Posted on February 17, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Not only is vegan chocolate easy to find, the best brands offer truly exceptional quality. If you’re new to eating vegan foods, vegan chocolate won’t disappoint you.
The first thing you need to know about chocolate is that most of the good stuff is vegan. In fact, most chocolate connoisseurs consider milk chocolate to be an abomination. Dark chocolate is the real stuff.
That raises the question: is dark chocolate vegan? Most of the time it is. Unfortunately, several brands of dark chocolate, including Hershey and Ghirardelli, contain whey or other milk products. So always check the ingredients.
Vegan Chocolate Varieties
When it comes to chocolate, the spectrum of quality is as wide as that of wine. Every brand of dark chocolate that aspires to being taken seriously will list its percentage of cocoa mass on the package. The higher the percentage, the stronger the chocolate flavor, but this also bring more bitterness. Once you reach 80 percent you’re heading into the territory favored by chocolate connoisseurs. Lindt and some other brands even have 90% offerings, which is only for the seriously committed, and akin to drinking Wild Turkey 101 neat.
Dark chocolate might initially seem unpleasantly bitter. If you grew up devouring Hershey Kisses and Nestle Crunch Bars, it may take you some time to acquire a taste for 80+ percent chocolate. Perhaps the best way forward is to start with vegan chocolate in the 70 percent range, and then gradually work your way up to higher percentages.
But if what you’re really craving—chocolate snobs be damned—is the mild flavor of milk chocolate, fear not; three all-vegan companies offer what you’re seeking:
Fair-Trade Dark Chocolate
Much of the world’s chocolate—even expensive gourmet vegan dark chocolate—is produced by exploited or enslaved workers. Fortunately, many vegan chocolate brands carry a fair-trade label. The best resource to learn more about fair-trade chocolate is through this regularly-updated list published by the Food Empowerment Project.
Although Amazon.com has great prices on most products, they fall short when it comes to chocolate. Many of the vegan chocolates they carry are quite overpriced. But they do have a few good deals. Here are the vegan fair-trade chocolates Amazon generally keeps in stock:
Vegan Chocolate Companies
There are plenty of companies that make both vegan chocolate and non-vegan varieties. But more than a dozen companies churn out only vegan products, and pretty much all of these companies are fair-trade as well. Here’s our list.
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Posted on February 17, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
USA –
Sanctuary Sues Wisconsin City to End Cruel “Pioneer Day Chicken Toss”
Farm Bird Sanctuary is asking the town of Ridgeland to enforce existing animal cruelty laws to prevent Pioneer Day events that see hundreds of pigs and chickens abused for entertainment each year.
Wisconsin-based Farm Bird Sanctuary is moving forward with legal action to end the cruel “Chicken Toss and Greased Pig Wrestling events at the annual Ridgeland Pioneer Day in Ridgeland, WI.
Farm Bird Sanctuary founder Quincy Markowitz filed for an emergency injunction earlier this month in an effort to prevent this year’s events on February 15, asking the town of Ridgeland to enforce the law that states animal cruelty is a criminal offense.
Currently, multiple Wisconsin statutes refer to the handling and care of animals, with violations involving fines or imprisonment. The events, which have been happening in the town of 300 for nearly 40 years, involve a greased pig chase where frightened pigs are tackled by young children, and a “chicken toss” where as many as 200 terrified chickens are thrown into the frigid winter air, one or two at a time, from a rooftop into a crowd of people below.
“No one owes us their body, or their suffering, for human entertainment,” Markowitz told VegNews. “The chickens that live with us bear the emotional and physical scars from being thrown off of a roof in below-freezing temperatures.
We owe it not only to our chickens but to as many as possible to fight injustices against them as best as we are able.” The judge declined to apply the emergency injunction because of the short timeframe, however, Markowitz has been asked to refile the complaint within 30 days to continue the lawsuit.
Additionally, activists and animal rescuers will continue to protest, and nearly 150,000 people have also signed a petition to end the cruel events.
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Posted on February 17, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
WAV Comment
Some of our recent posts associated with Coronavirus:
They just don’t seem to get the message do they ?
Now we move to Vietnam; animal welfare aside for a second, just look at the state of the container in which the live frogs are being kept; shit black dirt all up the sides; workers taking not one glimmer of any hygiene controls – clothing; gloves, anything. It all looks like a super recipe for Coronavirus Mk2 from where we stand – see the images from the Chinese markets in our links above – notice the commonality ?. Are the Asians attempting to kill off the entire planet or what ? – no; only killing off innocent animals which are being abused for their selfish food fetish needs.
“We also saw the mangled bodies of dead or dying frogs scattered across the market floor – frogs who managed to jump out of these tubs while being sorted ended up squashed under the feet of passers-by or under the wheels of motorbikes speeding down the hectic market corridors. It was shocking.”
‘France is the biggest consumer, eating 4,000 tons a year, but America has been catching up, and they are also popular in Asian cuisine’.
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‘Research shows that the mass movement of frogs for human consumption – often unregulated or mislabelled – also plays a role in ecosystem collapse and spreading disease’.
