Introduction

At this time the concept of vegan is not well understood—or pronounced—by the mainstream American public.  As if simple vegetarianism is not difficult enough to grasp (do you eat chicken?  How about fish?  Can you just eat around the meat?), the vegan has the added conviction of avoiding all animal-based products entirely.  (Your shoes aren’t made of leather?  You don’t drink any milk at all? And how do you pronounce that word, anyway?)  It is pronounced VEE-gan, and it is a lifestyle that reduces harm to the Earth, animals, and other people.  To those of us who practice it, it is simply a common sense way to attain a better life.

In a nation whose culture and economy have revolved around animal products since its inception, those of us who eschew them in favor of a plant-based diet are often seen as part of the lunatic fringe.  Never mind the mountains of scientific and anecdotal evidence that we vegans live longer, healthier lives, perform as well athletically (Carl Lewis has long been a vegan), use fewer resources, and cause less environmental harm in the span of our long, happy lives.  We are repeatedly asked to justify our dietary and life choices to those who simply do not understand.  

“Do you do it for your health or for the animals?” we are often asked.  Sometimes we would like to answer, “If you already know that it’s better for your health and better for the animals, why aren’t you a vegan already?”  But we usually try to come up with an answer that somehow summarizes the volumes of information we have learned about the benefits of veganism without sounding preachy.  We try to convey how the quality of our lives and health has improved since becoming vegan, how we eat better than ever, feel better than ever, and enjoy our meals more than ever.  But our truths are often met with disbelief by those entrenched in the lifelong habit of meat-eating.  We feel the need to bridge the gap between ourselves and the people who sometimes seem almost to mistrust us or be threatened by us because of our vegan choices.  This gap should not exist at all, since we all have the same core beliefs.  

Have you ever met anyone who really desires poor health rather than good health?  Do you know a single person who would choose a poisoned environment over a pristine one?  How many people do you know who truly have no place in their heart for animals who are suffering?  All of us have the foundation of basic goodness in us.  Many of you who are meat-eaters are just as concerned about avoiding harm as those of us who are now vegans.  And many of us vegans were once meat eaters who thought there was no way we could ever live a vegan lifestyle.  We all want to do good for ourselves and others and for the Earth.  That is the basis of the vegan philosophy. This writing will lay out in simple terms why being vegan is simply a common sense choice made in good conscience by those seeking to attain a better life.  It will also define what we at Dancing Crane Farm call a mindful vegan philosophy that modifies traditional veganism in certain respects.

What Mindful Veganism Means To Us

At Dancing Crane Farm, we are devoted to living our lives in harmony with, and not at the expense of, the Earth and other forms of life.  We do not use any outside animal products in any part of our diets or in our agricultural production, nor do we employ practices that kill or harm wildlife, including animals usually seen as pests.* This path is not always as convenient as the more conventional one, but it always feels better and results in superior quality produce and a healthier life.  Our philosophy, which we call mindful veganism, consists of actions that result in the least possible harm to the Earth and all of its species.  Some of these actions are not practiced by most vegans, but we see the need to look more deeply into certain issues to see that a standard vegan lifestyle can be made even less cruel and less harmful by some of the practices that we employ.  

Because we love animals, we do keep certain ones as pets and friends.  Our dogs, cats, chickens, and bees give us companionship, love, and other benefits as well.  We keep them also because we truly believe that humans and animals can and should live together in mutually beneficial ways.  We are a part of nature not apart from nature.  We can use our knowledge to improve the animal’s life by keeping it free of pests and parasites, out of the cold, and well-fed.  The animals in turn provide us with certain things that are useless to them, such as discarded feathers, unfertilized eggs, or surplus honey.  

