Saturday, June 30, 2012

Idea : Vegan ads on Supermarket Trolleys

Heres an idea draft : buying Supermarket Trolley ads at large supermarkets, everywhere that trolley went, a thin spreading of the Vegan message is sure to go! :-)

Quick "photoshop" drafts, the first promoting Vegan products instore, "Try the Almond Milk in aisle 5 - its awesome!".  Much better to have a positive message, and it serves to encourage the sale of Vegan items! :-)









Another idea would be to use photos of my Hen Friends, although this makes having text over top a little more difficult, as it either greatly obscures the photo, or the text is difficult to read -or both!  I'll work on a better variation of this idea, with clear text.

"For Vegan recipes and more photos of Hen Friends visit...." :-)















A work in progress, I'll see what other INVSOC members think, and then we can approach local supermarkets to see if we can buy an ad space on one trolley at each supermarket, at first, perhaps more in future :-)  Five years ago I'd never seen or heard the word "Vegan", seeing it on a supermarket trolley with a website link to find out more would have really had me interested in learning more :-)



Saturday, June 16, 2012

June 2012 INVSOC Potluck

Our biggest turnout yet, with special guests from Auckland, my friend Susan Elias and her son Logan :-)


Dan, Katharine, Steve, Kerri, Jess, Jordan, Steve (2), Amber, Susan, Logan, Russell, 11 vegans in one Invercargill room :-)


From bottom left, baked wedges, rice, pumpkin/kumara curry, Thai Curry, cupcakes, (unseen, Chocolate coffee cake), Roast Pumpkin soup, "Tiffin", an English confectionery based on chocolate, crushed biscuits, almonds and raisins melted into a slice,  Banana cake with pineapple on top :-)





Curry, rice, wedges, pumpkin soup used as a dressing :-)


Cupcake, chocolate coffee cake, chocolate So Good soy icecream, banana cake with pineapple


Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes, Tiffin, Chocolate Coffee Cake, Banana Cake


Thank you all for coming, have a lovely trip back home Susan and Logan to the North Shore, and tell all your friends that there ain't no Vegan Potluck like an Invercargill Vegan Society potluck! :-)








See other Invercargill Vegan Society events

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Episode 82 Sergeant Dan's Oatmilk : From Southland With Love

Episode 82 Sergeant Dan's Oatmilk : From Southland With Love


Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt sets a 26 hour long interview Guinness World Record, talking about "Non Vegan" "petfood" and Auckland Island Pigs Xenotransplantation along the way, Dairy Exploitation, *Sheeps Milk* Exploitation, "Classes Apart", Professor Roger Yates on worker conduct, Food Innovation Network on creating Oatmilk here from World Record Oat growing Southland, Sergeant Dan the Creamoata Man- a 1950's childrens porridge mascot with the potential to promote Plantmilk, Transition Towns, Forest and Bird meetings, Auckland Vegan Potlucks and Invercargill Vegan Society Potlucks


Listen now by downloading directly from here or, better yet, subscribe in iTunes to get each episode automagically!
Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals iTunes link




Hello and welcome to another fine episode of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals, Episode 82 - Sergeant Dan's Oatmilk, From Southland With Love




This episode, a whole bunch of local Invercargill stories which I *hope* you'll find interesting.


First off, why not start with our interesting and very…………..quirky…….unusual….odd…..mayor of Invercargill, they "may-or", the guy in charge.



Seems like I'm not the only guy in Invercargill who can talk on and on and on! In future, I'll try and keep episodes to a reasonable length, but it wont be easy!



I'm more in favour of the Wonka approach:








Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt has been there, done that, bought the T Shirt. He's lived in communes, led more protest marches than Ghandi, been arrested and thrown in jail…..and now he's mayor of my city, go figure.

One of his life experiences during the 26 hour interview included working at a quote "pet food" factory, a NON VEGAN Petfood factory, putting "offal" into cans. Have you ever thought about how we call our intestines and hearts and kidneys and livers "Vital Organs", but when we kill Other Animals, they are just waste, just "offal"? Its a heck of a difference, from Vital Organs which you are absolutely dead without, and when we see someone else as an "it", a thing, as property, then their same liver, heart, lungs, intestines are "offal", waste, slop.

