03/28/13 Compassionate Easter!

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Animal Friends invites you to celebrate Easter in an ethical manner

- Vegetarian Easter meals, wood or plastic eggs instead of chicken, without buying chicks or rabbits as fun for children

The usual picture of Easter means overeating plenty of eggs and meat, and then the essence of this holiday is completely missed. A large number of hens, chicks and other animals are being used and killed for traditional egg eating, ham and cakes made with eggs, in order to celebrate this day. Easter means celebrating a victory over death, and it is therefore absurd that numerous sentient beings suffer because of it.

Every year in the world we keep around five billion female hens in prison whose reproductive system we exploit. Every year the human race kills billions of just born unwanted male chicks. It all happens because of our egg-eating habit.

In nature, after a few laid eggs, a hen will start to sit on them, in order for chicks to hatch. With chicks, while they are still inside the egg, a mother's bond is created and the hens look after them until they grow up. In breeding hens, eggs are removed daily in order to stimulate the hen to make up for the loss and keep laying eggs. By crossbreeding or genetic changes, humans have created breeds that have a pronounced urge to lay eggs. In breeding, hens suffer constant physical pain as well as a psychological mistreatment by deliberate moulting and light regulation so they will lay more eggs.

On farms, a few of them are put in the same cage, where they can't even stretch their wings. Because of the small space and bad conditions, wounds slowly replace feathers. In order to avoid hurting each other as a result of unbearable conditions, hens are subjected to painful beak cutting. Completely exhausted hens are taken to the slaughter house, where they are hung by their feet and their throats are cut. Their tormented bodies are most often used in soups, in cat and dog food or as fertiliser.

Few people know the fact that male chicks are an unwanted by-product in egg production, and they are not wanted in meat industry either, as other breeds are used, manipulated to give unnaturally large quantities of meat. As soon as they are born in the egg industry, male chicks are killed by suffocation or ground alive. Every year in the world billions of male chicks killed. In Croatia male chicks are killed by grinding up the whole animal, which is called maceration.

Also, few people think about what eggs actually are and how natural it is to use them in our diet. Eggs originate from egg cells. After the ovulation, egg cell drops in the oviduct where the creation of egg continues. If the egg is fertilised, which in nature happens almost every time, an embryo forms, and if not, the egg continues to form. The laid egg can be considered the equivalent of the process of menstruation in mammals. Except for cholesterol bombs, eggs are potential carriers of salmonella and causers of deadly testicular cancer, they are not naturally or nutritively needed in our diet.

And while human deaths from hunger and malnutrition are always present on one side of the planet, on the other side natural resources are being relentlessly used for eating meat, eggs and other items of animal origin. Breeding animals is extremely wasteful and our eating habits are directly connected to hunger in the world, apropos to being compassionate towards other people.

The origin of the word Easter is an old Slavic verb which meant "grow" and "develop". Easter tradition can be upheld without hurting a single life in the process. Animal Friends invites you to celebrate this Easter by choosing meals without ingredients of animal origin, and you then therefore directly help animals, the environment and your health.

With a healthy and ethical diet, there are other ways to celebrate Easter: you can take ingredients and meals of plant origin to the Church for a blessing; you can choose to paint wood or plastic eggs instead of chicken eggs; instead of buying rabbits or chicks for fun for children you could foster abandoned animals.

Recipes for Easter meals and cakes with no meat, eggs or milk can be found here, and everyone who wants to be sent recipes regularly can sign up with their email address at www.zeleni-ponedjeljak.com.

Compassion

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