New Mexico Vegan March 2020

NewMexicoVegan March 2020

Cooking with Compassion on KRQE New Mexico Living For Vegans, Vegetarians, and the Veg Curious

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The views and opinions, expressed by contributing-authors, in the New Mexico Vegan Magazine; may, or may not, represent the views and opinions, of New Mexico Vegan.

We Feel Entitled….(Advertisement)

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Inside

2

Editor’s Note

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Embrace Veganism (Advertisement)

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Opportunities For Animal Rights Activists In The Environmental Movement

5-6

Choose Love

7-8

Gelatin (Advertisement)

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Animal

10-12

New Mexico Facts & Trivia

13

All Creatures Are…(Advertisement)

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Ahimsa: Yoga Philosophy, Nonviolence, and Veganism

15-16

How On Earth Did I Get Here?

Contributor

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Melissa (Kamacho) Brandenburg

15-16

Chris Cavaliere

40-41

James Corcoran

19-20

Bera Dordoni

7-8

Jon Fish

32-33

Angel Flinn

10-12

Evangelia Gogou

25

Ruth Greenwood

17-18

Alexander Michael Hakam

39

17-18

Marco Knox

29-31

And The Oscar Goes To…

19-20

Vanessa Marsot

37-38

Consuming Animals Is The Leading Cause of….

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Living Vegan

Murray Noseworthy

5-6

22-23

HeartnSole in the Community

23

Shay Marie Ramos

22-23

Top 12 Minerals For Building Muscle

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The Angry Vegan

25

I hate When People Dismiss Veganism…. (Advertisement)

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Photo Collage

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Resources

28

The Phytogenic Chef™

29-31

Weight & Exercise

32-33

Meet Our Extended Family

34

Perfect Tea For Any Mood

35

Fried Rice Recipe

36

When I Played Candy Land

37-38

Empathy

39

Join US!

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The #1 Multiple Equation Blocking the U.N. Global Goals If Not Acknowledged, And Ended, May Be The Death Of Us All

40-41

Health Benefits of Basil

42

2 Tablespoons of Chia Seeds…

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Be Fair Be Vegan: FIVE STEPS TO VEGAN

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VIP (Vegans In The Park)

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Advertising with NM Vegan

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Revisit With Previous New Mexico Vegan Magazine Issues

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Eat Like Your Life Depends On It…

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New Mexico Vegan Volume 6 – Issue 2 March 2020 Editor: Nancy Arenas NMV Photographer: N. Arenas

A HeartnSole, LLC publication

A Thank You To Lisa Hackard for back cover picture.

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Welcome to another issue of, New Mexico Vegan. Let’s talk about: character development.

Earth is, a person, developing its, *character. But, Earth is also, a team, having many players: you & me, that country, this city, snakes & birds, pretty words, the moon goin’ ‘round… and all. Well then… I, too, have my own team… of atoms and molecules, finger-nails & itches, eye-looks & eye-lashes. My heart is a drummer, I’m a living orchestra, and so many other things… as are you, and you, & each-n-every ‘you.’ Earth is a team, within a team, within a team,… of end-less teams.

I wonder if Earth has: a singular, all-encompassing mind; an… ‘I am’ …that’s aware of all. Is that ‘I am’ …doing anything? Let us imagine, the Earth-god, as simply --a witness-- content, to do nothing; while all the small players, carry their teams forward, and, do all the work, of making Earth …mature.

The little ones, are the do-ers. We, make ourselves, mature. So that, whatever happens, the Earth-god will, ever & only, say, “It’s all good.” On the other hand, perhaps I’m vegan now… because Earth’s core --its heart-- is … do-ing… energy-waves, that are… whispering to my conscience-- now, and in my dreams.

Well… well, well, well. ‘I am’ …not waiting …for those questions to be answered.

I have been sprinkled with the enchanting-dust of the Purpose-Fairy. Earth, (the human aspect of Earth; …perhaps, not the alligator aspect, yet; but, the human aspect of Person-Earth), is becoming a vegan. Earth is becoming vegan; and, I love it. My players …my atoms & molecules …are in the game.

And, look, who recently joined the game: national ‘fast-food’ restaurant chains: Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Carl’s Jr., McDonald’s, and others. Some, are only dipping their toe, in the pool; but, they’ll be swimming in the ocean of compassion & non-violence, soon. I’d like to push them all into the vegan-waters, now, with their clothes on… but, as I said, “I’m a team player.” Good sportsmanship is a worthy attribute, I suppose. But, I’ll speak for the animals, when I say, “Since, blood & death are in the game; then, maybe all is fair in love and war. And, sportsmanship is, then, a myth, …for some.” Be that as it may, I do affirm good sportsmanship: for myself; and, for all vegans. Violence is not the formula for creating: non-violence.

I get happy, like a proud mother, every time the word ‘vegan’ grows-up a little more. Recently, the word ‘vegan’ has gotten for itself, some long-awaited publicity, on television & radio, at the cinema, through the internet, newspapers, magazines… and most kinds of public media. It is all evidence, that the global-vegan-community, is ‘playing the game.’

Whoever you are, …o ye Person-Earth, of galactic proportions… you’re building vegan-character, now. But, you will not get any praise from me… you’re a day late, and a dollar short… or is that… centuries late, & mercy’s short. Notwithstanding, you can count on …little ol’ me… for help. Play-on.

Livegan, -- Nancy ___________________ *Character is, here, defined as: one’s mental & emotional attitude, regarding violent & non-violent behaviors.

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Opportunities For Animal Rights Activists In The Environmental Movement Murray Noseworthy

Most people now agree that climate change is accelerating the Sixth Mass Extinction of species that is currently underway. In response, numerous environmental groups and leaders are taking their message to the streets and capital buildings with marches, speeches, and demonstrations. The main focus of nearly all of these groups and individuals is fossil fuels as the driving force of climate change.

As important as it is to acknowledge the role of fossil fuels, vegans know that along with fossil fuels, we must accept and reiterate that animal agriculture is really the main driving force of climate change. This resulting sixth mass extinction of life on Earth is due to; habitat loss caused by deforestation to grow crops for farmed animals, vast marine dead zones created by runoff of toxic fertilizers and other chemicals, and mass production of corn and fishmeal to feed farmed animals.

This massive mobilization of people who care, and are passionate about the urgent need to act now to save our planet, is a golden opportunity for vegan animal rights activists to get our message across to environmentalists who may be more receptive, and more likely, to consider a plant-based diet as the most effective way to mitigate or stop global warming....the low hanging fruit so-to-speak.

For example, local activists in our city of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada got together and attended the Fridays For Future marches, started in Sweden by climate activist Greta Thunberg in 2018, and now happening in cities all around the world. We all carried placards, made of available and recyclable cardboard, with powerful messages about animal agriculture and its impact on our environment. As usual, animal agriculture was barely mentioned, or not at all, by organizers and local dignitaries who were present and gave speeches about plastics and fossil fuels as the causes of pollution and global warming. But our group of vegan activists took up highly visible positions at these events with our placards, making it impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, animal agriculture, as the leading cause of global warming. As a result, we had some positive conversations with environmentalists, and handed out leaflets to people who were truly interested in what we had to say, many who were not fully aware of the effects of animal agriculture on climate change.

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Opportunities For Animal Rights Activists In The Environmental Movement – Con’td Murray Noseworthy Another example of this approach, on a larger scale, is the recent massive joint protests held in London by Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion in October 2019. As you may know, Extinction Rebellion is an environmental group based in London with chapters around the world and hundreds of thousands of members. It had already organized and effectively implemented massive marches, disruptions and occupations around London in April of 2019. Their success at grabbing local and global attention with their bold actions prompted Animal Rebellion to join forces with Extinction Rebellion to increase the number of participants...tens of thousands attended.

