Sunday, November 22, 2009

A Case Against Meat



My attention was caught by an add on Facebook today; the head of an orangoutang in cling wrap ready to be sold in supermarkets. I clicked the link which took me to a page that warned meat sold in Albert Heijn was soy fed, soy which is grown in plantations in South America that are not only damaging the environment but are also the cause of human rights violations. 

I googled around a little and found this video which was part of an investigation by The Economist into Europe's cheap meat, click here to read the full article or watch the video below.


Friends of the Earth in The Netherlands has an ongoing campaigning about this apparently The Netherlands is the world's second largest importer of soy.  If you feel as sick as I do right now please read and sign their petition.  

We have already cut down drastically on meat mostly because we've found the quality of meat here pretty shocking, after reading this though, there is just no way we will be going anywhere near soy fed meat and instead aim at organic and free range. Can that even be found here in the Netherlands? Eating for me is getting harder and harder by the day. I am now a gluten freesustainable fish only, extremely strictly non cephalopod, organic/free range meat eater. Bloody great...

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Autumn in Amsterdam

Every morning for the past month I have biked through Vondelpark on my way to work and watched as the leaves on the trees slowly turned yellow and orange and fell to the ground. I have only ever experienced a real autumn once before (when I lived in Canada all the way back in 2005) and although I often like to complain that my fingers freeze as I ride my bike, I actually really love experiencing this season.



Vondelpark in November

Autumn for me is synonymous with cosiness, warm candle lit homes, dinner parties in with friends and warm cafe's with rain drops on the windows and Amsterdam is the perfect setting for all these things. So so gezellig...