VIVA! EMAIL NEWS ALERT

February 2005

Viva!

8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH, UK

Tel: +44 (0)117 944 1000 Email: info@...
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Web: www.viva.org.uk <http://www.viva.org.uk/>
www.factoryfarming.org.uk <http://www.factoryfarming.org.uk/>
www.savethekangaroo.com <http://www.savethekangaroo.com/>





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In This Viva!City: Vegan Kids Are Healthy Kids

Bert (or Gert) - The Luckiest Turkey

Incredible Veggie Roadshow comes to
Manchester

Food Glorious Food!

More Divine Delights!

Day of the Ducks 2!

Your Viva!City







Vegan kids Are Healthy Kids



Many of you will of seen the reports in the media quoting a spurious
American report that claimed that it was unethical for parents to bring
their children up as vegetarians and vegans as they would some how be
missing out on vital nutrients. Naturally, this report is poppycock of
the highest (or perhaps that should be lowest) order. The world's most
prestigious health advisory body, the American Dietetic Association and
Dieticians of Canada, has categorically declared that: 'Well-planned
vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages
of the lifecycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy,
childhood and adolescence. Appropriately planned vegetarian diets are
healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the
prevention and treatment of certain diseases.'. These 'certain diseases'
are the killer epidemics of today - heart disease, strokes, cancers,
diabetes etc.

Similarly, the British Medical Association doesn't mince these words
either:

'Vegetarians have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high
blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gall stones.'

Incredibly, most news reports usually failed to mention was that the
survey was carried on malnourished children in Africa and that it was
partly sponsored by the American beef industry! Naturally, we couldn't
let this lie and Viva! has been tirelessly setting the record straight
via local and national media ever since. The story concerned Paul
McCartney so much that he made a rare phone-in to the Jeremy Vine show
on Radio 2.

To read our full press release go here
<http://www.viva.org.uk/mediareleases/pr2005/05-12kids.htm> .

Please remember, Viva! is here to help. If you have any questions at all
our qualified nutritionist, Lee Jerome <mailto:lee@...> ,
will be only too happy to help.





Bert (or Gert) - The Luckiest Turkey



As you may remember from our January update, Viva!'s Director, Juliet
Gellatley, had an extra guest for Christmas - Bert the turkey! Two
veggies were delighted when they won a mystery prize in their local
church raffle. Their delight soon turned to dismay when a local farmer
rang them and told them the prize was a turkey, was still running around
and when would they like him slaughtered. Juliet took Bert in - who now
lives with a dozen rescued battery hens for company until a mate can be
found. The farmer told the couple Bert was a boy - in fact it turns out
Bert is a Gert - as 'he' has started laying eggs!!



Gertie Bertie is settling into her new home, and has completely endeared
herself to the whole family. She's a total individual - a bit of a
character with an enormous personality and a sense of both fun and
mischief. And she is particularly fond of Juliet's rescued horse Betty
Boo - she stands under her calling and will not budge!



When Gertie arrived, she had no feathers on her neck and chest and was
in pain when she walked. It was distressing watching her as she tried
to run with the hens as she couldn't move her vastly overweight body out
of first gear. A few weeks on and she's a different bird. Her feathers
have all grown back and gleam bronze and green; she walks with ease and
ran for the first time last week; even flying a few metres!



Gert's story was picked up by masses of media - Daily Express, Daily
Mail, The Guardian , radio 2, 4 and 5, local radio and even GMTV and ITV
news. Everyone loves a 'fluffy' story at Christmas, it seems, but we
have done our best to inject some honesty into the coverage. We have
focused on the millions of diseased and dejected birds crammed into
countless windowless sheds across the UK. As a result we were deluged
with requests for our free Christmas veggie recipes. Everyone who
requested the recipes also received our information on turkeys and our
other campaigns to save farmed animals. Gorgeous Gert has unknowingly
helped thousands of her friends.







Incredible Veggie Roadshow comes to Manchester



Viva!'s Incredible Veggie Roadshow will be rolling into Manchester on
Saturday 26 March 2005. We will be up in Manchester in the next few
weeks to entice the locals - as ever, headed by our fruity Carmen
Miranda lookalike! Both our Bristol and Brighton shows were a massive
success - and last month's show in Solihull exceeded all our
expectations: nearly 1,500 people streamed through the doors packing out
the talks, cookery demos and food tastings! The Roadshows are designed
to bring the vegetarian message to people right where they live - and
the feedback is now rolling in, with many people telling us how the
shows have helped them dump the meat and ditch the dairy!



Find out more about it and see the full list of shows here
<http://www.viva.org.uk/roadshows/manchester.html> . If you can offer us
help for any shows - either with publicity beforehand or on the day
itself - please get in touch <mailto:angie@...> . It's
incredibly rewarding to see so many people interested in vegetarianism
and the shows have proved so busy so far that we really need all the
help we can get!









Food Glorious Food!



If you have access to the web and need to widen your vegan culinary
repertoire (or your friends implore "but what do you eat?!") - take a
look at (or get them to browse) our new recipe section
<http://www.viva.org.uk/recipes> . There are hundreds of vegan recipes
divided into easy to use sections - from quick and simple to
international gourmet; weaning ideas to Christmas feasts - it's all
there just waiting to inspire!





New Divine Delights!



Try the luscious, new additions to the Divine Delights range. Choose
from Brazil nuts, apricot or mango - all drenched in droolworthy vegan
chocolate and all fairly-traded. You really can't go wrong! Order them
on-line at the Viva! shop <http://www.viva.org.uk/shop/chocolate.htm> .







Day of the Ducks 2!



Over the last year we have been meeting with all the major supermarkets
demanding that they take action over the cruelty to factory farmed ducks
and other animals and pushing to find out what exactly their 'welfare
standards' actually mean day in day out for animals. We have so far
held meetings with Asda, Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco and the
Co-op. Some - like Asda, made no attempt to hide the fact that the
overriding factor for them was profit - animal welfare came a very poor
second. And of course, we left them with our message - that they must
start to take the welfare of farmed animals seriously. Others were more
receptive to change.



Although we know that even getting a meeting with these companies is a
step in the right direction, we are under no illusion that we have a
huge uphill struggle ahead of us. We will be holding another Day of
Action for Ducks in May and will be focussing on one of the above
supermarkets - watch this space for further info!



Click here <http://www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/ducks/index.htm> to find
out about our campaign to end the factory farming of ducks, and find out
how you can help end the suffering.







Your Viva!City



This email alert reaches thousands of people but we'd like your help to
make it even better. At the moment, we have just one list of addresses
which means that we have to send the same email to everyone. From time
to time we'd like to let people know about things happening in their
area or get in contact with our younger supporters but we don't want to
fill everyone else's mailboxes with information that isn't relevant to
them. What we'd like to do is compile email lists separated into
different regions so that if we do have something we'd like to tell
people in Scotland or Yorkshire about, we can send them the information
without bothering anyone else.



The simplest way for us to identify which area you live in is to know
your postcode and so we'd be grateful if you could take a minute to fill
in our online questionnaire
<http://www.timetogoveggie.com/emailconfirm01.php> . We'd also really
like to know your age if you're under 18 - you can fill in your date of
birth on the form. You won't receive any postal mailings (unless you
want them and fill in your other details) and the information will be
used only to sort your email addresses. You don't even have to give us
your name if you don't want to.



As ever, if you would like any more information about any of our
campaigns, check out our website www.viva.org.uk
<http://www.viva.org.uk/> or get in touch with us directly - contact
details at the top of this email. Please don't click "reply", however -
your email won't be seen at that address.



Thanks again for all your support.





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