From Animal Rebellion’s point-of-view this brings attention to the destructive effects of animal agriculture on the environment in a much larger organization than would have been possible with Animal Rebellion only.... a brilliant move. I was fortunate enough to attend the joint Extinction/Animal Rebellion event in London in October 2019 with some vegan activist friends to witness first-hand how effective this approach can be. During the occupations of landmark locations like Trafalgar Square, Westminster, Smithfield Market and others we had the opportunity again to speak with climate activists from around the world and influence them to consider the impacts of animal agriculture on climate change. There were individual actions by Animal Rebellion and larger joint actions with Extinction Rebellion giving us the opportunity to reach out and support each other, creating some tension but also many acts of good will and fellowship. Attending the massive climate march throughout historic London we carried our placards highlighting the plant-based solution.

These are unique opportunities to get our message to a large audience otherwise not available to us through animal rights focused events.

Here in the U.S. and in Canada this Spring, Summer, and Fall there are numerous climate marches, protests, occupations, and demonstrations planned in many cities and towns that will attract thousands of climate activists from all walks of life. Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion now have many chapters in North American cities, ready to hit the streets. I strongly encourage all animal rights activists and organizations to get organized for this ground-swell of protests and marches. Get some animal agriculture/animal rights related leaflets, placards and tee shirts printed and be ready to join the throngs of climate activists at these events. Take advantage of this amazing opportunity to speak for the animals and to raise awareness of the importance of tackling climate change with a plant-based food system change.

I believe, in solidarity with our environmental activist friends, that we as animal activists can shine a stronger light on the destructive animal agriculture industry and highlight its contribution in the climate emergency our world now faces.

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Choose Love Bera Dordoni, N.D. I love ho’oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness, love, releasing old baggage and negative beliefs, and embracing the divinity within ourselves. I love it even more when its concepts are validated by a dog.

According to Kanoe, a dog who spoke to her human through animal communicator Maia Kincaid in Dogs Say the Darndest Things, all living beings on this planet are connected. We share a” collective mind.” And from her canine perspective, human actions are negatively affecting the planet.

Humans, Kanoe says, tend to respond in a like manner: they match rudeness with rudeness and cruelty with cruelty, and are always bringing the past into the present to express it again. This approach doesn’t share and nurture light upon the planet; instead, it perpetuates darkness and fear. That’s because humans also tend to operate from fear, not love.

Dogs love. Sure, they know primal fear, as all sentient creatures do. But unless they’ve been horribly abused or neglected, they mostly live in tail-wagging, face-licking love, throw-the-ball-throw-the-ball-throw-the-ball love.

Now, environmental and animal-rights organizations may have honorable, even Divine intentions, Kanoe says, but individual people’s actions on behalf of those organizations mostly originate from fear. They’re afraid if they don’t act, if they don’t do their part—and I mean right now! —it could spell doom for millions of animals—maybe even for the Earth itself.

Think about it. Did you become vegan because you want to help save the planet? Has the harm humans have done to this world become more than you can bear? Are you so furious you want to join a protest, so outraged you’ve become an activist, so ready to take action you’re armed and prepared to battle all the bad guys—not just corporations that promote GMOs, but anyone else who’s destroying our planet, all, you’ve decided, in the name of greed?

Harm. Furious. Protest. Outrage. Armed. Battle. Destroy. Greed. Do any of those words portray an attitude of love to you?

No, not to me, either.

If fear brings along hate for the ride, then love, Kanoe claims, is accompanied by wisdom. We must learn not to take affronts personally, to stay in a state of love—treating all life forms with kindness and respect—no matter how poorly we have been treated. That doesn’t mean being a doormat; it means not operating from fear. Kanoe challenges each of us join those protest lines without negativity or accusation, but with nurturing, loving, nonjudgment.

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Choose Love – Cont’d Bera Dordoni, N.D. Does that sound too esoteric, too goody-goody to pull off? Maybe it is. After all, we’re only human. But, as Kanoe reminds us, we have as much of the Divine in us as dogs have in them. We just don’t give patience, understanding, and fostering a sense of peace the same dogged attention that canines do.

Some Laws Just Can’t Be Broken Jump off a 10-story building with no wings, no flying apparatus, and you’re gonna splat. Simple as that. Law of gravity--can’t be broken. Other laws are equally as powerful, including the laws of attraction. Fear attracts hate.

Hate attracts violence. Violence attracts retaliation. Read history—this isn’t just a law, it’s an undeniable reality.

But love attracts thought, and thought attracts understanding, and understanding attracts peace.

If we want to draw a beautiful 2020 to ourselves, a year filled with love and all the blessings we deserve, we need to exercise our God-given powers to forgive, to love, to release old baggage and negative beliefs, and to embrace the divinity within our own beings, within our own spirits and souls.

Set Your Vision Focus on the beauty of the planet, and release media-generated visions of destruction. Choose to learn environmentalism from education from our loving collective mind. Use the power of your happiness and generosity to spread compassion and understanding to everyone you meet or even think about—no matter who you think they might be or what you think they might have done.

Can we save the world by deciding to change our minds and operate out of love instead of fear?

Who knows? Has anyone ever tried it before?

I encourage you to join me in choosing love in 2020.

Dr. Bera “The Wellness Whisperer” Dordoni, N.D. With over 35 years of serving as a vegan/vegetarian-oriented Naturopathic Doctor/nutritionist, Dr. Bera now focuses primarily on teaching Ho’oponopono in workshops and at retreats in her home in the Zuni mountains. She provides gourmet vegan meals and a relaxing stay where deer and wild turkeys play… as well as instruction in plant-based living, immune-system building and how to make the laws of attraction work for you. To learn more or book your stay, visit drberatlc.com or bastis.org.

“We know we cannot be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them — exploiting animals in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.”

César Chávez

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animal (adj.) “pertaining to the animal kingdom” (as opposed to vegetable or mineral) animal (n.) “any sentient living creature” (including humans)

Less than 24 hours after Joaquin Phoenix took the stage to accept his well-deserved (and long overdue) award, the internet was alive with commentary about what was, without a doubt, a cultural moment worthy of our attention.

Given Joaquin’s history, it’s possible that Big Dairy might have seen it coming. Practices such as forced insemination and separation of mother from baby are fundamental to their continued existence and, as evidence of these dreadful facts continues to come to light, it seems the best they can do is try and convince us that it’s all “for the protection of the animals” and that, (quite in defiance of evolutionary principles) cows used for dairy are, conveniently, the only mammal that lacks any maternal instinct. (This mother might take issue with that assertion, as might this mother, as well as countless farmers who have come to recognize the bellows of their cows as mourning cries.)

But slightly more interesting than the industry attempting to defend itself is the indignation expressed by some on the supposedly progressive left, offering an ideal illustration of exactly the egocentric worldview Phoenix referred to in his speech: “To speak of the injustices of racism, of the experiences of people of colour whose history is steeped in slavery, then to discuss women, whose rights to bodily autonomy are still being challenged by anti-abortion laws across the States, and to mention queer rights, when members of the gay community have been beaten, criminalized and banned from marrying their partners — to utter these causes in the same breath as milking cows really only highlights Phoenix’s already startlingly obvious white male privilege.”

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While it’s true that these words reveal more about the writer’s state of privilege than they do about the actor’s, perhaps we shouldn’t hold against Harriet Hall the fact that she has chosen to use this opportunity to bring to light a sentiment that is common among the nonvegan progressive left.

The tragic truth is that the very real struggles pointed to in Hall’s paragraph pale in comparison to the anguish endured by humanity’s nonhuman victims. To suggest otherwise indicates either ignorance of the facts or a simple lack of concern for the colossal implications thereof, the latter of which is a shortcoming not unique to Harriet Hall, but one that is shared (whether openly or otherwise) by nearly everyone. No matter where we stand on other social justice issues, species privilege puts us all in a position where we are (for the most part) completely unaware of how unaware we are.

