The Peaceable Forest - Book Review

I was asked, by Insight Editions, to review a children's book titled The Peaceable Forest: India's Tale of Kindness to Animals.



My first impression was of the beautifully illustrated dust jacket.  This isn't a book you want to put on the kid's bookshelf (although you could, don't get me wrong).  It is an heirloom quality book that I would want to keep pristine, reading it carefully to my two year old daughter now and giving it to her once she's older and understands books aren't for tearing and scribbling in.

For perspective, I just gave her her first "paper" book.  It's title?  No Hitting, by Karen Katz (yes, we are battling that right now - sigh).  This one will go on the "special book" shelf for now.

To give you an overview of the book, from Mandala Earth Editions:

"In this ancient parable from India, a forest-dwelling hunter learns that cruelty has consequences and that compassion has rewards.  When the hunter meets the wise man, Narada, "Do unto others as they would do unto you" takes on a very concrete meaning.  The sage leads the hunter on an imagined journey in which the hunter becomes the hunted.  When the hunter realizes his actions affect other living things, he has a change of heart and begins to live in peace with the animals he once pursued.

The Peaceable Forest is the ideal picture book for inspiring young readers to respect life in all its forms."

As an ecologist, vegetarian, and animal-lover, I am always excited to find ways to pass on a live and let live attitude to my daughter.  The first time I read this book was sitting with her in our favorite reading chair.  She loved pointing out the colorfully illustrated animals, though the message is still a bit above her head.  We journeyed through a story of a hunter leaving devastation in his wake  - injured and scared animals left to suffer and die.  He was hunting purely for pleasure.  Then the gentle Sage Narada was there, to provide comfort and healing to the hurting creatures.

Eventually the Sage catches up with the hunter, and brings all the animals he had once hurt or killed upon him in nightmarish fashion, causing the hunter to in return feel the pain and fear he had wreaked upon the animals, as the hunter becomes the hunted.  After a thought-provoking discussion with the Sage, the hunter has a change of heart, and through tear-filled eyes pleads with the Sage to help him stop killing.

The ensuing discussion proceeds as such:

"From today on, never harm or eat another animal," said Narada.

"But how will I live?" asked Mrigari (the hunter).  "What will I eat?"

"You do not have to kill to eat.  The earth produces fruits and vegetables, grains and beans.  You will not go hungry."

Mrigari proceeds to break his bow in a gesture that begins his new life as a friend to animals.  We then learn that the story teller is himself Mrigari.

My initial impression of this book, though I love the tale, is that it was a bit idealistic.  I personally have no problem with the hunting of animals, as long as they are taken humanely and for human consumption.  The book paints the taking of animals for food in a negative light.  However, in this case the hunter was hunting purely for sport and in an entirely non-humane way, leaving the animals to suffer.  I take great issue with this, and like how the hunter in the end sees error in his ways and comes to care for the animals he once hurt with disregard.

Then I saw a "Note to Teachers and Parents" in the back of the book:

"The Peaceable Forest is a retelling of an ancient Vedic tale that has been passed on for centuries in the oral tradition from parents to children.  This illustrated version of a beloved story from the Sanskrit Bhagavata Purana reminds children that compassion for living creatures and respect for life have their own rewards.  The illustrations feature flora and fauna native to India, including langur monkeys, sarus cranes, and banyan and date palm trees."

I love learning of old stories passed down through ancient cultures, and find much wisdom in them.  I thought the author/illustrator did a beautiful job with recreating this legend into a children's tale.  It is a book I will be happy to share with my daughter, once she's old enough to appreciate the message.  And hopefully she will share the same values about respecting animals, nature and the earth that my husband and I do.