The symbolism carries through when you see how Non Vegan Petfood is sold, with all kinds of branding, photoshopped cats and dogs on the can of "wet" petfood, or bag for "dry" petfood. The brand that the future leader of our city was making up there when he lived in the North Island was sold as "love your cat" and "love your dog" petfood. And it, like all "petfood", was essentially the nastiest things you can imagine, poured in a can, and boiled up - all hidden behind branding about being such a lovely, responsible petowner by buying such a fantastic product!

This story was amazing to listen to, it certainly makes me keep an even wider berth of the Non Vegan petfood at our local Invercargill supermarkets!





During the 26 hour live televised interview, you could send in messages of support to be shown onscreen, moving across the bottom for viewers to see. I sent in a few messages promoting Veganism, one of which I recorded on my phone and have uploaded to YouTube. A message about the Invercargill Vegan Society scrolled past on television to viewers around the world, many viewing live through the internet, and a copy of the Vegan message video has been seen over 2000 times, by people wanting to see recordings of Mayor Shadbolts world record breaking interview. Simple ways to promote Veganism, it didn't cost anything to get our message shown on television :-)


Another story shared by Shadbolt thats interesting from an Animal Rights perspective is about the Auckland Island Pigs. I've had episodes about them before, pigs taken from Sub Antarctic islands where they were left to be living rations for whale and seal killers back in the day, who were mostly killed for being "introduced species" who might eat native plants on these barren rocks, and eat the eggs of nesting New Zealand native birds, oh dear!

Some of the pigs were spared execution by the "Department of Conservation" staff who lept from helicopters and boats, with their pig dogs, dogs trained for hunting and helping to kill pigs. Somehow we found out these animals were "disease free" thanks to living by themselves in the bottom of the world, away from viruses spread from pig to pig, and so they were found to be suitable for xenotransplantation. Their pancreas is taken, and the pigs are killed, all the while having lived in sterile conditions, in concrete prison cells which are waterblasted daily. For means of "Welfare", they are allowed out in groups to play with staff and "special pig toys" for "intellectual stimulation", but they will never feel the wind, or see grass, they live in the sterile, ultra clean equivalent of a "colony cage". Have you heard of "bubble boys", people born effectively without an immune system, so they live inside of a plastic bubble, or room? These are Bubble Pigs, and not in the good, Vegan Bubble way.

Here Mayor Shadbolt describes the what the Auckland Island pigs go through, which is rarely heard in New Zealand, on my blog I've included an Australian video tour of the facility just ten minutes or so down the road from my house, as far as I know, the New Zealand media have never shown video from inside before, we're kept in the dark about how these pigs are kept out of the real, nonsterile world.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Gruesome : Local Slaughterhouse "South Pacific Meats"


This post contains photos containing strong language, and blood.


Local slaughterhouse South Pacific Meats has often been reported on in Southland media, for every offense under the sun.

"More workers have tested positive for drugs at a troubled Southland meatworks plant, a union boss said.

Otago Southland Meat Workers Union secretary Gary Davis yesterday said at least six employees at the Talley's/Affco-owned South Pacific Meats plant at Awarua, near Invercargill, had tested positive for drugs about three weeks ago.

This followed 18 of 20 sawmen at the same plant testing positive for cannabis about two months before that, Mr Davis said."


The Southland Times "Meatworks Staff 'test positive'"


EIGHTEEN OUT OF TWENTY?!?!?


"South Pacific Meats has been ordered to pay a $30,000 fine for blocking union representatives from its Awarua plant."


The Southland Times "Meatworks guilty of breaching act"


" South Pacific Meats worker is recovering at Southland Hospital after his arm was nearly severed by a bandsaw early on Saturday morning.

The man's wife yesterday said her husband was heavily sedated after two surgeries to repair his arm."


The Southland Times "Workers Arm Was Almost Severed"



I came across these photos on Facebook, taken and shared by one of the slaughterhouse workers, as they joke about with their friends on the job.  From "merely" showing throat slitting to alerting us of South Pacific Meats apparent segregated heterosexual/homosexual working quarters through the smearing of blood, its all part of a good days work.




As commenters mention, this is how "meat" is "made", as we "deconstruct" living, breathing, feeling animals.  Slaughterhouses are not places of respect, of caring for animals, regardless of what country they are located in, be they in the city of Invercargill, or Indonesia.