Left to its own devices, a happy and healthy chicken will do certain things such as shedding feathers and laying eggs.  If we pick up a discarded feather and make use of it, are we in some way harming the chicken?  Likewise an egg.  Once laid, it is useless to the chicken and quickly passes out of its life.  Being unfertilized, it is not and never will be a living being.  It is up to us to remove the egg for the good of the chicken so it does not rot inside the chicken’s home, causing unhealthy and unpleasant conditions.  If we throw the egg in a landfill, we can call ourselves conventionally vegan because we did not eat the animal product.  Our brand of mindful veganism allows us to feed that egg to our dogs or cats and use the shell as a slug control or additional calcium in the garden and still call ourselves vegan because the egg did not cause any cruelty whatsoever in its production, and because using it actually benefits the dogs, cats and garden.  No good would have come from throwing the egg in a landfill.

It must be reiterated that we do not eat eggs and object strongly to commercial egg production, in which chickens are forced to endure crowding, unsanitary conditions, cruel practices such as debeaking, and force-fed hormones and antibiotics to keep them alive and laying eggs.  The cruelty and harm caused by factory egg production is multi-faceted and self-evident.  Anyone, vegan or meat-eater, would be disturbed by the conditions inside these egg factories.  These unfortunate birds are seen by the factory farmers as mere production units, without needs of their own.  Our chickens, however, have plenty of space, food, and water, company, sunlight, room to walk around, protection from predators, parasites, and the elements, and they prove to us daily in a variety of ways that they are as grateful to us as we are to them.  Like all our animals, our chickens live out their natural life spans and are never slaughtered, but provided with the best of care until they finally say a tearful farewell at the natural end of their lives.

All of our animals are treated this way, and our bees are no exception.  A healthy hive of bees will often produce more honey than it can use.  We do not kill queens or any other bees.  We do not use poisons or antibiotics in our hives.  We keep the hives healthy and disease-and parasite-free without using chemicals of any kind.  If left alone, a colony of honeybees would soon die due to weather, mites, and diseases.  With our protection and help, a colony can continue for many years.  Each year, we use only their surplus honey and provide them in turn with a clean and orderly home, acres of flowers, and chemical-free protection from diseases and parasites.  In winter, we keep them out of the elements.  In spring, we feed them until nectar starts flowing again.  We protect our bees from suffering rather than causing them to suffer, and we feel good about the life we provide them with.  The only energy used in processing the honey comes from our own muscles rather than fossil fuels.  We know most vegans do not use honey, but we feel that our honey is a completely cruelty-free product and we feel better using our own honey than using sugar. After all, sugar cane is grown thousands of miles away on chemically-intensive and exploitative farms, processed through bone char, and transported using fossil fuels that pollute the environment. Why should a vegan eat such a product?  As mindful vegans, we prefer our cruelty-free, local honey.  Being cruelty-free, then, goes beyond simply being vegan.  It is important to consider all of our life choices rather than to complacently feel that we are doing enough just because we do not directly eat or use animal products.  Even a person following a conventional vegan diet can be harming people, animals, and the Earth in ways not apparent at first glance.  For example, we need to consider whether eating conventionally-raised plant products is consistent with a true vegan lifestyle.  

This point can be illustrated by looking more deeply at bread, a large part of a typical vegan diet.  The wheat in a loaf of vegan bread, if grown conventionally, was raised at great expense to the Earth and other forms of life.  It requires space to grow, which destroys animal habitat.  The soil will be plowed and tilled, probably yearly, which can kill worms, insects, and other organisms.  It will then be spread with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides, which kill insects and poison the birds, frogs, and toads that eat them.  It was likely grown in an area where the farmer obtained block permits to kill dozens or hundreds of deer.  The bread is transported to a processing plant and then to the store on a semi that arrives splattered with the corpses of bugs, butterflies, and birds.  The semi operates on fossil fuels, the mining and processing of which degrades sensitive ecosystems at the expense of marine life or other wildlife.  And yet some vegans will eat this bread with its legacy of harm, and shun our cruelty-free egg.  These types of common sense, cruelty-free choices are the basis of our mindful veganism philosophy.

We understand that the strictest of vegans may not agree with the use of any animal products whatsoever.  We feel confident in stating that our limited use of our own animal products is a sustainable and cruelty-free practice that furthers the cause of reducing harm to the Earth and all its species.  Although our philosophy has minor differences from a strict vegan philosophy, we hope that these differences do not distract us from our larger, shared goals of reducing cruelty and harm.  We view vegetarians, vegans, environmentalists, homesteaders, “greens,” and other like-minded individuals as allies in the journey toward a sustainable, cruelty-free planet.

What We Do On Our Farm

At Dancing Crane Farm, we approach veganism and farming with common sense and a true commitment to minimizing harm to the Earth and other organisms.  In our farming practices, we are not certified organic because what we do goes beyond current organic standards.  We want the customer to be his or her own inspector rather than trusting a stranger from 500 miles away who gives the organic stamp of approval.  We also feel that since the U.S.D.A. took over the organic standards, they have become diluted and less meaningful, allowing certain chemicals and practices that we feel are harmful and are therefore not acceptable to us.  Many large-scale corporate farmers have now jumped on the organic bandwagon solely to take advantage of the higher prices that organic products now command.  This is not fair to the small-scale, local organic grower whose original intent was to provide a more healthful product.  Not being certified organic does not mean that we look down on organic agriculture.  We feel that growers and purchasers of organic products are strong allies in the journey toward a more cruelty-free lifestyle. However, our farming practices are somewhat different from those of today’s typical organic farms.

We definitely do not use any chemical inputs, anything artificial, or any animal products other than the composted litter from our own animals (but not dogs or cats).  We employ practices that minimize or eliminate the use of resources from outside the borders of our farm and that cause the least possible harm to other forms of life.  We find that by using cruelty-free practices such as companion planting, bait crops, cover crops, row covers, and fences, the need for pesticides can be eliminated.  Time and again, we learn that the best protection from pests is to grow healthy, chemical-free plants that can resist pests on their own.  These organisms can then be left alone rather than poisoned, trapped, or shot.

Since we believe in the elegance of nature, we also believe in preserving nature in as close to its natural condition as possible.  The use of poisons and fertilizers always has effects beyond those intended and probably beyond our comprehension.  When people dump chemicals into the environment, they never disappear, but become part of the ecosystem and are later found in the worms, birds, deer, and other animals that live in the area.  The chemicals also end up in the water supply, the people who are applying the chemicals, and in their children.  The average American today has measurable levels of over 500 agricultural chemical poisons inside them.  And nearly half of us will get cancer in our lifetimes.  Is this acceptable?  Is it ok that our children will live on a less healthy Earth than we do, and that our grandchildren’s planet will be even worse?  More immediately, can we tolerate practices in our own lives that cause harm to ourselves, the Earth, and other life forms every day?  Our answer is an emphatic no!  Though it may seem more convenient in the short term to take care of problems with chemicals, it is harmful, unhealthy, and not even necessary.  A little work will lead us to sustainable and harmless ways to deal with the same problems.  An attitude of mindfulness will show us the way to live a life that doesn’t harm ourselves and others.  This is the essence of our mindful vegan philosophy.  It begins with the caring that is in all of us, guides us with common sense and leads us to a lifestyle that minimizes harm.  

*During the 2006 and 2007 growing seasons we had no choice but to use animal manure on our fields.We did our best to source local manure from family farms.  Our fields were so nutrient deficient from having been sodded twice in the last 25 years that even cover crops would not grow for us.  It would have taken us years to achieve the same level of soil nutrients using only plant materials.  We hope to use only compost and cover crops in the future.  

We do use diatomaceous earth (substance from the earth) on our plant leaves to ward off chewing insects.  If sprinkled directly on an insect, the insect will most likely die.  Additionally, there is no way natural way to get rid of Colorado Potato beetles other than squashing them by hand or purchasing beneficial nematodes to eat their larvae.