If you didnt notice it yet, there is a somewhat special needs person around you.
I dont think you do.
Apart from a very very few little efforts by some, no one around makes an effort to adjust with me. It hurts.
Sure, I can be a very critical and cantankerous at times, and on top of that now you all have to adjust to make some vegan friendly food as well. Too much work for sure. All the adjustments that I have to do are probably super easy.
I dont personally like to eat oily, decadent, fake cheese filled food, but I constantly try and make some because that comes closest to the tastes the people around already know and like.
And it is stressful. Most times, the food I make gets judged 100 times more than the greasy, bad restaurant food.
I have been getting more active lately, which is still a lot of effort for me(things were probably better when I wasnt around to dictate my preferences I guess), and would love to spend time enjoying being with everyone, old friends, enjoying conversations and the food. Is it too much to ask then for a little change for one day? Arent traditions meant to be broken. How else, would we Indian girls be here living independently, how else would we have a black President.


It is easier now to be with the babies though(Lots of babies being born around). They dont make a fuss, dont discriminate against anyone's abilities or choices, always adjust with everyone to their capabilities, and are always a pure delight to be with even when not in their best moods.
The most fun I had recently was at hubb's Birthday. It was our house, my food(all vegan and no one went hungry or so atleast I felt), we were mostly seated for conversations, and I managed to control the noise when it got too bothersome by interruptions in between.

What I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, is my lovely husband, who knows, who can instantly find a solution for me in any situation, from just finding a place to sit, to controlling the noise, to answering questions(yes, he reads up stuff too), to being there everytime I want him to. I am sorry for causing problems for his friend circle. I am thankful for Chewie, who is the fluffy happy sweetheart. For my parents, who are also on their way to being on a Vegan diet, even at this age. For being able to cook amazing food, and veganize it without most being able to figure it out. For the cute babies, because they are babies, and to the hope that I will be surrounded by friends who will be more accepting and caring.

Till then I am the lonely disabled Vegan who will rant. end pity story.

Numbers 3 - world hunger

* 6.6 pounds of grain -> 2.2 pounds of chicken meat -> makes only 35.2 servings

* 6.6 pounds of grain -> 84.5 servings of food

* Half of the worlds grains and Soy beans are fed to farmed animals. The argument that vegans eat more soy.... really.

* The food production would have to increase internationally by 70% to feed the world population in 2050

* Bringing the meat consumption of the US down to what it was in 2000(82.5 pounds per person per year), will free up 400 million tons of grain for human consumption. -> can satisfy caloric needs of 1 billion people!

Stats from VegNews.

fyi

fyi, this is my personal blog with my thoughts, my journey, my happiness, my cribs, and some intriguing statistical posts.

Rant a bit I might(as in my previous post). I am a passionate individual.

Your choice to judge the book by one page.

disclaimer: rants are not to be taken personally:)

Have a great weekend.

Missionaries or not

I have had it with people comparing veganism and the supporters of Veganism to religious cults and missionaries.

Really?

Of course this is a deep uncomfortable discussion. confrontational, emotional and so many other things.

Someone tells you the truth and "makes " you feel bad, does not equate to the person being an insistent missionary shoving down his thoughts down your throat.

Irritation and feeling bad are 2 different things.

A fact is a fact and if you can categorize it as making you feel bad, then it probably is.

A fact that a living being is being brutally abused, tortured every single minute of his life in a tiny black hell hole, and ruthlessly slaughtered with pain and blood everywhere, for a pleasurable meal for you, is a "fact".

As someone eating it, you can either choose to ignore it and hence not feel anything about the said fact,

Or, feel something. That "something" is not being shoved down your throat.

That something comes from inside you. It is "your" reaction to the said fact.

It is not me.

or anyone else who put the information and picture in front of you to see and read!

It is not us.

And you feel bad , a teeny bit bad, for your choices at that instant, and then forget about it.

What about the people who have to look at you gorge down the bloodied animal and go mmmmm, or eat loads of cheese and take triple helpings.. ever see slowly staving to death baby calves?.

It freaking hurts so bad you wouldnt know. There is a tangible pain as if someone shot me in the heart.

It hurts, but I have to put that away and try to eat or continue with whatever discussions that were going on.. and shove some golf or tech down my throat.

Life goes on.. say "non dairy cheese" for the next picture.

end rant..

Phil Wollen, Australian Philanthropist, Former VP of Citibank, Makes an amazing Speech.

Watch his speech above or read the transcript below. Just a few minutes of your day.

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Transcript, borrowed from http://freefromharm.org/videos/educational-inspiring-talks/philip-wollen-australian-philanthropist-former-vp-of-citibank-makes-blazing-animal-rights-speech/

King Lear, late at night on the cliffs asks the blind Earl of Gloucester “How do you see the world?”

And the blind man Gloucester replies “I see it feelingly”.

Shouldn’t we all?

Animals must be off the menu because tonight they are screaming in terror in the slaughterhouse, in crates, and cages. Vile ignoble gulags of despair.
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realised I had heard these screams before.
In the slaughterhouse, eyes stabbed out and tendons slashed, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a Japanese harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf.
Their cries were the cries of my father.
I discovered when we suffer, we suffer as equals.
And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear. . . . . . is a boy.
Meat is the new asbestos – more murderous than tobacco.

CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock.
Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
The oceans are dying in our time. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
Billions of bouncy little chicks are ground up alive simply because they are male.

Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species.
We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
If any other organism did this a biologist would call it a virus.
It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.
The world has changed.
10 years ago Twitter was a bird sound, www was a stuck keyboard, Cloud was in the sky, 4 g was a parking place, Google was a baby burp, Skype was a typo and Al Kider was my plumber.
Victor Hugo said “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.

Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.
There are over 600 million vegetarians in the world.
That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!!
Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous huntin’, shootin’, killin’ cartels who believe that violence is the answer – when it shouldn’t even be a question.
Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.
Medicare has already bankrupted the US. They will need $8 trillion invested in Treasury bills just to pay the interest. It has precisely zero!!
They could shut every school, army, navy, air force, and Marines, the FBI and CIA – and they still won’t be able to pay for it.
Cornell and Harvard say’s that the optimum amount of meat for a healthy diet is precisely ZERO.
Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it.
Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are running dry.
It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.
1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever.

If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed them. We only have one. And she is dying.
Greenhouse gas from livestock is 50% more than transport . . . . . planes, trains, trucks, cars, and ships.
Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?
The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed.
We are facing the perfect storm.
If any nation had developed weapons that could wreak such havoc on the planet, we would launch a pre-emptive military strike and bomb it into the Bronze Age.
But it is not a rogue state. It is an industry.
The good news is we don’t have to bomb it. We can just stop buying it.
George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.

This is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. This cruel industry will end because we run out of excuses.
Meat is like 1 and 2 cent coins. It costs more to make than it is worth.
And farmers are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change. Farmers would make so much money they wouldn’t even bother counting it.
Governments will love us. New industries would emerge and flourish. Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would disappear.
Hell “We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”
So tonight I have 2 Challenges for the opposition:
1. Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Will they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
2. I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.
Animals are not just other species. They are other nations. And we murder them at our peril.

The peace map is drawn on a menu. Peace is not just the absence of war. It is the presence of Justice.
Justice must be blind to race, colour, religion or species. If she is not blind, she will be a weapon of terror. And there is unimaginable terror in those ghastly Guantanamos.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we wouldn’t need this debate.
I believe another world is possible.
On a quiet night, I can hear her breathing.
Let’s get the animals off the menu and out of these torture chambers.
Please vote tonight for those who have no voice.
Thank you.

conversations

V: we dont use milk coz cow isnt treated well and cows are not happy. (no one beleives that calves are killed)

Relatives(cousins and wives in India on the phone): where did you go to check on the cow if the cow wasnt happy.

V: we know

R: here the cows are happy, we give them peda(indian sweet made of cows milk!)

V: ok, we use cashew milk

R: why make cashew milk, eat the cashews. cow milk is complete food

V: it is not food for us, it is food for the calf.

R: dont drink tea or coffee. tea and coffee is bad for health

V: ok

R: ok we need to drink milk tea and gajar halwa now

V: omg ghor paap! (absolute sin... eating non veg is considered sin in certain castes in india.. so repeating the same thing for milk)

R: ok, talk to you later

Why Vegan- Part 4

So, if you think that there are higher powers like the government or corporations, who will protect you from all the crazy additives, processed crap, genetically modified, cancer causing, deathly horrendous things........ you would be So Wrong...

For example, think about Smoking.

Smoking is directly linked to several cancers. Over 40 carcinogens have been identified in cigarette smoke. In the US, smoking is estimated to cause 90% of lung cancer. Men who smoke two packs a day increase their risk more than 25 times compared with non-smokers. Of the 180,000 people diagnosed in the United States alone each year, 86% will die within 5 years of diagnosis.

And what does the government do? put a tiny warning at the bottom of a pack.. Get the drift??

This is exactly the problem with the food industry. No one is going to tell you dairy is bad. The dairy industry, like the tobacco industry is large enough to lobby and make you believe otherwise.

You know Why it is difficult to quit Smoking.. because it is addictive and the withdrawal effects make it very difficult... do you think a smoker can think clearly and logically think and decline a smoke, without rock hard determination?

It is a similar problem with things like cheese. They are addictive.. If you say you cannot give up cheese because you love it too much.. it is like a smoker with lung cancer saying I cannot give up Smoking because I love it too much.

That is Not your logical brain speaking.

Ma and her discussions

CCW: Chana chor-garam wala( roadside vendor who sells fried chickpea snacks).

CCW to Ma: aunty take some chana chor today

Ma: oh it is fried

CCW: it is good and fresh and you take it all the time

Ma: what did you fry it in

CCW: same old regular oil

Ma: which oil, kerosene?

CCW: no no peanut oil i think

Ma: tell me properly which oil

CCW: phalli oil

Ma: which phalli

CCW: soybean oil

Ma: i cant eat soybeans

CCW: but its soybean oil

Ma: I cant eat soybeans coz of thyroid problem and most likely that soybean is gmo. Is it organic soybean oil?

CCW: what is organic

Ma: ok, you lost a customer.

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Me to Ma: Did you reduce your milk consumption, since 70% of all milk in india contains detergent and urea.

Ma: yes, we get it from milk man now, so it not polluted, the cows have access to a field, and we dont drink at night( 1 glass less consumption).

Me: Did you ask your milk man what the cow eats

Ma: yeah some dried fodder from his field

Me: cow should eat fresh grass

some days later after mom's  investigation.

Ma: cow goes into field once she finishes weaning calf and eats green grass

Me: where does the calf go and who decides when he is weaned ?

Ma: offo, Talk to dad

some days later

Ma: They sell bull calf to neighboring farmer

Me: are you sure?

Ma: I will get you their phone number to ask these questions