While women fight passionately for the right to obtain a legal abortion, the routine, systematic sexual brutalization of nonhuman females is business as usual in the animal industry, and human females (with the exception of vegans) offer them no solidarity. As we lament the injustices of income inequality, nonvegan women continue to stand in line to buy cheese, butter and ice cream, while bovine mothers wail for the nursing newborns who have been wrenched from them, and then face the daily humiliation of mechanized milking alongside their grieving sisters, aching for the touch of their babies, as mother’s milk is pumped from their bodies to feed those who have ordered the execution of their offspring.

What could be a more glaring expression of the insidiousness of the patriarchy than the fact that those who identify as feminists are willing to use their names, their voices, and their platforms to defend and downplay the sins of this industry? Not only does the obscene business of animal slavery make a mockery of the founding principles of the women’s rights movement, which was, at its roots, a movement against violence, but its very business is that of commodifying everything that characterizes female bodies as being female.

The animal industry turns eggs, milk, and babies themselves into merchandise, and female bodies into factories, transmuting the miraculous alchemy of the life force into a mechanism that simply drives the production line, while lining the pockets of some of the wealthiest in the world: millionaires and billionaires who have become rich from the sale of products that disproportionately sicken our most underprivileged populations.

People are easily offended when animal activists reference human slavery and the Holocaust, as though the differences of the victims somehow cancel out any similarities in the offenses committed against them. We are told that to make such comparisons is disrespectful to the real victims, the victims who are most like us.

We might want to consider though whether what we are offended by is actually a question of who the victims are, or more a question of who the perpetrators are. We can read, hear and learn about such atrocities with a combination of sorrow, regret, and compassion, as long as the slaveholders and the Nazis are individuals we can separate ourselves from, but our response rapidly turns to a combination of guilt and shame when we’re compelled to think of ourselves as wearing the uniforms of the guards.

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But this is the system that has indoctrinated us all. The species prejudice that permeates the very atmosphere surrounding us hides the consequences of nonvegan choices behind factory and slaughterhouse walls, aggag legislation, and the unwavering intractability of our collective denial. And just like with all forms of bigotry, it is the far-too-frequently unexamined belief in our own supremacy that allows us to close our eyes to the suffering of “the others” when we ourselves receive some kind of benefit from it. We have all been so taught.

We can’t be blamed for our conditioning, but we are responsible for what we do about it once our blinders are removed.

When Joaquin Phoenix took the Oscars stage, his speech invited us to take an honest look at the prejudices we still cling to, and to see the similarities rather than the differences in all victims of oppression. When we look just a little beyond the surface, we can see that the experiences of those we disregard as being too different to matter are, in fact, a reflection of what we, ourselves, would experience if we were the ones whose lives had been appropriated by the animal exploitation industry. When we give genuine consideration to these tragic figures, we find that we are not bearing witness to the experiences of strangers belonging to a foreign world incomprehensible to us, but into the lives of our own kind; as long as we allow ourselves to simply recognize them to be, as we are, animal.

A final note: Joaquin’s closing lines were painful because he allowed us to see, just for a moment, the very real sorrow he has been forced to bear for nearly thirty years, having held his older brother in his arms as he died needlessly, and having never been given the chance to see just how brightly his star could have shone.

Such rare authenticity could be the very antidote to the culture of toxic masculinity toward which the Independent columnist falls just short of accusing him of contributing, as well as a service to all who hunger for any honest illustration of what it looks like to be real and unguarded in a world that keeps us all increasingly hesitant to lay down our armor.

As a man who has used inscrutability as his primary defense against the insensitivity he and his family were shown during their time of personal anguish, it was a beautiful thing that he should choose to use his most public moment to date to allow the entire world to witness not only a tiny fragment of his grief, but also, we can hope, a little glimpse of his healing.

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1. New Mexico is the 5th largest state in the United States in terms of total area with 315,198 square kilometers (121,699 square miles).

1. Lakes and Rivers make up only .002% of the state’s total surface area. The lowest water-to-land ratio of all 50 states.

1. The Rio Grande is New Mexico’s longest river and runs the entire length of New Mexico. Its name is Spanish for the “Big River,” but the Rio Grande is actually known as Rio Bravo in Mexico. “Bravo” translates as “ furious,” so the name makes sense.

1. New Mexico has 15 national parks and 27 state parks.

2. The history of New Mexico is based on both archeological evidence, attesting to varying cultures of humans occupying the area of New Mexico since approximately 9200 BC, and written records.

1. Claims have been made that the pillow of goodness, the Sopapilla was first devoured in the Albuquerque area 200 years ago.

2. In 1607, roughly 13 years before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, Santa Fe was founded, making it the second oldest town in current day America.

3. The ski lift on the slopes of the Sandia Mountains is 7,500 feet long, making it one of the longest in the world.

4. Santa Fe is at an elevation of over 7000 feet. Residents literally look down on Denver, which is 5280 feet above sea level.

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5. We have the best heritage in the country. No, really, UNESCO says so. There are more UNESCO World Heritage Sites in New Mexico than in any other state in the nation.

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Written in The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, there exists 8 Limbs of Sacred Yogic teachings that have existed for thousands of years. These are the cornerstone principles to spiritual, intellectual, and physical practice of Yoga.

Within the 8 Limbs are Yamas (ethics or universal morality), Niyamas (selfdiscipline), and Asana (physical practice and postures) to name the first three.

The following limbs are all deeply meaningful, and tie delicately one into the other, until a collective goal of reaching Samadhi is achieved, which is the ultimate One-ness with all of life, union with self and with Divine Source.

Western culture has embraced and glorified the Asana/physical practice of yoga, and many self-proclaimed 'yogis' and modernized teachers claim to be spiritually committed to Yoga and its philosophy. However, we must consider the very first pillar in the Yamas, which is the foundational practice of Ahimsa: a conscious action of nonviolence.

To devote oneself to the first Yama, one must have compassion for all living things. The word ahimsa literally translates as: Do no harm; not to injure or show cruelty to any creature or any person in any way! Ahimsa is also kindness and thoughtful consideration of others as well as self-love and compassion. This practice speaks to personal responsibility and integrity. Ahimsa is the path of causing no harm upon others, all that is within our power or will. How could Ahimsa then, inherently connect to our consumer responsibility, and our abilities as citizens in a first world country? With access to resources many others around the world may not have – how can a serious practitioner of Yoga make the definitive connection between living vegan ethics and values, and the foundational teachings of Ahimsa?

The path of walking this Earth, identifying as human, is a speckled and turbulent experience. Despite anyone's attempt to live blissfully content, unattached, and sublime – social, political, economic, geographical realities can and will impact our ways of life. Residing in a militarized country that thrives in controversy and incites division in opposing views of civil rights and moral integrity – no American is immune to the disposition of being controlled while simultaneously having potential access to resources. It's almost as if we are the 'enslaved privileged', attempting to survive in a state that is essentially on the verge of oligarchy... conditioned to believe we have rights when in truth, those rights are more theoretical than truly legitimized. Subjected to endless bias media, propaganda, and corporate advertising – the U.S. American culture struggles to retain an identity without the influence of private interests backed by power and money. The willful choice to evolve both spiritually and physically can feel inhibited by the external motives of others who hoard financial wealth and resources and control political legislation. How does one overcome the American status quo, when the sentiment has become popular and globalized? Materialism, irresponsible consumerism, and self-seeking behaviors dominate the modern context while minimalism, communal benefit, and social welfare are still antagonized – even considered radical. These sentiments of social injustice and systematic, normalized violence (through classism and induced poverty) should not be overlooked due to cultural conditioning or cognitive dissonance; furthermore it is said how we treat the most vulnerable in our societies speaks volumes to our state of disparity. Therefore, the elderly, our children, and the animals in our inner circles of community are at the most at risk for these injustices and violations of life.