Watch the disgusting video by clicking on either of the following:
Live frogs are being crammed together in tubs and sold in food markets in east Asia, destined for painful deaths, an investigation has found.
Thousands of the amphibians were filmed being poured into large buckets at street markets in Vietnam, where workers frantically rifle through them, then stuff them into bags for sale.
Animal-welfare experts say the trade is not just “agonising” but also increases the risk of the extinction of the species, as creatures are taken from the wild.
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Studies show the practice also damages natural food chains. And scientists say piling up live frogs in such conditions risks spreading disease among the amphibians.
In a joint investigation by the Moving Animals group and The Independent, bins full of living frogs were found in the seafood section of Binh Dien market.
“They are taken from stacked delivery crates and poured into buckets, where workers frantically grab them by hand to sort them,” said one investigator. “The sorted frogs are then stuffed into a bag, ready for sale – all while still alive.
“We also saw the mangled bodies of dead or dying frogs scattered across the market floor – frogs who managed to jump out of these tubs while being sorted ended up squashed under the feet of passers-by or under the wheels of motorbikes speeding down the hectic market corridors. It was shocking.”
It is estimated more than three billion frogs are eaten worldwide each year, which are mostly caught from in the wild in Indonesia, but they are also farmed. France is the biggest consumer, eating 4,000 tons a year, but America has been catching up, and they are also popular in Asian cuisine.
Fears of falling populations have long been raised, leading France to ban farming and capturing frogs in the country in 1979.
However, the EU still imports the legs of tens of thousands of the amphibians from Asia each year, to the dismay of conservationists.
Activists claim frogs are often “forgotten” in welfare laws. They are “often skinned, and have their snouts and rear legs cut off with scissors or a blade while still alive. Their torsos are then tossed aside in a pile of other bleeding frogs and they endure a slow, agonising death,” according to the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute.
A 2011 report, Canapés to Extinction, by international animal groups, said scientists had found frogs’ pain perception was similar to mammals’ and when their legs were cut off they struggled “until they reach complete exhaustion”.
Other witnesses have reported that in many cases only the hind legs are used for food, with the body thrown away.
Worldwide, amphibians are already suffering “catastrophic population declines” from interacting pathogens, scientists say. Fungal disease chytridiomycosis is thought to have caused the extinction of 90 species and marked declines of at least 491 others. Globalisation and the wildlife trade have been given most of the blame for the pandemic.
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Research shows that the mass movement of frogs for human consumption – often unregulated or mislabelled – also plays a role in ecosystem collapse and spreading disease.
Wiping out frogs leaves snakes starving and allows disease-carrying mosquitoes to multiply, new research has found.
Until 1987, India was the world’s primary exporter of wild-caught frogs, leaving populations heavily depleted and farmers dependent on large quantities of pesticides to control pests and mosquitoes. Ecologists fear that Indonesia, now the source of more than two-thirds of frogs’ legs in supermarkets worldwide, is heading the same way.
And keeping frogs in such cramped conditions, without water, allows them to succumb to viruses.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at Nottingham University, said although the risk to humans was probably very small, there was certainly the risk of spreading disease among frogs.
The 2011 report said: “Due to the mounting evidence that the chytrid fungus and ranaviruses are distributed through frogs traded live, in 2009 the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), specified conditions for handling processed and live frogs (eg health certificates and risk mitigation measures) in its Aquatic Animal Health Code.”
A spokeswoman for Peta Asia said: “Not only is this cruelty and suffering abhorrent, but eating animals – whether it’s frogs or chickens – fuels the demand for live animal markets. The typically filthy conditions of these markets are hotbeds for deadly viruses to multiply and spread. For the good of all living, feeling beings – including humans – they must all be shut down immediately.”
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Posted on February 16, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Dear Mark,
We’re hearing that the Trump administration will soon issue its final rule to roll back lifesaving clean car standards — which, if left in place, would help save drivers billions at the pump and eliminate billions of tons of carbon emissions.
Americans overwhelmingly support stronger vehicle emissions standards. Yet, three major automakers — GM, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler — recently sided with the Trump administration’s attacks on clean car standards.
We are facing a climate crisis, and transportation is the single largest source of climate-wrecking carbon pollution in the United States. Send a message to GM, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler, telling them that you won’t let them derail our climate progress.
NRDC and our allies are fighting back against these car companies’ attack on state safeguards — working hard to convince them to reverse course and support what’s best for our planet and our health, not their short-term profits.
NRDC’s attorneys are fighting this attempt to block state efforts — and stand ready to file a lawsuit against the broader rollback. Public pressure will help. The CEOs of GM, Toyota, and Fiat Chrysler need to hear from you that their actions are unacceptable.
Act now: Help us reach our goal of generating 100,000 letters calling on these three automakers to support clean car standards.
Thanks for standing with us in this crucial fight.
Sincerely,
John Cross
Campaign Manager, NRDC
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Posted on February 16, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
Animals neglected, abused, and killed at Colorado Pet Store. This is what you support when you buy animals.
And not just in Colorado, but all over the world!!
The demand for purebred puppies is causing people to misuse animals as parturients.
