Gestation (pregnancy) crates are miserable both in concept and practice. This is real:

Imagine you are a sow, a female pig. You weigh hundreds of pounds, but are confined to a metal stall measuring 2 feet by 7 feet. It is so narrow that you cannot turn around. When you become exhausted from standing on the cold concrete floor, you collapse into a pile of your own waste. Infected, oozing abscesses and sores appear on your skin because you cannot escape the filth. You have lived this way since you were seven months old, so do not know anything better, but something about this place seems instinctually wrong. You are so bored you chew on the bars of your cage to try and keep from going totally mad. It doesn’t help. If you were free, you would root in the soil with your delicate nose, sink into a mud bath to cool during summer time, and spend time with your family. It’s not to be. You will undergo, continuously, cycles of artificial insemination and birth, and produce more than 20 piglets per year. Your young will be taken away, and like you, will be crowded into pens with metal bars and concrete floors. When you have had three litters, your body will be too stressed to produce more. Deemed worthless, you will be slaughtered. You died not knowing that had you been born in the European Union, or one of eight U.S. states (including CA, OH, and MI), this would be illegal. Nor did you know that everyday citizens put such pressure on McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to end this brutal but routine practices that the fast food giants agreed.

It’s strange to think that industry and not government might lead the way in bettering the lives of animals raised for food. These improvements are a step along the way to that far-off vegan world we strive for. Join us in petitioning meat processor Tyson Foods’ use of gestation crates in the supply chain. A flood of angry individuals will hopefully make the company sit up and take notice.

On a happier note, pigs are pretty fascinating! And joyous! According to the Chinese Zodiac, people born in the year of the pig are happy and honest. Which is pretty much true – if you allow them an interesting and clean place to live, and don’t mess with their young, they won’t mess with you. I’m going to make it out to Peaceful Prairie Animal Sanctuary to hang out with some piggies as soon as I possibly can.

Eat at Watercourse on Monday. The vegan food will nourish your body and spare animals from harm. And on this day only, your purchase will help save whales. The restaurant is donating a percentage of the day’s sales to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who are battling the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean right now.

That’s Monday, January 23rd. 837 E 17th Ave (like you didn’t know). Pick up some Sea Shepherd merch while you’re there and help out a little more.

Vegan Drinks is coming to Denver! A new monthly get-together for animal-rights advocates, plant-based foodies, vegan entrepreneurs, 21st century philosophers, and vegans who drink! Really, anybody can come, but this is our night to geek out on the kind lifestyle and get to know others in our community. Plants & Animals Denver is stoked to team up with Vegan Coloradical, our favorite local blog and restaurant resource, to make this event happen.

Be at Denver Beer Co (1695 Platte St) on Thursday, January 12th (7-10pm) for the first ever Denver Vegan Drinks. There will be some tasty food samples and lots of good folks there. Want to know how to get the most out of Vegan Drinks? Read the tips over at Vegan Coloradical…

Plants & Animals Denver is excited to announce a new monthly event… Get ready for NEAT MARKET!

Starting January 15th, 2012, Neat Market will be a monthly vegan pop-up shop featuring local food and craft artisans and hard-to-find vegan items. It is a place for us to get together every third Sunday, stock up on tasty homemade food, check out some handmade crafts, and continue building this vegan community. At Neat Market you will find take-home prepared foods, hot cafe dishes, baked goods, homemade snacks, and vegan products not found in Denver stores. Local vendors will be on hand to offer their vegan crafts, clothes, accessories, books, and more!

We’ll have plenty more to say about this new project in the days to come, including a the launch of a market website. Until then, let us know if you may be interested in becoming a vendor.

*****

Vegan Shop-Up; food and crafts by local artisans

January 15, 2012 | 11:30am-4pm

Leon, 1112 E. 17^th Ave, Denver.

Plants & Animals Denver presents a food/craft market featuring 100% vegan products. The first of what will be a monthly pop-up shop, Neat Market is designed to be a venue for local crafters and cooks to sell their vegan wares. It is also a community event where vegans can meet each other, stock up on hard-to-find foodstuffs, and bring their friends to see how fun and easy a plant-based lifestyle can be.

Neat Market is looking for local food and craft vendors for the January 15^th shop-up. There are 2 ways to participate: Read the rest of this entry →

Wednesday, November 30th. Get your tickets.

We’re so excited to be a part of this. Gene Baur, President and Co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, is coming to speak at Denver’s Auraria campus. Anybody is welcome to attend this event, but we’re happy to make it FREE FOR STUDENTS. If you’re not a student, get your tickets for just $8 at Brown Paper Tickets. Presented by Plants & Animals Denver and Auraria Students for the Humane Treatment of Animals (ASHTA). All proceeds from tickets go to Farm Sanctuary.

Gene will be presenting a talk entitled “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food,” and signing copies of his book, Farm Sanctuary. Learn new ways to interact with others for the benefit of animals, and see how Farm Sanctuary’s work is making a difference. We’ll even have some tasty vegan food available for you. Here are the details:

“Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food,” a special speaking engagement with Gene Baur.

