Animal-free Thanksgiving!

"If you're anything like me, the thought of having a big, dead, stuffed bird as the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal is definitely cringe-inducing—and I'm sure the 300 million turkeys raised and killed for their flesh each year the US aren't thrilled at the thought, either." --Marta (from peta2's "Daily Blog")

Here in the United States of America (and Canada, but on a different date), we celebrate a holiday that we like to call "Thanksgiving". We gather 'round a table with a families, and are thankful for all of our blessings.

To foreigners, this just seems like another of the "fat Americans" ways of incorporating a holiday into an excuse to stuff our face (which, I must admit, is completely true).

Some of the customs and traditions for this diet-breaking holiday include:

• spending an entire day with family



• the delicious aroma of corn, vegetable soups, pumpkin pies, etc.



• the Macey's Thanksgiving Day Parade



• perhaps putting up some Christmas decorations



• devouring a dead bird full of "stuffing"......?????!!!!!!!

Wait a second..... dead birds?

Having grown up in a meat eating family (who still insists on putting that stuff into their bodies, regardless of their health, the cruelty, and how I feel about it) I have always participated in the eating of the turkey. Now that I've gone veg, however, I shall be participating in an animal-free Thanksgiving! Yay!

I'll be cooking (hopefully successfully) some of my own food, and eating some of the already-vegan food that'll be on my table. If I'm lucky, I might even be able to find a cruelty-free Tofurky in my extremely non-vegan friendly town (or, if I'm even luckier, perhaps I'll win one from peta2!), but if I'm not that lucky, I think I can whip up my own little substitute of some sort (vegan cookbooks, here I come!). But I'm going to cross my fingers and take a trip to Rouse's!

I'm really looking forward to my first vegan Thanksgiving. If only there could be things that the animals could give thanks for, though. No cruelty, decent meals, not having to look forward to their first breath of fresh air on the back of a truck on its way to a slaughter-house (isn't the name just revolting?). Maybe I'll be able to recruit some more cruelty-free advocates over Thanksgiving dinner!

--Tori