Book Info:

The Peaceable Forest - India's Tale of Kindness to Animals

By Kosa Ely, Illustrations by Anna Johansson

ISBN: 978-1-60887-115-5

Hardcover $16.99

32 pages

Dairy cows

I sure do not want to be a hypocrite.  Let me start this post by stating I AM NOT VEGAN.  I deeply admire those who are, and aspire to be.  What then, you ask, is holding you back?  This is going to sound extremely shallow and selfish, but honestly?  Time.  I have not had the time to build a cache of vegan recipes.  I feel like it will take a lot of preparation, which I also worry I do not have time for.  However - I am slowly working on using less dairy in my cooking (substituting almond milk for cow's milk, for example), in the hopes that I can always work towards a more vegan lifestyle.  I was under the false impression until recently that milk from organic cows was milk from humanely-treated cows.  Not so.  So after spending, I'm sure, thousands of dollars on organic milk, yogurt, cottage cheese and other dairy, I am now at a crossroads.  Now that I can't feel good about eating my organic dairy, I feel much more pressure to make the transition.  Why, you ask?  Here is the long explanation - read as much as you are willing.

From a PETA email:

Did you realize that nearly all cows used for milk are born with tissue that should develop into horns? That's really bad news for cows born into the dairy industry, which tends to pack animals into cramped spaces where horns aren't easily accommodated. So can you guess what happens to the cows?

In order to keep the horns from developing, many farmers press red-hot irons into their heads and burn this sensitive tissue out. While this happens, the calves bellow and thrash in pain. For grown cows whose horns have already fused with their skulls, farmers may use blades or hand saws, cutting or sawing away until the horns come off, often leaving gaping, blood-squirting holes.


Calves rarely receive anesthesia for the hideously painful dehorning procedures and may suffer in agony for hours after the mutilation occurs. Full-grown cows can take up to three months to heal. The calves don't understand why they're being tortured, and they can't do anything to lessen the intense pain.

There is a solution, and it's simple: The dairy industry can breed for naturally hornless cows, as most of the beef industry already does. But the most effective way for consumers to save cows from the barbarity of factory-farming is by choosing from the many readily available vegan milks, ice creams, and cheeses instead of those that come from suffering calves and cows.

Be an informed consumer. Watch PETA's new video about dehorning now, share it with others, and pledge to go vegan today.

Many people are surprised to learn that nearly all cows used for milk are born with tissue that will develop into horns. That's because most farmers remove the sensitive horn tissue or the horns themselves from the cows' skulls using searing-hot irons, caustic chemicals, blades, or hand saws.

Animals often struggle violently and have to be restrained manually or in a head bail (a metal apparatus for restraining a cow by the neck) during the painful dehorning process, which is frequently performed without anesthetics or painkillers and results in severe pain that lasts for hours and can become chronic.

Click here to watch some video (warning - disturbing to watch).

This procedure is extremely traumatic to young calves, who are often just a few weeks old when their horn buds are burned or cut out of their heads. Older cows fare even worse. Dehorning in mature cattle usually requires amputation of the horn, which has already attached itself to the skull. Tools used for this procedure include saws, sharp wires, or gruesome guillotine dehorners, which also slice off the surrounding skin. Horn removal in older animals can lead to post-operative problems of hemorrhage, tissue necrosis, bone fracture, sinusitis, and even death. The wound caused by this amputation can take three months or more to heal.

Farmers are fully aware that dehorning is painful, and it is up to the industry to phase out this excruciating mutilation. One simple solution is to breed for naturally hornless cows. A single gene determines whether or not a cow will have horns, and this approach has proved effective in the beef industry.

However, the easiest and most effective way for consumers to save cows from the misery of factory farms is to stop buying cow's milk and other dairy products and choose instead from the dozens of vegan milks, cheeses, yogurts, coffee creamers, and ice creams available in grocery stores. Browse PETA's website for hundreds of free vegan recipes, and pledge to be vegan today!

COWS USED FOR THEIR MILK

Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do: to nourish their young. In order to force the animals to continue giving milk, factory farm operators typically impregnate them using artificial insemination every year. Calves are generally taken from their mothers within a day of being born—males are destined for veal crates or barren lots where they will be fattened for beef, and females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers.

After their calves are taken away from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to milking machines. These cows are genetically manipulated, artificially inseminated, and often drugged to force them to produce about four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would to feed their calves.

Animals are often dosed with bovine growth hormone (BGH), which contributes to a painful inflammation of the udder known as "mastitis." (BGH is used widely in the U.S. but has been banned in Europe and Canada because of concerns over human health and animal welfare.) According to the industry's own figures, between 30 and 50 percent of dairy cows suffer from mastitis, an extremely painful condition.