They are offered as puppies from a private source or from a loving breed, but in fact many of the animal babies advertised on the Internet come from dubious “breeding stations” from Eastern Europe and are brought and sold Europe-wide and also to Germany.
Usually much cheaper than by “breeders”, but there are also exceptions and puppies are sold for a lot of money. The problem is that the puppies are snatched from their mother far too early.
The result is that the puppies are often behaviorally disturbed. What is also bad: the puppies are not sufficiently medically cared for and are often already sick when they are handed over to the buyer.
It is not uncommon for them to die after a short time.
Trunk puppies, puppy rooms, hobby breeders, reputable breeders … What for? The animal shelters are full of wonderful animals waiting for a new home❤
With so much information about this criminal trade with racy animals, there should be no excuse for anyone buying a pet from a pet shop or from breeders.
Some don’t care that the shelters are full because there are many who are convinced that shelter animals have diseases or are problematic.
They are the ones who want to get a “pure” product with the purchase.
And with their purchase they kill the hope of an other animal that hopes for years for love, its own house and freedom in a home with its own family.
Don’t buy! never buy living beings, you wouldn’t do it with a human being either, right?
Adopt! save a life, make an animal happy and at the same time you act against the puppy mafia.
My best regards to all, Venus
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Posted on February 16, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
EU mafia: How crime bosses have abused the Brussels project to make billions!
THE European Union has allowed Mafia crime families to flourish by taking advantage of the bloc’s single market and lavish cash subsidies, an Italian MEP has claimed.
Sabrina Pignedoli, of the Five Star Movement, said crime bosses had capitalised on the EU’s expansion to Eastern Europe where they have invested vast sums of illicit cash in legitimate businesses.
Sabrina Pignedoli
During periods of economic crisis, Italian mafia-style groups – the Cosa Nostra, Camorra and Ndrangheta – have maintained a low profile in their home country while investing billions of euros into struggling firms across the Continent.
They use the legitimate business to launder cash from their large-scale drug trafficking, counterfeiting and toxic waste management enterprises.
Italian MEP Sabrina Pignedoli has called for a EU-wide approach to fighting Mafia activities (Image: GETTY)
Ms Pignedoli is calling for Brussels to adopt a bloc-wide approach to tackling the Mafia’s presence in Europe.
In Italy, specific laws have been introduced to tackle mobsters’ illicit and often violent activities after decades of crime syndicates profiting from lax rules.
The legislation clearly defines the activities of crime families – illegal or legal – and allows for their assets to be seized and confiscated.
It has allowed Italian authorities to target associates of organised crime gangs even if they have not broken the law themselves.
“This crackdown has led to the Mafia searching out new businesses opportunities elsewhere in Europe”, Ms Pignedoli said.
She added: “The fact that there are no barriers in Europe it makes it easier for the Mafia circulate goods and money.”
“The real problem is when they are money laundering they use banks, they use the legal economy, they buy restaurants and shopping malls – so they are invisible.
“They’re giving money to the economy and helping the economy but this money is being laundered from the profits of drug trafficking.”
Ms Pignedoli said the Mafia’s presence is often undetected, or even a blind eye turned to it, because of the growth in the struggling economies that are targeted by crime bosses.
The Ndrangheta, an Italian crime family from Calabria, was named in the investigation into the murder of Slovakian journalist Jan Kuciak in 2018.
He and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova, both 27, were found shot dead at close range at their home in the village of Vel’ka Macs outside the capital, Bratislava.
His story unearthed a series of Italian businesses, with ties to the Ndrangheta, that had obtained access to hefty EU subsidies from the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy, amounting to around £58 million over a 14-year stretch between 2004 and 2018 !!!.
The Ndrangheta crime gang also has ties to the UK, with corrupt allies in the City of London helping them to launder their cash, accounting for a surge in growth in the illicit industry that the National Crime Agency, in 2017, said was worth “hundreds of billions” of pounds a year.
And with the EU’s proposed enlargement into North Macedonia and Albania, Ms Pignedoli believes now is the time for Brussels to find a “one definition for the Mafia and organised crime”.
She said: “Now is the right time to reinforce anti-Mafia legislation in Europe.
We must have the law to fight the mafia and then we can open up towards other member states without problems”.
Express.co.uk has contacted the European Commission for comment.
My comment: As if we didn’t know! There’s no accounting for the money. Nobody knows what happens to it once we’ve paid it. It goes “into the system” and much of it vanishes without a trace via schemes and back handers and grants and loans etc. all lost in an accounting tangle that works like a bottomless pit, a scandal that has been going on for years.
Looks like the EU have become a Mafia as well, it’s become a partnership… ‘The Ndrangheta crime family was siphoning off billions in EU agricultural subsidies’!!
How could that happen without the EU knowing about it?
Or is that also part of the “family”?
The same old story – the EU chiefs have no interest in stopping this illegal activity because they are all on the payroll. Secondly, they are responsible for running the greatest protection racket that world has ever seen, all done in plain sight.
My best regards to all, Venus
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Posted on February 16, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
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Serbian Animals Voice (SAV) 