Food and Culture: How to Survive Family Meals
July 3, 2012
By Guest Blogger
In Mexican-American culture, getting together usually involves food. A celebration between family and friends can be an all day affair. Food in general is hot, spicy, and there’s a lot of it. Sounds great, right? Well I’m going to admit something here with you right now. It was kind of a problem for me adjusting to a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle at classic, traditional, Mexican get-togethers. This issue all came back to me as I attended a… Read More >
Culture Is No Defense for Cruelty
May 18, 2011
By Wayne Pacelle
Through the years, I’ve heard many flimsy arguments from the apologists for animal abuse, and among the most persistent has been an appeal to cultural prerogative or tradition – in short, that the conduct in question is an expression of the “culture” of a particular nationality, community, ethnicity or race, and therefore, it should somehow be treated as sacrosanct. The bullfighters in Spain invoke culture as a defense for the staged stabbing or slaughter of… Read More >
Part II: The History of Animal Rights
August 25, 2009
By Dr. Will Tuttle
Continued from Part I: The History of Animal Rights… With the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment in the 16th to 18th centuries, the influence of the church waned as reason and modern science began to ascend, but unfortunately, this was not good news for animals, and signaled the beginning of a much more ferocious exploitation of them for scientific experimentation, as well as for entertainment, clothing, products, and, of course, food. While there had been some… Read More >