A cow's natural lifespan is about 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the intensive confinement, the filth, and the strain of being almost constantly pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows' bodies are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat because their bodies are too "spent" to be used for anything else.

VEAL CALVES

Male calves—"byproducts" of the dairy industry—are generally taken from their mothers when they are less than 1 day old. Many are shipped off to barren, filthy feedlots to await slaughter. Others are kept in dark, tiny crates where they are kept almost completely immobilized so that their flesh stays tender. In order to make their flesh white, the calves are fed a liquid diet that is low in iron and has little nutritive value. This heinous treatment makes the calves ill, and they frequently suffer from anemia, diarrhea, and pneumonia.

Frightened, sick, and alone, these calves are killed after only a few months of life so that their flesh can be sold as veal. All adult and baby cows, whether raised for their flesh or their milk, are eventually shipped to a slaughterhouse and killed.

The good news is that removing dairy products from your diet is easier than ever. Today there is a multitude of nondairy "dairy" products on the market, such as soy, rice, and almond milk and soy ice cream. Check out a list of our favorite dairy and meat alternatives.

And, please, visit this link.  As a mother, this really tugged at my heart strings.

So - are any of you vegan?  Or do you have some tried-and-true vegan recipes at least?  If so, please comment and share!  Help me move towards a more vegan lifestyle!

Why I am a vegetarian (and why, sometimes, I'm not)

I am a vegetarian.  I have been since I was 15 - that makes it 17 years now.  So - for over half of my life I have abstained from eating meat.  Well - mostly.  But more on that in a moment.

I have always had a soft heart for animals.  My heart bleeds when I hear a story about animal abuse.  So it was only natural that, as I grew older and learned where the meat I ate came from, I was turned off by it.  Around the age of thirteen I started toying with the idea of giving up meat in my diet, but my mother was adamantly opposed to it, worried that her growing daughter would miss much-needed nutrients and not develop properly.  However, as time went on, my conviction grew, and finally she agreed to let me try it - with one caveat.  I had to see a dietician in the early stages, to make sure I was eating properly.

So, at age 15, in the year 1995, I decided that my New Year's Resolution would be to cut meat out of my diet.  Gradually at first - I planned to allow myself meat 2-3 times per week.  However, upon making my resolution known, I never again felt the need to eat it, had a craving for it, so just like that - cold turkey - I became a vegetarian.



I did it because I didn't want to be part of the populace who inflicted cruelty upon animals.  Not because I think it is cruel to eat animals; I have no problem with people who humanely (and legally) harvest animals from the wild for meat, or who raise meat in a humane and sustainable way to eat.  However, the meat produced for our grocery store shelves is anything but raised this way (a series of posts on that to follow soon).  And I did not want to play a role in their horrible treatment.

After seventeen years of being a vegetarian, reading more on the subject, earning two science degrees, and becoming generally more worldly than I was when I was fifteen, I have become further convinced that this lifestyle is the right way to go, and have more reasons as to why.

1) Whether cage confinement of chickens, mass crowding on feedlots of cattle, poor treatment of pigs, or lack of compassion towards dairy cows, the conventional method for raising mass amounts of meat for human consumption is cruel and inhumane.

2) Raising feed animals is extremely environmentally destructive.  Some examples are in order (with sources at the end of the post):

Livestock accounts for as much greenhouse gas emissions as transportation.

 

The sheer amount of pollution coming out of feed lots is devastating to the local environment (air and water).

 

The production of food animals consumes a vast amount of natural resources (such as water, fossil fuels, and topsoil).

 

Vast tracts of rainforest are being clear-cut to make room for raising food animals, erasing valuable wildlife habitat and causing species endangerment and extinction.

 

Switching to a plant-based diet is the single most important thing one person can do to help the environment.

2)  Antibiotics given to animals are creating drug-resistant strains of bacteria.

