Miles to go before I sleep.

I am typing my texts posts in Internet Explorer at the moment because I can’t fill out the main text field when I use Tumblr in my regular browser, Google Chrome.

Anyone know what’s up with that?

For our 5 year anniversary Mr. Dutchess and I went to a grill place called Creole in our hometown of Galway, Ireland.  We had an absolutely gorgeous meal. But vegetarian it was not and at that time my cruelty free consciousness was not yet spreading as far as eating out. That has changed but I would still really love to go back to this restaurant. So when they put up their specials last night, I left a comment asking about where they source their meat, particularly their chicken and pork as cows and sheep are most often free range in Ireland.

Here’s their reply:

@Linda. Pork from collerans. Chicken usually from the friendly farmer. But he’s off for two weeks. Back to free range then. In six months Dan the chef will hopefully have the first of his own free range saddleback pigs for the restaurant. Lots of bbq pork then. 

I am reasonably impressed by their answer. The Friendly Farmer I know to be reputable and cruelty free in its animal rearing. Shame they’re not looking for free range alternatives while he isn’t working but to be fair, he is not exactly one of many. I am not familiar with Collerans, a quick Google search does not tell me much about their policies on cruelty free meat but they do seem to have a good name around here. The fact that the chef rears his down pigs at least inspires the notion that he is conscious of the issues surrounding meat rearing.

For now I am way too broke to go out to eat anywhere but hopefully by the time the chef’s pigs are all set I will be back in a job.

Due to my transition to the cruelty free lifestyle I am still in the posession of a (fortunately) limited amount of cosmetics that is not cruelty free. I have been asking myself what to do with this. So far I have been throwing out some of the older stuff but I have been hanging on to some of it too. Having already spent the money I feel I may as well although I am sometimes reluctant to use it. I welcome any thoughts on this.

Another transition is the one of companies to used to be cruelty free but give it up. Would you hang on to the products you already bought or would you chuck it all out straightaway?

Then there are the companies like The Body Shop and Urban Decay. Cruelty free in their own right but also owned by decidedly cruel L’Oreal. I am very conflicted about this. One the one hand they now slot money indirectly into animal testers’ hands, on the other they are now more widely distributed, giving more people the chance of discovering the cruelty free lifestyle (the latter being PETA’s stance). I still have some products by both brands, which I intend to use up. I will not buy any additional products from them for now until what I have is used up and will make my final decision then.

I welcome thoughts on all of the above!

In the last few months of 2012 I started living with an increased awareness of how our consuming styles affect those living creatures that cannot defend themselves against humankind but feel pain and fear just as we do: the animals. This was always something I had in the back of my head and I have been buying freerange eggs and chicken and largely non animal tested cosmetics for a long time. However, my principles were often still overruled by convenience, finances, cravings and whatever else “stood in the way”. But enough is enough and it is time to stand by my principles. And these are that animals should not have to needlessly suffer to serve our purpose.

This does not mean that I will become a vegan or even a vegetarian. I do not see a problem with eating meat, eggs and dairy or using other animal products such as leather and wool, as long as the animal it came from was raised in an ethical way and is not threatened to be extinct. Animals kill and eat other animals and to me the only difference between us and them is that we can feel guilt and can think beyond our need to feed. I believe eating and using animal products is part of our nature, we have done it for many years. Where we have gone wrong is the intensively farming of animals for this purpose; causing pain, fear and disease among those we should protect.

So this is my principle and I will stand by it by reducing my consumption of meat and only sourcing it on rare occasions from local farms of which I know the animals were well treated. The same goes for any other animal products and cosmetics: I make a special point of not buying anything as frivolous as an eyeshadow when the products or ingredients were cruelly tested on lab animals.

I want to continue this blog by sharing my musings and some of the products I end up buying as part of the cruelty free lifestyle and where I source them from. I hope this will benefit some people and inspire them to keep in mind our animal friends when spending their money.

One of my major examples when it comes to food awareness is Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. I very much share his opinions and have recently bought and cooked from his River Cottage Veg! book. It has wonderful recipes that I can recommend to vegetarians and meat eaters alike.