Wednesday, November 30th 2011, 6pm.

St. Cajetan’s Center at Auraria Campus (1298 Lawrence Way, Denver)

- St. Cajetan’s is the former church located just south of the King Center

Tickets: $8 for non-students

Auraria students may attend this event for FREE with student ID (tickets not required).

Tickets can be purchased online through Brown Paper Tickets or at the door

Hit the jump for a video of Gene on this year’s Just Eats Tour… Read the rest of this entry →

The 2011 Denver Walk for Farm Animals is coming quick. On Sunday, October 30, join Farm Sanctuary for a morning of animal advocacy with Denver’s kindest community. This year the walk kicks off at 9am at Washington Park. There was a crowd of around 100 people walking in 2010. Let’s see if we can double it this year. All proceeds go to Farm Sanctuary, and all awareness goes to the people who see us standing up for the voiceless.

Walk 2010

Denver represent.

Watch out for a post-walk event with P&A! Details coming soon…

Vegan bake sale and benefit show for Peaceful Prairie.

A show and bake sale to benefit Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary. Friday September 2 at Blast-O-Mat (2935 W. 7th Ave.) in Denver. 7:30pm, $10, All ages.

Featuring Perspective, Burials, Sense of Porpoise, Royal Talons, and Abdicate.

Vegan bake sale hosted by Plants & Animals Denver.

Come support our favorite local sanctuary with a rad show and tasty vegan baked goods from P&A volunteers!

If you’d like to help by baking some vegan treats, get in touch with us at info(at)plantsanimals(dot)org. Otherwise, just come to the show! Thanks for getting us in on this, Alvino.

We started a lending library. Come get educated!

Borrow a book from us!

Plants & Animals Denver presents the Veg-Curious Lending Library! Anybody interested in learning about plant-based eating, activism, or conservation is welcome to borrow a book from our collection. We’ve only got about 20 books so far, but there are some great resources available. The lending library is located at Green Spaces (1368 26th St), the venue of our monthly dinners. The library is on the bookshelf near the entrance. You may stop in anytime to browse, or you can check out a book elementary-school style:

• Find the card for your book in the black recipe box.
• Write down your name, phone #, and e-mail address.
• We’ll send you a due date. You may borrow a book for 2 weeks.

Simple as that. We’ve got some good stuff, too. Books and DVDs on animals, health, fitness, cooking, philosophy, nutrition, the environment, and animal rights.

Hit the jump to see our current selection and wishlist. If you’ve got any books lying around that you’d like to donate, let us know. We’ll take anything related to animals and/or veganism.

Read the rest of this entry →

Here is How. Friday, August 5 2011. 6-10pm. Denver.

Come to the First Friday ArtWalk on Santa Fe this month to check out Here is How, a DIY collaborative how-to festival presented by the Kinda Collective. There will be all kinds of artists, crafters, and urban sustainability advocates at this block party along 7th Avenue, between Kalamath and Santa Fe. The event is free and open to the public, and offers everybody an opportunity to walk away with an on-site-published DIY handbook with pages from each of the exhibitors.

Plants & Animals Denver will be there, doing what we know best: vegan food. Learning to cook is a huge part of transitioning into plant-based eating. We’re going to be doing a cooking demo to show you how easy it can be. So stop by our table on Friday for some free samples and a recipe to add to your Here is How book.

The Denver Post Underground Music Showcase was over the weekend. Over 300 local and national bands played venues along Broadway from July 21st-24th. Plants & Animals were there on Friday doing a feed-in.

We posted up in the little entryway nook of Fancy Tiger on Broadway + Ellsworth, right next to the heavy foot traffic at the Hi-Dive. One of our goals was to show off how good homemade vegan food can be, so our diligent volunteers made an awesome array of treats to give out. We gave away around 300 free vegan samples, each one with a piece of literature from Vegan Outreach or Mercy For Animals. There were savory tempeh sausage puff pastries, cinnamon rolls, chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes with peach buttercream frosting, and zucchini bread. And when the cupcakes ran out, we bought a bunch of Tofutti Cuties ice cream sandwiches for a cool treat on a hot night. Everybody who stopped by the table was really nice, and seemed happy we were there. The best part was how everybody was happy to take some literature with them.

Feed-ins are a really fun and positive way to connect with people on the street, and talk to them about veganism. It gives volunteers a chance to show that vegans eat really well,  and that transitioning into plant-based eating is really easy. Any chance to hand somebody a pamphlet that shows the truth about eating animals is a victory, so we felt that this was a very successful outing. We’ll do it again soon, so let us know if you’d like to cook for a feed-in or work the table. Write us at info(at)plantsanimals(dot)org to be added to our volunteer e-mail list, and find out about future volunteer opportunities.

More pictures of Donald and Kellie after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →