Table of Contents

1. It's Time to Plan for Meatout 2005
2. FARM Launches Farmed Animal Archive
3. Editors Flooded with Letters from FARM
4. Wishing You a Fulfilling 2005

It's Time to Plan for Meatout 2005

March 20th marks the 20th Anniversary of the Great American Meatout, the world's largest annual grassroots diet education campaign. Don't miss this chance to be a part of history as activists in a thousand communities in all 50 states and thirty other countries celebrate the benefits of vegetarianism and help their neighbors start the Spring by kicking the meat habit.

Get started today by checking out last year's report and online photos and seeing what kinds of events activists organized last year. Get together with your friends and other activists in your area and start brainstorming. Try to think of other local organizations — such as environmental or health advocacy groups, or natural foods stores — to pull into your planning sessions.

We'll be revising the website next month. Please keep us posted and send us any ideas you might have about how our website can better serve you by responding to this message or emailing info@meatout.org.

In the meantime, please remember to subscribe your friends and neighbors to our colorful e-newsletter:

Farmed Animal Archive Launched

Each year, hundreds of new articles touting the benefits of plant-based eating or documenting the devastating health, animal welfare, environmental, or economic impacts of animal agriculture appear in major U.S. publications. The content of these articles is essential to scholars, writers, and speakers. Unfortunately, access to much of this information is through internet links that expire within a few weeks. There has been no attempt to review, organize, and store the original articles in an online database, let alone one equipped with a subject or keyword retrieval mechanism... until now.

FARM is pleased to announce the beta release of the Farmed Animal Archive, the first comprehensive, searchable online database of news articles addressing the benefits of plant-based eating and the impacts of animal agriculture.

The articles are organized under five major categories (Human Health, Animal Welfare, Environment, Economics, and Industry) and more than 150 topics. An abstract of each article is provided to assist the researcher. The final release will have sophisticated keyword search and sorting features.

This project is a work in progress. At present, it contains nearly 1,300 articles published between 1997 and 2004, mostly between 2002 and 2003. This represents approximately a third of articles published during that period. We are currently applying for a grant that would allow us to complete this project.

You can help by supporting this endeavor and supplying your feedback.

To access the archive, visit www.FarmAnimalArchive.org.

Editors Flooded with FARM Letters

In the past year, we published nearly a thousand letters to the editor in 265 U.S. newspapers with an average circulation of nearly 100,000. Letters to the editor are a most effective vehicle for bringing our message to middle America. They are the second most read section of the paper after the front page.

Our letters, promoting vegetarianism and farmed animal liberation, addressed the Atkins diet, Meatout, Easter, Mother's Day, treatment of Iraqi prisoners, Independence Day, cholesterol in meat, President Clinton's heart bypass surgery, World Farm Animals Day, reducing oil consumption, improving school lunches, Gentle Thanksgiving, avian flu, and Christmas. Here are some excerpts:

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners is merely a manifestation of our culture of violence and insensitivity to the suffering of those we view as "the others." It's a culture that gives otherwise kind and gentle farmers a license to keep dairy calves, pregnant sows, and laying hens in cramped cages, drugged, and deprived of natural food and sunshine. It's a culture that leads otherwise normal slaughterhouse workers to skin, dismember, and disembowel cows and pigs while they are still conscious... The only effective long-term solution is to instill in our children the notions of kindness and sensitivity to all suffering. A good time to start is when they first ask where hamburgers come from.

What ever happened to the good old days, when 4th of July was just Independence Day and the worst things we had to fear was traffic jams and wayward fireworks? Recent findings by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that food poisoning from inadequately grilled hamburgers and hot dogs should now top this list... Fortunately, American manufacturers have developed a great variety of veggie burgers and soy dogs that are healthful, delicious, convenient, and available in every supermarket. And they don't harbor nasty pathogens... On this 4th of July, let's declare our independence from the meat industry. Let's explore the many benefits of meat substitutes, grains, vegetables, and fruits in our diet.

President Clinton's bypass surgery should be a wake-up call for millions of Americans whose lifestyles elevate their risk of heart disease... Scores of studies in past three decades demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that replacing animal fat and meat in our diet with vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grains lowers substantially the risk of chronic diseases that account for 1.3 million American deaths annually. A plant-based diet contains no cholesterol or saturated fat, but ample fiber, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients for a long and healthy life... Every supermarket carries a rich variety of veggie burgers, soy dogs, soy lunch "meats," microwave-ready dinners, dairy-free ice cream and a huge selection of vegetables and fruits.

Bird flu, projected by the WHO to wipe out as many as 50 million people, is another deadly consequence of factory farming... Even in the absence of deadly flu viruses, chickens and turkeys are loaded with salmonella, campylobacter, and other pathogens that sicken millions of Americans each year and kill thousands. The cholesterol, saturated fats, and hormones in animal products have been linked conclusively with chronic diseases that kill 1.4 million Americans annually... Clearly, we should replace animal products in our diet with wholesome vegetables, fresh fruits, and grains. These foods don't harbor deadly pathogens and contain all the nutrients we require.

Please contact Marissa to join our FARM Letters network.

Wishing You a Fulfilling 2005!

With 2004 drawing to a close, it's time for New Year's resolutions.

Front row: David Pryor, Dawn Moncrief, Alex Hershaft, Robert LeMar
Back row: Marissa Konell, Tony Lee, Frank J. Gómez, Jen Riley
Not pictured: Susan Weiland, Chi Chi Anochie

We pledge our continued dedication to farmed animal liberation in 2005 through vigorous promotion of a vegan diet.

With your continued generous financial and moral support, we look forward to expanding each of our eight programs: Meatout, Animal Rights 2005, CHOICE, Letters From FARM, World Farm Animals Day, Gentle Thanksgiving, Farmed Animal Archive, and Sabina Fund.