Although Spain’s national laws against cruelty to animals have abolished most archaic spectacles of animal cruelty, they specifically exempt bullfighting. Now a group of Spanish politicians, intellectuals, artists and environmentalists lead by the Green Party has called for the abolition of bullfights. It is claimed that public opinion in Spain is largely against bullfighting and according to some sources almost 70% of attendees at Barcelona bullring are tourists. In fact several towns in Spain have banned bullfighting altogether. In August 2007, state-run Spanish TV cancelled live coverage of bullfights claiming that the coverage was too violent for children who might be watching, and that live coverage violated a voluntary, industry-wide code attempting to limit “sequences that are particularly crude or brutal.”

Previously we reported a case of a vegetarian butcher, now our curiosity got peaked by an article in Canadian Press titled Green party vegetarian sells illegal free-range chicken at B.C. legislature. It talks about a vegetarian selling a chicken as an act of civil disobedience in response to the new Food Safety Act regulations that technically prohibit farmers to slaughter animals for sale at the farm.

This raises some questions that are not even mentioned in the article. Why does a vegetarian sell chickens? What’s even more interesting that he’s actually protesting for his right to slaughter chickens on the farm. No doubt claiming to be a vegetarian is almost becoming a fashion statement. That’s how we hear of pollo and pesco vegetarians, and even flexitarians. We’ll probably invent even more new words to make us (not others) feel better about ourselves. Let’s just not forget that what behind these neologisms is a typical omnivore, that’s what humans are, unless they start taking into consideration well-being of other living creatures.

Technorati Tags: vegan, vegetarian, chicken, flexitarian, pollo-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian

Animal-derived ingredients are used in production of many alcoholic beverages. Most commonly the ingredients used are gelatine, egg white, milk protein. Until recently blood was added to some wines, however due to the outbreak of mad cow disease its use is now illegal. Alcoholic drinks rarely labelled with a list of ingredients and even if there was one anything that’s used in processing but didn’t make it in to the final products wouldn’t be listed. Many wine producers now realise that it’s not necessary to use animal derived ingredients. Many wines and beers are made cruelty free way and are suitable for vegans.

• List of beers suitable for vegans
• List of wines suitable for vegans
• List of Australian alcoholic beverages suitable for vegans or vegetarians

Technorati Tags: vegan, vegetarian, wine, spirit, alcohol, beer

Meat eaters in Mumbai have to hide their eating habits to be able to live in vegetarian only housing estates. Despite being the most cosmopolitan city, Mumbai is split along ethnic and religious lines. It’s estimated that as much as one third of the city’s population is vegetarian mostly people from Jain and Hindu religious groups.

Denying someone the right to move into an apartment on the grounds of caste or religious affiliation is illegal in India, but vegetarian-only homes occupy a gray area under the law. Although the government does not record numbers, vegetarian leaders say thousands of such buildings are dotted around the city. No other city in India has such a concentration of vegetarian ghettoes.

After reading this you might think that an airline serving only vegetarian food on board doesn’t look like such a radical idea for India at least.

Technorati Tags: vegan, vegetarian, India, Mumbai, Jain, Hindu