Is it absolutely necessary to cause suffering for others in order to prosper and thrive? Is the ideology to conquer and dominate justified, or simply outdated? What about ego?

Individuals who are intellectualists or spiritual elitists – is there healthy space in their psyche still attainable, to evolve their practices and ethics?

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There is 'Universal Truth' and moral virtue on the path of Ethical and Intersectional Veganism. The fundamental shift towards non-violence in thoughts, words, and actions could have more of a positive affect than what is culturally normalized at this time, sharing a sense of solidarity, compassion, and trust within the diverse and vast framework of the real majority- the impoverished and working class in this country. This extends to all animal life that is being violently abused and exploited for superficial, anthropocentric gain. The human condition is in dire need of holistic healing – by the upheaval of perpetuated norms that propel culture down instead of forward – by reshaping and redesigning modern conditions, and perhaps even returning to our original state of what it means to be humane.

Regardless of image, status, material wealth, prestige, or worldly concepts of pleasure – every human seeks love. Love is the most desired experience in human evolution, in Love's truest form. To love and be loved, is rooted in our fundamental instincts to survive, therefore innate to our social and biological motivations. The key to attaining love could be closely related to empathy, and more so compassion - a sense of being that has been lost in translation and furthermore ignored by the modern status quo. Complacency is a mental sickness for those who still have the opportunity to change (despite counterintuitive behavior) - and compassion is the potential cure. There is a genuine opportunity here for us to bridge many of the gaps of understanding one another, that can weave together spirituality as well as our intellectual and moral aspirations.

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I have always been an introvert; shy, good mannered and the person to happily follow the instructions of others. Fast forward four years and I am going against everything I have ever been told. I am living a whole different life, giving talks from park benches with a microphone, facilitating training for Animal Rebellion about non violent arrests, speaking to strangers in supermarkets about their food choices, and even getting fired over ethics from the job I love. I have literally been there, done that, had the t-shirt made, and now I have even written the book!

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to check that all of this is real. When I think about it more closely though, I have never actually felt more alive. Yes, I have to push myself to be more confident every day. Yes, I get hate mail and threats of abuse. Yes, I have even lost friends and family, but they are slowly returning to me now they have realized this is not some silly phase. I have never been so sure that what I am doing is right. I wonder why it has taken me forty years to work all this out? Let me recount briefly where this all began.

At thirty years old I was a newly qualified teacher and also a single parent. I was ready to embark on a new journey. I packed our bags and we began our new life in Russia where pretty soon after I became quite ill. Luckily with one blood test the doctor from the swanky medical centre discovered that I was allergic to dairy, and he asked me to omit it from my diet. Honestly, I laughed out loud! I genuinely believed that dairy is vital for health. At the time I felt so sorry for myself because I loved chocolate and cheese and had no idea how I would manage without it. I left in disbelief, but began to research.

I would like to say I found all my answers that evening, but what really happened was that I opened up a Pandora’s box. My whole life changed and it dawned on me that I did not have a dairy allergy. I am just not a baby cow.

After that realization, it was easy to remove it from my diet, my ‘asthma’ disappeared and I began a new chapter in my life About a year later I had chased the sun and was teaching in Spain. Beautiful beaches, a swimming-pool to dive into at the end of each day, a class of the sweetest 4 year olds you could imagine and supportive, caring, colleagues. I was in paradise! I was vegan, so much healthier, and had the job of my dreams. I literally had just about everything I wanted.

Then I watched a speech by Earthling Ed. He asked for the listener to consider what they would do if they walked by a dog being beaten in the street. Would they walk on by, or would they stop to help the dog. This analogy changed my life once again, and I knew that just BEING vegan was not enough. I couldn’t sit idly by while this abuse continued.

“We cannot have peace among men whose hearts find delight in killing any living creature.”

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To add to this, I had encountered more children than I could remember who had been suffering with asthma. I quizzed one parent and asked if their doctor had ever checked for dairy allergies. The answer was a resounding and puzzled, ‘No’. However, this four year old had been given two types of inhalers to use daily, indefinitely, and they were bringing cheese sandwiches to school every day!

I was in a dilemma. I tried to speak to management and show data but was met with criticism. Their reactions really surprised me. I was even told to keep my ‘beliefs’ to myself. Fast forward a few months and I was fired because ‘they had too many staff’. The best thing about this unfortunate series of events was that I was then able to freely speak to my colleagues. In turn, they researched the information and have made big changes themselves.

So now I am back in my home country, England, and have been working on plans to help not just the animals, but the children too. I feel they are also the innocent party in this moral dilemma. If they knew that they were eating animals, and also that these ‘food’ items were damaging their health, I know for a fact they would not want to contribute. However, their parents and teachers are their gatekeepers, and the information they have expired along with the campaigns to get the nation smoking cigarettes.

This is unfortunate because the next generation has some very aware little vegans. While hosting a vegan kids’ party and during street outreach, I have felt a distinct lack of empowerment from kids. Children have told me they want to be vegan but they weren’t allowed, or their parents asked for vegan lunches at school only to be refused.

These are the children I have written my new book for, ‘I don’t wanna eat animals anymore’. My aim is to support these children so that they know how much power they have, and can use it to amplify their voice and the voice of the animals.

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If any of you had the misfortune of tuning out the Academy Awards last month, you missed one of the most soul-stirring, extemporaneous acceptance speeches of recent memory. Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor for his portrayal of the “Joker.”

What followed was a brilliant self-effacing oration that could – no, make that should have been given at the State of Union address in Washington.

I am sharing this with everyone, because in my heart, I only wish I could articulate what he did in so few words. He hit upon many of the social justice issues that I have been championing for so many years. His impassioned appeal to the worldwide audience was every bit as magnificent as his acting was in the Joker.

Here is Joaquin, in his own words, at the Oscars. I hope they are as meaningful and inspirational to you as they are to me.

“I'm full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room because we share the same love, the love of film. And this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don't know what I'd be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it's given me, and many of us in this room, is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless.

I've been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively. I think at times we feel, or we're made to feel, that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think, whether we're talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights, we're talking about the fight against injustice. We're talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender or one species has the right to dominate, control and use and exploit another with impunity.

I think that we've become very disconnected from the natural world, and many of us, what we're guilty of is an egocentric world view — the belief that we're the center of the universe. We go into the natural world, and we plunder it for its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow, and when she gives birth, we steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable.

Then we take her milk that's intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. And I think we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, to give something up, but human beings, at our best, are so inventive and creative and ingenious. And I think that when we use love and compassion as our guiding principles, we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.

Now, I have been, I have been a scoundrel in my life. I've been selfish. I've been cruel at times, hard to work with, and I'm grateful that so many of you in this room have given me a second chance. And I think that's when we're at our best, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other toward redemption. That is the best of humanity.

When he was 17, my brother [River] wrote this lyric. He said, 'Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow.' Thank you.”

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Here is a link to his speech to hear for yourself and to share with family and friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1GUrwKHC2Q

James Corcoran is one of many organizers of Santa Fe Vegan and cofounder of the non-profits; Plant Peace Daily, VegMichigan and VegFund.

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My name is Shay Marie Ramos and I am a 46-year-old disabled woman.

I currently live in Albuquerque, New Mexico with my daughter and son-in-law.

I guess I will start off with how my journey to living a vegan lifestyle started. It will be three years July 1, 2020 that I have been living a vegan life. I was exposed to vegetarian and veganism in 2002, however, back then I truly didn't understand what “living vegan” meant. I had found out that I was allergic to pork products and would get ill if I ate beef as well, so I eliminated them from my diet. My daughter was only 10 years old at the time, when she said to me, “Mama, I want to be vegan.” I had no clue where to begin or what to do, but we tried.

Sadly, we did not succeed at living vegan, however, we did cut out a lot of animal products because I couldn't afford to purchase meat. We ate a lot of vegetarian meals, but never fully transitioned. The resources just weren't available (or at least I had no clue where to look or what to eat/cook) and so we would just eat less animals and add more veggies. I was able to find a few replacements like soyrizo, vegan nuggies from Trader Joe's, Tofutti sour cream to replace the dairy/meat items, but honestly, just didn't have information about being vegan.

As the years passed finances became extremely difficult and so we moved here to New Mexico at the end of 2009. We became involved in cat and dog rescue and were volunteering with many local rescues. I had met a couple of people that were vegan over the years doing cat and dog rescue, but it still didn't click that I was rescuing one animal while consuming another. I had personally fostered over 120 cats, but never once considered that while I was so focused on saving cats and dogs that I was contributing to abuse, torture, and murder to other animals. I continued to try to incorporate as many vegan meals and vegetarian meals into our diet for health reasons, again still not connecting the dots, but yet wanting to eat healthier. I had been diagnosed with diabetes and wanted to change my diet to a cleaner diet. I have several other health issues including Fibromyalgia, Restless Leg Syndrome, high blood pressure, severe obesity, all stemming from a work injury in 2007. I gained 100 lbs. within a year from the injury and then almost another 100 lbs. over the next couple of years.

April 2016 my daughter says to me, “Mom, I'm vegan!” I said, “Finally, now I can eat a vegetarian diet and figure out how to transition to vegan.” My daughter and son-in-law basically went vegan overnight. Once my daughter began to show me videos and documentaries about factory farms and the dairy industry, I eliminated all dairy from my diet and was only consuming eggs. That continued for a year and a half until my son-in-law showed me a video on what happens to baby chicks that are born male. That was it. I was done. I finally realized that torture, abuse, and murder is what I was eating. I was connecting the dots. My eyes were opened, and I couldn't take back the past 43 years of harm that I had caused others. My heart still aches from being so ignorant and blind to my past eating habits. I immediately stopped consuming all animals and animal by-products. I'm still learning though about those awful hidden ingredients in products, but now I know what vegan means to me. To me, the definition of veganism is to cause the least amount of harm to others. Which over these past couple of years I have come to realize that includes our planet, other humans, ALL creatures big or small and things that I never would have connected before living a vegan lifestyle. Recycling, reducing, reusing, re-purposing, repairing, composting, buying less processed foods, less packaged foods in plastic wrap or plastic containers.

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I am now volunteering with several non-profit organizations like Vegan Outreach, Animal Protection New Mexico, Plant Powered Events, and animal rescue/sanctuary groups, too. Had I known then what I know now I would have been living vegan a lot sooner. I remember that I used to pray over my food and say thank you for sacrificing yourself so I may have sustenance.... Now I know that the poor animal didn't sacrifice him or herself to die so I could eat. He fought to live. He didn't want to die. I paid for him to die. I was a murderer. I was an animal abuser. I may not have been the one to pull that trigger, but I paid someone else to do it for me.

We don't want to know how our food gets to the store shelves or what the animal went through to get there. We just want pretty packaging and a bunch of lies on a box that makes us think they are happy cows running around in an open grassy field. We would rather stay blind and ignorant to everything that happens behind the scenes. But let me tell you something, once you know and understand it, you don't ever forget it. If you can forget it and continue to pay for animal suffering and death, and still want to eat animals then you are not an animal lover in the true sense of its meaning.

My eyes are so open now that there is no turning back. I am forever living vegan. I can't urge you enough to please live vegan. Live with compassion. Live with kindness to all kinds, just not certain kinds. No matter your reason for choosing to live vegan, your body, the animals, and the planet will ALL thank you.

KRQE New Mexico Living Lovelace Day of Dance

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As veganism grows exponentially all over the world, the vegans are being accused for all sort of things. For being aggressive, to extremism, and even for establishing a new religion.

The anti-vegans campaign funded by the meat and dairy industry is no different than the campaigns against the anti-smokers, the first ecological movement, the anti-GMO, the anti-pesticides, etc. And is the same company the last fifty years organizing all these campaigns, the Exponent Inc. But despite the millions of dollars and the political connections, these campaigns haven't succeeded in the long term. At the end smoking, alcohol, drugs, pesticides, GMO, even fat, sugar, and salt are regulated by law in many countries as dangerous for the public health. What was campaigned as individual choice and freedom is now under public control. So, I am getting frustrated when I see that the same tactics have the same results and the lessons from the past are not learned.

I will talk for myself as an angry Vegan when I know that the meat and dairy industry is responsible for the land and water degradation and deforestation. Which contributes 18% of the human produced greenhouse gas emissions. Added the agriculture’s G.G.E (greenhouse gas emissions) for animal feeding this percentage goes up to 40%. A deadly impact on our lives and the lives of the future generations.

And what makes me angrier is the fact that the vast majority of the environmental activists ask you to do all the eco-friendly stuff: stop flying, buy second hand, avoid plastic but, they are still eating meat. This selective ignorance of the scientific data makes me wonder what is worse, to be an animal farmer that hates veganism or an environmentalist that keeps supporting the animal farming industry.

I'm also getting angry with all these spiritual seekers that do yoga and meditation, speaking about love, peace, harmony, and do all the cool trendy stuff but they forget the core part of the spirituality, the love and compassion towards animals and all life forms.

The other animal lovers, the pet owners that keep alive another animal harming industry, pet breeding or use animals as accessories, caged companions on antidepressants. And of course, their love stops at cats and dogs.

I think that is about time to justify our anger because we face the strong possibility of extinction and this is not a personal choice.

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ABQ Vegan: http://www.meetup.com/ABQVEG/ Albuquerque Vegan and Vegetarian Parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323534174705753/ HeartnSole Spiritual Community: https://heartnsolerevna.wordpress.com/ Leaf: Taos Vegan Society: http://www.meetup.com/Taos-Vegan/ New Mexico Vegan: https://newmexicovegan.wordpress.com/ Plant-Based Eating New Mexico: https://www.facebook.com/PBENM/?rc=p Positive Links http://www.thelinknm.com/ Red & Green VegFest Albuquerque: https://redandgreenvegfestabq.wordpress.com/ Santa Fe Vegan: http://www.meetup.com/Santa-FeVeg/photos/4704212/445478790/ VIP (Vegans in the Park): https://www.facebook.com/events/363650444507091/

www.redandgreenvegan.wordpress.c om

If you are vegan and offer cruelty-free services and products please let us know for possible inclusion in upcoming NM Vegan Magazines, please email us at welcome22day@gmail.com, on the subject line please write NMV Vegan Products & Services.

If you have an article that deals with veganism and would like to submit it for possible inclusion in an upcoming NM Vegan Magazine, please email us at welcome22day@gmail.com, on the subject line please write NMV Article.

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The Phytogenic Chef™, Marco Knox, is a plant-based athlete, chef, and coach – but he wasn’t always such a shining example of health. At 40, he was overweight and facing hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Then something changed…

I have been cooking since I was 12 years old. I got my start at my big brother’s restaurant, The Bridge, in beautiful Ft. Myers Beach, Florida. I would come down from the Great Lakes State of Michigan and spend a month or so there during summer break. I earned my stripes by cleaning the parking lot, touching up the paint, and other odd jobs around the property. But my curiosity and awe of what was happening in the kitchen always drew me away from the task at hand. My brother, a very successful restaurateur and chef, saw the same passion in me that he had, and gave me my first chance to work in the kitchen.