3) Meat is an extremely inefficient way to feed people.  There is enough food on this planet (currently, at least, though if we continue growing at this rate...) to feed the entire population.  However, there are the haves and the have-nots.  Many survive on one meal a day, if they are lucky.  And they do not have meat in that meal.  Few survive on a diet consisting largely of meat.  And it has been reported that you could feed ten people on the amount of grain it takes to produce enough beef to feed one (not to mention the amount of water livestock uses, when water is so precious and scarce in many places).  When there are so many in this world who are starving - how can one consciously eat meat?  I can't.

I strongly suggest you read this article in the New York Times titled "Rethinking the Meat Guzzler".  I found it staggering.

But to revisit the "why sometimes I'm not" statement...

I can't honestly state that in 17 years I have had no meat.  The first time I was 26 (11 years after becoming a veggie) and on a tropical ecology course in Costa Rica.  We were staying at a high mountain cloud-forest farm where the owner raised trout on his sustainably-modeled eco-farm.  Because I strongly believed in what he was doing, I opted to taste some of his home-grown trout.

The second time was when my husband was about to throw out some deer chili that his best friend had made (with a deer he had shot) because he didn't like it.  I hated the thought of that deer going to waste, so for the second time made a conscious decision to eat some of the meat.  I wasn't contributing to the take of the animal, and it had lived a good life - I could feel good about it.

The third time was shortly after.  My husband (who is a hunter, though VERY selective and ALWAYS humane, only taking certain shoot-to-kill shots) made some deer jerky, and really wanted me to try it.  I did.

After that, I quit counting, though I can say it has been less than ten times I have partaken.  And only in circumstances where the meat was humanely taken, and when it was not taken on my behalf (in other words, the animal would have died regardless).  I never purchased it, contributing to the demand for food animals.

I am not raising my daughter vegetarian.  I want that to be a choice she makes.  I do not feed her a large amount of meat, and when I do, it is always organic, environmentally friendly, and humanely raised.  Wild-caught Alaskan salmon, organic free-range chicken, local grass-fed organic beef, etc.  And sometimes she doesn't finish it.  And lately, I've been known to take the last couple of bites, rather than throw it in the trash (after, of course, I've frozen and preserved and reheated and just feel I can't do it anymore).

Because, I do NOT have a problem with people eating meat.  As long as it's humanely grown and harvested, and grown with minimal impact on the environment.  However - by definition, it is hard on the environment, even when that effect is maximally minimized, and it does use resources that could be more evenly distributed to the world's hungry.  So, for this reason, even if you decide not to be vegetarian, I encourage you to eat less meat.



Thus, I begin my weekly series of "Meatless Monday" posts.  Every Monday I will post a vegetarian recipe.  Hopefully, you will give some of them a try (or other tried-and-true veggie recipes you have) and try to go meatless, at least once a week!

If you partake in Meatless Mondays, I would love to know!  Please leave your comments!  And, to get you started, here is a link to past veggie recipes I have already posted!

Sources (I encourage you to take a look for some sobering statistics):

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/the-environmental-impact-of-a-meat-based-diet/

http://www.earthsave.org/environment/foodchoices.htm

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/beef/environmental_impacts/

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/meat/review.php

Fresh fruits and veggies, anyone?

I have discovered - and fallen in LOVE with - Bountiful Baskets.



What is it?

"Each week different items will be in the Bountiful Basket! We base the basket contents on what is in season, high quality, good value, and local. We generally have 6 fruit items & 6 vegetable items. We focus on what would be well received in our homes, and the extensive surveys we’ve done with participants over the past 5 years to know what families eat."

For $15 (plus some incidental costs, like $3 if you're a first time orderer) for a conventional basket or $25 for an organic basket, you get enough produce to fill a small round laundry basket above the rim.  It is AMAZING, it is FRESH, it is DIVERSE - I love it.  We order every two weeks, and it's just enough to keep my family of three in fresh produce during that time (and encourages us to eat new things!).  If you have on in your area, I highly recommend it!!!



On that note - I am going on vacation!  This will be my last post until May.  If you are just discovering the site, I hope you will take my little hiatus as an opportunity to read up on some past posts, comment on anything you find interesting, and/or drop me a line via email!  I'd love to hear from you!  And if you need a little incentive...

I will randomly choose one reader who comments on ANY post so far on this blog to win an Udder Cover (sorry non-baby-making females or guy readers - there will be more giveaways for you in the future!).