CLOUDCACTCHERMEDIA

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​I’m often told how nice my lunch looks, so I thought through 2020, I share some of my meals on Tasty Bowl Tuesday.

​This weeks Tasty Bowl was made by my sister. She was visiting from interstate and she kindly prepped lunch while I was out running errands.
Eve practises veganism and so she created a wonderful plant based lunch for us.

The meal included - A green salad with tomatoes, olives and cucumber, as well as tofu cooked with ginger, zucchini and roasted capsicum. Raw corn was added after cooking with a dollop of hummus.
                                                 
                                                               Rachel Jeffery Dietitian 

People ask what they can do to help the planet then they stick their fingers in their ears and ‘la la la la la’ when you give them an answer.

Well, the answer is – a food trend is shaping up to be the biggest lifestyle change in 2020 as veganism takes hold of growing numbers of climate activists.

Animal welfare aside, people are turning to veganism as it becomes clear that animal agriculture is causing a lot of harm to the planet as it produces less food per square hectare than cropping, and we just need the extra tree space that cows, pigs, chickens and sheep on death row are currently using.

Also, the oceans are a lot healthier with sea life in them rather than in your belly. 

People are also working out that you are fitter, faster, stronger and healthier on a plant-based diet which is taking the strain off the medical industry –  if you haven’t watched The Game Changers* yet then you haven’t seen Schwarzenegger at his best.

We double-dare you to watch it.

(*Nothing gory or judgey people, just some
awesome athletes winning, winning, winning
​on quinoa, carrots and chickpeas!) 

​As part of the V-Day events for global revolution to end violence against women and children, the fifth edition of the Vagina Conversations played to sold-out houses last Friday and Saturday in Byron Bay… READ MORE

It’s not easy to become part of a royal family, particularly a talented royal family, but that’s just what local dancer Alana Frazier has achieved in New Zealand.
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Home in Mullumbimby after a hectic week of auditions, Alana was one of 100 candidates (including 40 current family members) to try-out at the Palace Dance Studio. After a gruelling trial schedule, Alana was the only new dancer chosen for the world championship-winning Royal Family Dance Crew, a mega-crew based in Penrose, Auckland… READ MORE

This article first appeared in The Echo in August 2019

No matter which way you look at it, the statistics around poker machines are devastating. Every day, money is wasted, homes are gambled away, families are broken and lives are lost.
The suicide of a mate in 2001 prompted local filmmaker David Lowe to write about the subject and when the opportunity came up to put an anti-pokies message on the big and small screen, Welcome To The Machine was made…READ MORE

By way of an apology to my children.

There are no words to express my sorrow toward all earthlings.

I wasn’t always a vegan.
I am happy to admit I was wrong.
Not many vegans have been a vegan all their life. Mind you, I have been speaking to some families who have happy healthy teenage children who have never consumed animal products – but, for the majority of us, being a vegan is something we have come to later in life.
Like ex-smokers or ex-alcoholics, ex-carnivores can be a little bit ‘militant’ when it comes to their food choices because we’ve seen the light, or maybe, we’ve seen too much of the dark…
READ MORE

The buzz on bees

As I said in last month’s Being Vegan, one of the questions I get asked a lot is: why don’t vegans use eggs and honey?

Again, my personal reason for being a vegan is because I believe all the creatures on this planet are earthlings and as such we all deserve equal rights.
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When it comes to consuming anything that belongs to another earthling, I ask myself: what was this ‘food’ item intended for? What was it created for?…READ MORE

The first thing that people usually say when the subject of my veganism comes up is ‘Where do you get your protein from?’.
Actually that’s not totally true – usually, the first thing people say is ‘but what about bacon?’, and to be totally honest, when I was an omnivore that was a question I asked.
The protein comment usually comes second and I could pretty much almost guarantee that just about every vegan has been asked this question.
I’m not going to acknowledge the first question which is more about hurting someone’s feelings than about the taste of charred pig flesh, but I can address the second.…READ MORE

Veteran environmental campaigner Murray Muzz Drechsler has joined the Extinction Rebellion holacracy, in an effort to make governments at every level sit up and take notice as the climate crisis becomes the climate emergency.

Drechsler says that Extinction Rebellion (XR) will be holding the Byron Shire Council accountable for their actions.

‘They have declared a climate emergency but they haven’t acted upon it. Not only have they not acted on it, they are going to clear critically endangered wetland rainforest for a bypass. That’s not going to happen'…READ MORE

In a case of ‘oh, look over there’, while we are all focussed north to Adani and the Galilee Basin, a mining company is inching its way forward out west.

The Watermark Coal Project is a proposed coal mine in the Liverpool Plains near the village of Breeza and carried out by state-owned Chinese mining company Shenhua Group…READ MORE

A tiny baby goat, tied up in a hessian bag and left on a rubbish tip in Broken Hill to die, has done more for the lives of animals and the lives of humans than she could ever have imagined.

‘Sunshine’ as she was named by Kelly Nelder, the earthling who ended up with her, was nursed back to health and was soon joined by Sugars, a (not so) mini piglet from a failed mini pig breeding business.
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Sugars and her family had been sold to a man who bought pigs to butcher for meat. She was separated from her family and when she arrived on Kelly’s doorstep, she was covered in lice, cold and stressed…READ MORE

I for one was beginning to think Bob Brown was wasting his time with the Stop Adani convoy. The plan is to leave Hobart for the Galilee Basin tomorrow, April 17.

I (stupidly) assumed, with the weight of science behind it, the argument against the Carmichael mine would see the venture stopped once and for all.
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For starters, the name of the area is the clue – it’s the Galilee Basin – it’s a basin, it holds water. It encompasses the headwaters of seven major river basins and includes aquifers that are a part of the Great Artesian Basin.

​What could be simpler?

We are the driest continent. There is precious water in the vicinity. Leave it alone…READ MORE

Native American tribes consider the presentation of an eagle feather to be one of their highest marks of respect. A recipient would earn the feather through selfless acts of courage and honour, or be gifted them in gratitude for their work or service to their tribe.
The medicinal use of cacao originated among the Olmec, Maya, and Mexica (Aztec) peoples. It is sacred.
Didgeridoo healing is an ancient method – very few today know its true secrets.
Cultural appropriation is not cool. No, it’s not cool to get pissed and wear a war bonnet to a music festival; unless you are the product of generations of Mexicans, and no, you cannot make cacao medicine; and unless all of your ancestors were born on this country, it is not your place to put a didgeridoo on someone’s chest…READ MORE

In September 1974, a young couple, Hugh and Nan Nicholson, bought an abandoned farm at the end of Terania Creek Road adjoining Whian Whian State Forest.
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They didn’t know what lay ahead. Their plan was to start a specialist rainforest nursery.

They were pioneers in the propagation and extensive use of rainforest plants in gardens and in reforestation on degraded lands, and they had made The Channon their home…READ MORE

According to the Christian bible, the prophet Jesus tells us we must love one another. There’s no addendum stating that the love can be retracted if the recipient turns out to be LGBTQI+, that is, a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other gender and sexual preferences.

Apparently a new document has superseded the ancient text – a report that suggests Jesus’ love has conditions attached.
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On 22 November 2017, the Prime Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, announced the appointment of an Expert Panel to examine whether Australian law adequately protects the human right to freedom of religion…READ MORE