I began washing dishes and scrubbing everything in the kitchen, and I had that place shining! Eventually, he allowed me to do some food prep and I was instantly hooked. I knew then that being a chef was my calling and I couldn’t wait to turn sixteen so I could get a real job in the industry. In the meantime, I read every book I could find about running restaurants, famous chefs, and food prep while spending as much time as I could shadowing my big brother and learning the fundamentals of cooking Between the age of sixteen and my late twenties, I worked as a chef in a variety of restaurants. Everything from ‘fill ‘em and bill ‘em’ concepts, to 5-star dining and world-class resorts. I won’t say I learned it all as we are all constantly learning and growing, but I certainly learned a lot – from the “Five Mother Sauces” to growing all of your own produce and creating menus from the harvest.

Like a lot of people that work in the restaurant industry, I eventually burned out and felt like I needed a change, so I jumped into the fitness industry. I had always been athletic and took pretty good care of myself, so it seemed like a natural fit. And it was!

I loved it so much that I started my own personal training business and eventually worked my way to become the Strength and Conditioning Coach with my local Arena Football team. Life was good, but as I neared my thirties, I felt I needed to start focusing on a more long-term occupation.

I don’t regret any of the paths that I’ve chosen to follow but, for a long time, I didn’t understand what had made me leave the fitness industry. But that’s what I did. I became a multi-line road sales rep with my big brother, who had since retired from the restaurant industry. We traveled the U.S. selling our lines to big-box retailers and made a great living doing so. Life was great!

Fall of 2016 will always be a pivotal, life-changing time for me. During my annual doctor visit, I received a diagnosis that frightened me to my core.

Context: My father died at an early age from heart disease and diabetes, and I had always sworn that I wouldn’t go out like my old man. But here I was at age 40: pre-diabetic and suffering with hypertension, dangerously high cholesterol, and a diagnosis of overall poor health.

Where did I go wrong? I mean, I thought I ate healthily. I worked out regularly and felt pretty good… didn’t I?

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In truth, I wasn’t practicing a healthy lifestyle at all. Without really noticing, I had gotten pretty out of shape. It’s a strange thing that we humans do; this denial behavior – but I was leading the pack when it came to denial. I had been chalking it up to my age and telling myself: “I’m 40 now. This is just what happens at my age, right?”

Wrong! I was denying my dharma; my flow, my purpose; and I was doing it by making extremely poor food choices. Me – a chef and fitness professional; a person who should, in theory, have known better. Whilst in denial, I had gained over 35 lbs. of body fat and was now 250 lbs. All of my clothes were busting at the seams, I couldn’t walk up or down the stairs without feeling completely winded, and I had severe back pain: the laying-on-the-ground-staring-at-the-ceiling-begging-for-relief type of back pain.

THE TIME FOR CHANGE WAS NOW! The solution didn’t come to me right away. I did the whole ‘ride my bike and get a gym membership’ thing for a few months, but the results were inconsistent at best. I would lose 10 lbs. here, gain 5 lbs. back there. It wasn’t a real change, and I needed a real change or else I was repeating my father’s mistakes. That’s when I discovered the plant-based lifestyle.

As a chef, I had always prided myself on the wide variety of meat, poultry, and seafood dishes that I could prepare. How could I cook without those ‘staples’? Where would I get my protein? How would I get enough B12?

Learning comes to us in all sorts of forms, and my initial awakening came through watching documentaries, which spawned into extensive reading, studying, and ultimately a new way of living.

I started my plant-based journey by eliminating dairy and red meat. The positive impact that had on my health was noticeable within a couple of weeks. Inflammation that I didn’t even realize was negatively impacting me went away, so I decided to then go all-in and eliminate all types of meat and animal-derived foods.

After just a few months, it was working – I mean really working! I hadn’t consumed any animal products, I felt amazing, and I now weighed 205lbs (45lbs less that I had 8 months prior). I was riding my mountain bike through trails with some of the best local riders and keeping up. My back pain was completely gone and my clothes… well, they were all too big!

ONE QUESTION STILL REMAINED Was what I was doing from a food perspective actually healthy, or was I robbing my body of some essential nutrients? I knew from my own research and how great I was feeling that what I was doing was indeed very beneficial, but the numbers don’t lie. They alone could determine whether or not I was truly in good health.

After one year, I went back to my doctor for my annual physical and had my blood work done – a full lab; cholesterol, glucose, everything. Unsurprisingly, everything checked out. Not only did it check out, but it had drastically improved. I went from having all of the aforementioned health issues, to being told that I no longer had any cause for concern. My cholesterol was “perfect”, and hypertension and signs of diabetes were all gone!

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I walked out of the doctor’s office smiling from ear to ear and with what felt like a green glow (you know, plants) surrounding me. That day, The Phytogenic Chef™ Was born!

It is my calling, my purpose, my dharma – to share this story and to help others that are in the same place I once was.

I wasn’t living a bad life; I just wasn’t living my best life. Now I am, and so can you!

Marco – The Phytogenic Chef™

Marco Knox is living proof to the power of personal transformation.

At age 40, he was terribly out of shape, suffered from consistent and severe back pain and was medically obese.

Moreover, he had been diagnosed with hypertension and was considered pre-diabetic with dangerously high cholesterol.

He switched to a 100% whole food plant-based diet, lost 50 pounds and completely reversed his health – no signs of the aforementioned issues. He now dedicates his life to educating others on the benefits of living a comprehensive and sustainable whole food plant-based lifestyle.

LINKS: Website: www.ThePhytogenicChef.com Meal Planner: https://the-phytogenic-chef.myshopify.com/ Podcast: http://peaceheartplants.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcoknox/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thephytogenicchef/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thephytogenicchef/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhytogenicChef Contact Information: Marco Knox Email: marco@thephtogenicchef.com Work Cell: 904-404-2250 (for public)

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Hello future friend! My name is Jon Fish and I’m thrilled about the opportunity to chat with you today! I would love to have this conversation in person, but for now this is what we have so let’s jump right in!

My struggle with weight and my obsession with exercise started in high school. A lot of kids could eat whatever they wanted to and look great without stepping foot on the track, dieting or lifting a single weight. That wasn’t me. In order to keep myself from becoming the Michelin Man, I joined every activity on campus. Baseball, Soccer, Weightlifting, Track, Gymnastics, and Swimming.

I managed to keep my weight in check until my sophomore year in college. Then life happened. I got a job, a significant other, hobbies, and before I knew it, I was well over 200lbs. I didn’t stop working out or being interested in fitness. I kept coming back. I would drop 25lbs and gain back 30lbs. This yoyo continued for years.

In the early 2000’s I went plant based for a couple of years and kept off most of the weight, but gradually, along with my decision to add organic, grass fed, free range, humane animal products back into my diet, the dreaded weight came back. NOTE: I used all the buzz words that the marketing gurus in animal agriculture used because my first exploration into a meat free diet was for health not compassion. However, things were about to change in a big way.

In the first quarter of 2017, I told my longtime friend and professional bodybuilding coach, Jim Hogwood, that I wanted to get into shape. REALLY get into shape. But I needed a challenge to keep me focused. So, I told him that I wanted to compete in the 11th Annual Battle at the River Body Building and Physique competition the following year. Looking back, I am still surprised he didn’t laugh at me and tell me to quit dreaming. Because, by every metric I was obese. I weighed over 230lbs, my body fat was over 30%, and my BMI was in the 40’s. My 32” waist had ballooned to almost 44”. I was miserable. Once he agreed to train me, I dropped the bomb. I wanted to do it 100% Plant Based. “Impossible.” He went on to clarify that a plant-based diet had, “Too many carbohydrates and too little protein.” But he said, “you’re the client, feel free to try and prove me wrong!” Well, it might as well have been an old fashion throw down! Because, challenge accepted! I told him to train me as any other client with the goal of competing. I would do my own research and convert his diet recommendations into a plant-based version and the results would be on me – literally.

