The Compassion Experiment

The Compassion Experiment: is a blog about converting to a more compassionate lifestyle. Well, five days in, and we are already starting to see the effect of living a more compassionate lifestyle, on our wallets. The groceries we bought this week came in well under our old pre-compassionate budget. Not that we were buying gutted pigs by the dozen, of course, but the financial implications of living a compassionate lifestyle can actually be a benefit too, just don't shop at Whole Foods. We were sent this email from our good friend Cindy, from CARE: Hi Beth, Hi Mike, Just wanted to let you know the blog is a wonderful idea and forum to help further a more conscientious and ethical way of life. The horrific and systematic exploitation of animals in the meat and ancillary industries, and the environmental degradation resulting from these industries, are cloaked behind the "tacit" understanding that this is socially acceptable. Our society embraces and condones this daily and...

The Compassion Experiment: is a blog about converting to a more compassionate lifestyle. When it comes to promoting the compassionate lifestyle, there are two schools of thought, one being to shame people into living more compassionately, the other is to give people options, and help guide them into a more humane way of life. We don't believe that showing people gruesome pictures of animals being slaughtered is the right way to go about it. That's not to say that we don't support the groups who do this, many of these groups are the people working the hardest for animals, animal safety and promoting compassionate living. We just have our own way of doing things. As promised, we tried a great compassion recipe last night, and it turned out to be quite tasty. We modified the recipe and made it our own. We were worried that it would be flat, and hard and tasteless. We were way off, and highly recommend it. Here it is: Banana Blueberry Compassion Bread You will need: 3 ripe ba...

It was brought to our attention, that one of the animal charities we work for, has sent out a letter to their volunteers, stating they have to sign a letter of allegiance to said charity. And cannot solicit donations, or volunteer, for any other animal charities. Does this make sense to you? Running an animal charity should be about the animals, not about the profits. It's not a business, it's a Charity. I'm sure it's a little of both, but I can say for sure, it is not easy. So, this doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe someone can tell me where the rationale is here? If you want to boycott said charity, get in touch, and we'll let you know who it is. This weekend April 23-25, the Green Living Show is happening in T.O. We went last year with our friends, the Soden's, and it was awesome. Made us realize how many smart people there are working on solutions for living greener. Tons of great ideas, products, food, been looking forward to this years show. A lot ca...

The Compassion Experiment: is a blog about converting to a more compassionate lifestyle. Where does chocolate milk come from? It is milk that has blood in it, and the chocolate is used to hide the evidence. I can admit that it is tasty, but I'll take a cup of chocolate soy milk, to a mouthful of blood, any day of the week. For a lot of people, when it comes to what they put in their mouth, ignorance is bliss. This holds true for both food, and sexual encounters. I don't think anyone ever got HIV from a cheeseburger though. Definitely the easiest meal to eat compassionately is breakfast, you just need to find a good soy milk. We highly recommend the unsweetened So Nice organic soy beverage. Produced by SoyaWorld Inc. (based out of Vancouver), it is a product that is delicious, homegrown, and not produced by the American monsters featured in Food Inc. I haven't missed blood milk since I made the switch, and can't ever go back. I will miss cream in my coffee though. We ha...

The Compassion Experiment: is a blog about converting to a more compassionate lifestyle. I wish someone would pass a law that said you could only eat, what you kill. Lord knows I would never eat an animal again. Some people eat cats, and have chickens for pets, whereas others have cats for pets and chickens for dinner. What's the difference? Cats are cuter, and as a meat source are a lot less profitable. Probably harder to pluck a cat too. I'm not one to point a finger at someone chomping down on a triple bacon burger, mostly because I know it's delicious, and it makes me wish I didn't have a conscience about these matters. Doesn't mean I don't chomp down on the occasional burger either, just means I feel guilty as hell as the juice drips into my beard. The Compassion Experiment will put on display, the efforts of our family in our attempt to convert into a more compassionate way of life. We are trying to live more humanely, and more ecologically. We will err o...