THEY HAD ME AT CIDER

This handsome fella is Farm Sanctuary's Russell. 

Yesterday, I attended the Celebration of Turkeys event at Farm Sanctuary up in Action, CA with my dear friend Jess. An unusually chilly day in SoCal, they greeted us with hot cider and vegan chocolate chip cookies (a.k.a. the express lane to my heart).  The afternoon commenced with their annual Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony. Instead of being the main course, the rescued turkeys at the farm were the guests of honor – and were pretty freakin’ adorbs. Gaggles of our feathered friends swarmed around the surveyors to gorge on pumpkin pie and cranberry salad.

The Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony in full swing.

After the turkey festivities, we all huddled together in a (thankfully) heated tent and sat down to our own vegan holiday feast. Catered by One Veg World, the meal consisted of kale chickpea salad, Tofurkey, mashed potatoes and gravy (still salivating over that one), stuffing, cranberries and a sinfully delectable pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting. Every morsel was lip-smackingly good.  

While the overall sentiment of the day was celebratory, there were fittingly sobering moments, as well. Seeing the rescued, genetically-engineered turkeys and pigs, goliath-sized compared to their cousins in the wild, was chilling. It was like peering into the pages of a Jurassic Park-esque novel, describing a futuristic society overrun by genetic engineering and on the verge of collapse. Additionally, the speakers - Susie Coston, Jonathan Balcombe and Gene Baur touched on the abuse that turkeys undergo in factory farms (an alarming 300 million are killed every year), the sensory and emotional complexity of the turkey, and the overall powerful impact of veganism. 

I want to give a huge shout-out and thank you to Gene Baur and the whole Farm Sanctuary family for hosting such a delightful and informative event. The day was a solid  reminder of why we’ve committed to a more compassionate lifestyle - and how delectable and invigorating that lifestyle can be.

Me, Jess and the founder of Farm Sanctuary, Gene Baur

                                                                          

Peace xx