My decision had me in for a shock that would turn my world view upside down. As I began delving into plantbased body building I started coming across animal activist videos showing what was really taking place behind the windowless walls of slaughterhouses, the beef, pork, egg and dairy farms and the fishing industry. I was appalled at what my dollars were going to support! In a day, I went from plant-based for my health to Vegan for Life. I was never going to eat meat again, but I still had no idea how to body build on just plants!

Today you can find plant-based athletes everywhere you look, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snap Chat… you name it. But three years ago, many were still flying under the radar. If you wanted to be taken seriously about bodybuilding you didn’t tell folks you were vegan! But there were some pioneers. One of those trail blazers was lifelong vegetarian and veteran vegan pro body builder Nimai Delgado. He and his partner Bianca Taylor Norm had a vegan Instagram account that offered advice on how to eat and workout for bodybuilding, weight loss and bulking. I hired Nimai and Bianca as my vegan dietitians with the added bonus of learning some pro tips on bodybuilding as well.

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The fat started coming off and my engine started growing. But I had only solved two of my three riddles. I still hadn’t figured out how to keep the fat from coming back! You see I learned that the body stores fuel based on a priority of efficiency. What’s the most efficient fuel for the work that the body does. In my case, the most efficient fuel was fat. But I didn’t want to store fat! That’s what I was trying to avoid! So, I did a lot more research.

Eventually I came across a PHD who had written a very technical document on the techniques and benefits of training your body to store glycogen instead of fat! Eureka! The only way to successfully train (trick) your body into storing glycogen – which is only about half as efficient a way to store energy as fat ¬¬– is to do High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. But it has to be done just right – it’s all about timing and technique, because the body is super smart and VERY adaptable.

So, I finally had my three pillars of fitness success. Strength, HIIT and Meal Prep.

• •

•

Strategic Strength Training – 8 to 12-weeks of tempo cycling and active rest days Strategically planned weekly HIIT routines designed to • Reset your metabolism • Increase your body’s natural production of body healing HGH (human growth hormone) • Teach the body to store carbohydrates as explosive energy (glycogen) instead of slow and steady energy (fat) • Build a stronger heart and lean muscle tissue • Reduce the body’s production of the stress hormone cortisol An Insulin Stable Diet (low glycemic formula) that incorporates Fat Burning Macros (healthy amounts of Protein, Fiber, Fat and Carbohydrates) into your meal prep and makes sure you don’t exceed your caloric goals. And it introduces strategic planned re-feeds (“cheat” meals) to assist in resetting your metabolism.

I’d love to go over all of this in detail with you, so be sure and visit with me again and I will share how to incorporate HIIT properly into your existing fitness routine. I will also be sharing how to meal prep for fitness on a budget and the proper use of tempo cycling and active rest days to get the most out of a compact fitness routine.

Jon Fish is the VP of Marketing for Heritage Health Food manufacturers of Worthington plantbased meats. He has been with the company for 11 years. His background includes 25+ years of Commercial Illustration and Design. He co-founded Avalon Design Studio, The Academy of SelfDefense and a non-profit 501c3 The National Self-Defense Agency which educates at risk youth and woman of all ages in personal safety. He is an adjunct professor at Chattanooga State where he uses multiple martial art disciplines to teach accredited classes in self-defense to youth, woman and realtors. Jon is also a classically trained, SAG Eligible actor with over 50 Stage, Television and Film appearances. He has authored multiple books on topics ranging from selfdefense and business, to fitness and poetry. In his spare time, he is a 100% natural vegan body builder, local coordinator for Anonymous for the Voiceless, writer and avid outdoor amateur photographer and waterfall hunter. He married his childhood sweetheart Susan Elizabeth in a castle in Scotland and together they have traveled the world in search of vegan food, started businesses together, gained and lost weight together, run marathons, marched for animal rights, woman's rights and human rights and documented nearly 100 named water falls in the south east USA. He and Susan currently live in Ooltewah Tennessee.

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Animals can feel empathy just like humans do. Empathy for each other, for us, and even for other species.

Pangolins

1. Mother pangolins keep their young in burrows until they are old enough to ride on their mother’s tail. The mother curls up snugly around the baby pangolin at night or if she senses danger.

1. The pangolin’s scales comprise about 20% of its weight.

2. The pangolin’s tongue – when fully extended – can be up to 16 inches longer than the entire animal.

3. Pangolins can close their ear and nostril openings to keep insects out.

4. There are eight species of pangolin: Four Asian species and four African species.

5. Baby pangolins travel with their mother by riding on the base of her tail.

6. When pangolins feel threatened, they curl up into a tight, almost impenetrable ball to protect their tender undersides.

7. Pangolins are considered to be shy and secretive creatures.

8. Pangolins are nocturnal animals.

9. Pangolins are well adapted for digging: they dig burrows with their strong front legs and claws, using their tails and rear legs for support and balance.

10. Pangolins live in a variety of habitats, from tropical forests to arid deserts.

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When I Played Candy Land Vanessa Marsot When I played Candy Land with the kids in the pediatric cancer ward at a hospital in high school, I saw how much fun the kids were having, and I contrasted it to my quest to work as hard as possible to get into a good college, missing living in the moment. I know that play is our natural state, because if I look at children, whether human, cat, dog, pig, goat, sheep, cow, monkey—they all play. It's play because it’s not geared towards reproduction, survival, or eating, but pure enjoyment. I’ve since realized that while life may be a game, the purpose should not be the pursuit of happiness, given the great suffering of so many of our fellow beings, but instead the pursuit of meaning and service to others, to alleviate suffering. Until the time when no one suffers systematically anymore, then we can return to our natural state of play.

We’ve created an illusory world of suffering based on our not being able to answer the questions of why I am here, what is my purpose, and what is my worth? We’ve invented myths of creation in order to answer those questions, seeking validation outside ourselves. We’ve tried to fill our internal voids with a need to feel better than others—hence our structures of power and domination through warfare, hierarchies, slaughtering, and consumerism. We’ve created a world of scarcity and win-lose, but when we look out, there’s natural abundance. I was in Madagascar last year (one of the poorest countries in the world), and people were laughing and playing alongside the road, while living on figs and mangos that grew abundantly on trees. We all have to agree about the absurdity of anyone owning resources of the planet, and collectively break out of this illusion of scarcity.

My way of being of service is to have opened Ellora Wellness, a vegan, organic wellness center, with dance and yoga classes, healing arts, food, and a boutique—all fair trade, sustainably sourced, and nontoxic. The resources and innovation are out there. We need to demand these changes in methods of production. If I can offer goods and services that look as good, feel as good, taste as good, are as affordable as the cruelty-filled versions, why wouldn’t people want them? We’ll change methods of consumption by changing methods of production. This way if we flood the marketplace with these products and ways of being, people will start consuming differently, even if they weren’t engaged in ethical questions of how do I treat other sentient beings? They’ll be consuming in ways that are joyful and full of abundance, seeing no loss in this compassionate way of living, but rather variety and richness.

Ellora also fulfils my self-love manifesto. Through years of treating clients as a psychotherapist, I saw how low self-esteem was behind not only the structures of domination and power, but also rage, anger, anxiety, and depression. We don’t recognize our intrinsic worth as beings, and that we have nothing to prove and no one to beat. The apple tree doesn’t ask, are my apples big enough, smart enough, better than others? It just creates.

And yet we tell ourselves we are not enough. We try to conquer others or buy things to assuage that internal emptiness, when what really would work is increased self-esteem. Therefore, I’ve put together the following selflove manifesto: 1.

When our portals of compassion are truly open, we have compassion for all beings, human and nonhuman. Compassion means I understand that we're all struggling and suffering and all deserve Love even when we are being unlovable. This does not mean I make excuses for people’s poor behaviors, but it also does not mean I tear them apart. I can understand them without condoning their behavior or allowing them in my life, if they are toxic to me. I will set strong boundaries, while sending them love. Loving all beings includes myself.

