Introducing MCL

 

What does MCL mean by compassionate living?

 

 

 

 

Only fully compassionate living will nurture the growth in human awareness and commitment on which the future evolution and the creation of a compassionate world depends.

 

The vegan way

 

For many years a growing number of pioneers have turned away from using animal products in their diet and for other commodities they use in their lives, preferring to use plant-based alternatives. The belief that animal products form an essential component of the human diet is based on outdated views. Robust scientific research has now proven that a well-balanced, plant-based diet meets all human nutritional needs. The continued use of animals for food can no longer be justified and the Movement for Compassionate Living works to spread awareness about the true nature of animal exploitation, to promote alternative methods of plant-based food production, and to share knowledge about how a happy, healthy and sustainable vegan lifestyle can be achieved.

 

Veganism is not enough

 

The MCL philosophy has several strands which weave together to form an approach that our founder, Kathleen Jannaway, called 'ecological veganism'. Dietary veganism is an important first step, but - if we are to work towards the liberation of both the people and the animals of the earth - refusing food and other products resulting from animal exploitation is not enough.

 

We must extend our compassion to all life

 

 

 

 

Animal liberation

 

The figures for the number of animals slaughtered annually in the UK alone are horrific - 3.5 million cattle, 14.2 million pigs, 20 million sheep, 700 million poultry and 5 million rabbits. Since 1959, the number of farm animals on earth has risen five-fold. Humans are now outnumbered three to one. This huge increase in the number of farm animals has been termed the Second Population Explosion.

 

A new agricultural revolution

 

Much of the food now sold in the UK comes from parts of the world where the people who grow the crops once depended upon them to meet their own nutritional needs. Now these people are likely to be exploited as workers in cash crop industries - driven off the land they have traditionally worked, they are often paid a pittance whilst exposed to dangerous conditions: working with unsafe machinery and suffering unregulated exposure to deadly chemicals.

 

Cash crop industries are ripping the heart out of thousands of traditional rural agrarian communities, using agricultural methods which are not sustainable and lead to soil erosion and degradation. They are heavily dependent on chemical herbicides and pesticides and other undesirable biotechnologies, and are increasingly including GM crops. Multi-national biotech companies are increasingly the controlling force behind agriculture in developing communities.

 

Two-thirds of the British cereal crop is fed to livestock annually: this could be used to feed 250 million people each year. Livestock consume half the grain produced on the planet. This is in a world where every 3 seconds a child dies of malnutrition and 24 million people starve to death every year. If everyone in the world ate a plant-based diet and food economies were organised more fairly there would be enough food produced for everyone.

 

MCL promotes the growing of food for a vegan plant-based diet without the use of chemicals or animal products or additives, such as animal manures and blood, fish and bonemeal that would be used by many organic growers. MCL promotes the production of food through sustainable methods of vegan-organic horticulture and agriculture, using plant-based compost and liquid feeds and green manuring techniques.

 

MCL promotes a healthy vegan diet based on crops that can be grown in a person's home climate wherever possible, using patterns of production that mean food is grown for local communities, by local people, reducing the distance from field to fork. MCL encourages people to grow at least some of their own food. There also needs to be more research into the range of food plants that can be grown in each climate zone.

 

Protecting the planet

 

The current lifestyles of many people on this planet mean that the very future of life on Earth is in question, because we are endangering the life support systems of the planet, the air, soil, water and atmosphere.

 

It has been estimated that 33% of all raw materials consumed in the US are used in the production of a meat and dairy based diet. Growing grains, fruit and vegetables uses less than 5% of the raw material consumption used for meat production. The environmental impact of the most common agricultural practices needs careful scrutiny. Animal grazing is destructive to the environment, leading to reduction of plant and tree cover and subsequent soil erosion.

 

Animal farming is also a major source of methane emissions. Methane is one of the 'greenhouse' gases and is already considered to be responsible for 12 -18% of global warming. The scientist James Lovelock, who wrote about the Gaia theory, has described methane as "probably the most dangerous substance we are injecting into the atmosphere".

 

Animal farming makes huge demands in terms of water consumption much of this water is used in slaughterhouses. Every year British farmed animals produce 200 million tons of effluent, much of which finds its way back into rivers and into the sea. Residues from nitrate fertilisers, pesticides and weed killers - and waste water from abattoirs - contaminate water courses, as do animal wastes and the growth hormones and antibiotics they contain.

 

Modern animal farming uses billions of gallons of oil: as a source of fertilisers based on petro-chemicals to grow food to feed to animals, to fuel tractors and the lorries that ship grain and animals, to power refrigeration units, and to power sewage plants to try to clean up the pollution from animal based farming.

 

The role of trees in a vegan world

 

More needs to be done to harness the massive potential of trees as a source of food and many other raw materials that can be used by people for clothing, shelter and energy. Trees are an amazingly productive source of food and make a positive impact on the environment, stabilising the soil and reducing erosion. Trees help to reduce run-off of surface water and as permanent crops, their cultivation does not require regular ploughing which damages soil structure.

 

Trees play a vital role in the battle to reduce global warming. Trees take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen.

 

A healthy diet for everyone

 

All animals depend directly or indirectly on plant products for their food. It is now accepted that humans can maintain excellent health without any animal products. We are currently in the middle of a global epidemic of diet-related illness. High intake of animal products has been scientifically related to the prevalence of coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Worldwide, a billion people are classified as obese. Many of the children now classified as morbidly obese will die before their parents. The model of the modern western diet seems to be built on a double death wish -that of fattening up both food animals and humans.

 

It is a sad fact that developing countries often seem to see meat and animal product consumption as something to aspire to, so the typical Western patterns of disease relating to over-consumption of animal products sometimes known as diseases of over-nutrition or affluence -are being exported to developing countries.

 

Animal farming has become a massive user of industrial chemicals hormones, antibiotics, insecticides, pesticides and other substances -and their residues routinely find their way into animal-based food products and into the environment, thus affecting human health. People need to understand that they do not need animal products to maintain good health, and that there are significant health risks in consuming them. Only age-old habits, fear of being different and ignorance of alternatives hinder the progress along the road to humane living. We all have a responsibility to show the way!

 

 

Join MCL and receive our quarterly journal New Leaves to keep in touch with other members and share ideas for a more compassionate way of life.

 

MCL believes in helping its supporters to LIVE THE FUTURE NOW.

 

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