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When I Played Candy Land Vanessa Marsot 2. I won't speak to myself in demeaning ways. When I make a mistake, I will evaluate where I could have done better. When I have conflict with others, I’ll take responsibility for my actions. I strive to be the best I can be without putting myself down. I acknowledge where I am in order to go where I want to go.

3. I will honor my commitments unless it means not honoring myself.

4. When I’m whole, my body heals itself. As Dr. Michael Klaper said, you’re not born with illness, you earn it. I will not look to someone else to heal me or solve my problems. That guru is within me.

5. I will pursue abundance with humility and generosity to others.

6. I will walk with fearlessness but remain safe, and self-protective. I will trust others but will trust my instincts more. I am open to the world and I am vulnerable but will always protect and nurture myself.

We are all made of stardust. May we all meet in a constellation. **For information on Ellora, please check out ellorawellness.com or on FB or Instagram.

Vanessa Marsot is a Yale graduate, and an actress, model, yoga and pole dance instructor, personal trainer, and licensed psychotherapist whose mission is to stop animal suffering. Vanessa founded Ellora Wellness, a vegan organic wellness center and one-stop-shop of creative, cruelty-free living recently opened in Altadena, California offering vegan, organic, ecological, nontoxic, and sustainable foods, products, and services. Ellora has dance, yoga, and fitness classes, healing arts, Sunday brunches, a boutique of clothes, jewelry, and decorative arts, and a grocery store of no plastic, zero-waste bulk products. These are the 4 pillars of health as she sees them—what you put in and on your body, the need for movement and creative expression, and the need for healing assistance every now and then. She welcomes everyone into Ellora as family members in a community space. It takes a community to make a community.

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Empathy Alexander Michael Hakam

How would you feel, if you were an animal?

How would you feel, if the human were a cannibal?

It would mean that other humans can eat you dead or alive In that type of environment, how could you possibly thrive?

What if you were at the mercy of a superior creature?

How would you feel knowing that you are inferior?

What if you have tears in your eyes because of your fear?

Yet that superior creature does not care or hold you dear?

This is how animals are meeting their fate every day no one cares about their fears and tears in any way Empathy is the core and the crux of the matter, for without it, our humanity will definitely shatter Empathy is about putting yourself in those Animals' place in order to understand, feel, and appreciate what they face The only ethical solution, or way of life, is veganism, for we have to be empathetic to animals to avoid a cataclysm.

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The #1 Multiple Equation Blocking the U.N. Global Goals If Not Acknowledged, And Ended, May Be The Death Of Us All Chris Cavaliere Sustainable development goals, are they attainable?

Some of us envision an ideal world sustainable for all life, a vegan world. This has long been our answer to the world’s current dilemma, it remains to be seen how others can come to this same conclusion.

The Big Picture In some rather unbalanced articles it’s been alluded to that vegans and vegetarians suffer from depression, well who wouldn’t feel kinda low knowing what we know, what we’ve seen, of the horrid suffering of animals for human usage. Personally, I get incredibly frustrated, and sometimes feel quite overwhelmed with the level of exploitation, abuse, and violent subjugation animals suffer at the hands of mankind.

In my work as an advocate, I am constantly searching through tons of information from news articles, visual testimonials, academic research papers, government and industry reports, compiling anything and everything that may in anyway be connected to animal exploitation, whether opinion or hard data. As a cruel actuality, everything is interconnected, so much so that to try to explain even a piece of it, like explaining why not eating meat or dairy to a carnivist can cut down on community violence, is a daunting task. Anyone who has ever been in a conversation about the effects of factory farming can relate to a seemingly endless debate with someone who “thinks” they can’t give up bacon. But to try telling them they are thinking like an addict is only going to push them to build a huge brick wall to keep you away from threatening the use of their drug of choice. It’s akin to telling a cocaine addict they need to go to detox. Yet, a simple Google search of addictive foods clearly shows this in pictures of bacon, cheese pizza, ice cream, and chocolate, while the least addictive shows carrots, cucumbers, beans, apples, etc.

However, with all the tons of information available on what I term Animal Exploitation the Big Picture, most people can only absorb it in little pieces. Indeed even as animal advocates expose the public to detailed increments of the multitude of horrific abuses animals endure, building awareness in the hopes of urging more to live with kindness, to be environmentally friendly, to adopt a healthy whole plant diet, still we are living a vegan lifestyle in a non vegan world. So how do we change that, how do we pull these pieces together to convince those who can make the biggest difference, and how many ways does all life matter in attaining a plan for our sustainable future, for the continued existence of many other species on Earth.

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The #1 Multiple Equation Blocking the U.N. Global Goals If Not Acknowledged, And Ended, May Be The Death Of Us All Chris Cavaliere The Animal Industrial Complex vs the Vegan Economy I first heard of a proposal for SDG 18 - Zero Animal Exploitation when I connected with an amazing person I truly admire, Claire Smith, who convinced me that building a vegan economy would be the catalyst for change, that even as vegan choices to abstain from animal related consumerism grew, so too would the vegan economy grow. Low and behold here we are not only with vegan companies on the stock exchange, but with the US Vegan Climate ETF (VEGN ) for conscientious investors, by Claire’s company Beyond Investing, the vegan ETF even outperformed the S&P 500 on the NYSE. Animal Exploitation: Blocking the SDGs Yet after many discussions with Claire on making the strongest case for the Goal of Zero Animal Exploitation, I knew we would need not only to address the more obvious areas of global impact from the Animal Industrial Complex, with it’s vastly embedded use of “animal derived” by product used in so many industries, but to be inclusive of ending all animal abuse as a whole we needed to show the impact all of it on the SDGs. Thus is showing the Big Picture of animal abuse in it’s entirety so vital, that a huge body of information which includes details of every area described and attested to with visuals, expert opinion, hard data, and more, all imperative to connecting how the effects of so many areas of animal exploitation block progress on the other SDGs. Never would a goal of ending the animal holocaust be considered by a body like the United Nations, except by showing these blocks. So, after collecting nearly 2000 links and hundreds of PDFs, I wrote an in-depth 16-page narrative, with nearly 300 embedded links. Claire dubbed it a “manifesto” for the Beyond Cruelty Foundation, one of whose projects is SDG 18, which I am grateful and proud to say I am now a part, having the role of compiling the body of evidence to support this project, in no small way thanks to hundreds of animal organizations providing much of that evidence.

The Beyond Cruelty Foundation website is currently in development, where the body of the campaign will be laid out in its entirety with a page for each SDG containing a brief description of elements of animal exploitation blocking the Goal’s progress, along with numerous resource links with proof of evidence of these elements. Until the website is completed the document “Animal Exploitation, a holocaust unequaled” is published as a stand-alone article.

As an Earthling Advocate, I strive to live by an ethical standard that supports all living beings on this planet, both human and nonhuman animals, in upholding their inherent right to a life free from abuse and torment.

My work is centered on passing on educational materials to help people make sense of how wrong it is to exploit our natural world and subjugate other species solely for our perceived needs, when in truth this has lead us into dire circumstances from which there very well may be no return.

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Image, S. Hermann & F. Richter/Pixabay

FIVE STEPS TO VEGAN is an online program inviting you to take your vegan future into your own hands.

Our five presentations will provide: • a clear understanding of what veganism is all about • confidence about meeting your nutritional needs • tools to navigate the consumer world as a vegan • tips to social situations you might come face-to-face with • assurance that you will have no problem providing for yourself and your family

STEP ONE: The Basics Vegan: Easier Than You Think More than a Diet, More than a Lifestyle Breaking Through To learn more about the program, visit https://befairbevegan.com/how-vegan/vegan-program/

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To revisit previous issues go to: https://issuu.com/arenasnancy

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NewMexicoVegan

HeartnSole presents Social Justice: Revealing Hidden Connections Will Tuttle, Ph.D.