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    Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living
    Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living
    Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living
    Ebook540 pages7 hours

    Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living

    By Ingrid Newkirk and Paul McCartney

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    About this ebook

    Choosing a compassionate lifestyle that makes you feel good and positively impacts on the environment and on animals has never been easier. In this practical and accessible handbook, loaded with resources for all products that are mentioned, Ingrid Newkirk presents fabulous options that will not only enhance your life, but those of your neighbors, your community, animals, and the earth itself.

    From comfortable home furnishings, to delicious foods, to fashionable clothing there are a myriad of choices to be made that can have a lasting positive effect on the well-being of animals and the environment, including:

    - recognizing hidden animal ingredients in cosmetics and household products
    - raising ecologically aware and animal-friendly kids
    - creating healthy, environmentally-friendly meals for everyday and special occasions
    - dressing with style without using leather or other animal products
    - dealing kindly with mice, insects, and other 'pests' in home or garden
    - adopting the right animal companion for you
    - volunteering and investing in eco- and animal-friendly companies
    - traveling with Eco-consciousness

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 27, 2013
    ISBN9781466851863
    Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living
    Author

    Ingrid Newkirk

    Ingrid Newkirk founded PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the largest animal rights organization in the world, with affiliates in eight countries, in 1980. She is the author of Save the Animals! 101 Things You Can Do, Kids Can Save the Animals, The Compassionate Cook, and several other books available in multiple languages.

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      Book preview

      Making Kind Choices - Ingrid Newkirk

      PART ONE

      Home and Garden

      1.

      Kindness by Design: Creating and Furnishing a Humane Home

      May blessings be upon your house,

      Your roof, your hearth and walls;

      May there be lights to welcome you

      When evening’s shadow falls.

      —MYRTLE REED, A WINTER BLESSING

      Yugoslavian-born interior designer Sasha (full name: Sasha Josipovicz) is a household name in Canada, making regular TV appearances and writing weekly columns in Canada’s National Post. He has been lauded for creating exotic villas on Corfu in Greece, Harbor Island residences in the Bahamas, nightclubs, and even synagogues. He has also founded a company to save nineteenth-century brick buildings and is widely sought after by businesses and upscale home owners.

      When Sasha walked into James Silver and Lisa Grill’s home in Toronto, he was wearing white rabbit sandals.

      But they’re Prada, said the star designer.

      "I don’t care what label they are—they’re rabbit," Lisa exclaimed.

      Later, Sasha reflected on that moment. They were a beautiful design, he said. I never thought about it as a rabbit. But I never wore them again.

      Lisa Grill and James Silver own a beautiful Victorian home in Toronto’s trendy Little Italy district. Guests sipping fresh fruit cocktails on the upper patio can look out over the CN tower, the world’s tallest structure, and onto downtown Toronto. The house has been made over to look fresh and contemporary, and is what Sasha calls seductive and beautifully proportioned both inside and out. He should know because he redesigned it from below the floor to above the ceiling, and every part of it is cruelty free. Sasha admits that the experience of designing this special home opened his eyes to where fabrics and furnishings come from and the wide array of alternatives that exist: In most of my homes I do lush curtains with silk or mohair. I do wool rugs. I find leather chairs. The way Lisa and James approached me, I didn’t feel threatened; I didn’t feel like I was on a guilt trip. These people were so passionate, they inspired me. I came up with a million different ideas.

      For the curtains, Sasha and his clients chose linen, with nylon and bamboo window coverings. The bamboo is split and pressed, and the planks are sewn together to make horizontal blinds. The bamboo came from Sohji, a panda-safe bamboo company that uses a variety of bamboo that pandas don’t eat.

      Lisa and James wanted to avoid hard woods from the rain forest, so their stairs were done with natural sisal, which is not as slippery as wood and, as Lisa describes it, has a tantalizing feel on your feet.

      Although it would have been easy to get cotton or other fabric rugs, Lisa and James decided to leave most of the floors bare, with one exception: Sasha got a large leather manufacturer called Nienkamper to make a rug out of small slats of wood woven with rope. As Sasha says, It is glorious and can replace any priceless wool Persian rug.

      The couple found some chairs they liked in Thailand and bought some chair frames from Palazzetti, and Sasha chose the faux leather upholstery from Designer’s Fabric Outlet in Toronto. The ultrasuede came from the Italian manufacturer Alacantara, considered leaders in ultrasuede. Sasha, who is now crazy about ultrasuede thanks to its superior feel and durability, has since done ultrasuede wallpaper for a client who wanted good acoustics in a room.

      Some seasons ago, U.S.-based Pottery Barn, owned by Williams-Sonoma, retailer of goods for well-appointed kitchens, bedrooms, and baths, introduced a synthetic leather it calls Everydaysuede. Although Lisa and James did not use this one, it’s worth knowing about: a microfiber that feels like suede but is entirely machine-washable. Its rugged durability and incredible softness combine to create casual, relaxed slipcovers that withstand the rigors of everyday living. It is strong and colorfast.

      Ro-en Furniture made all the pillows for Lisa and James with foam, becoming so particular about the project and engrossed in it that they not only reduced the price (because the fabrics they used cost less than their usual leather) but decided not to use the same machine to stuff the pillows or the same scissors to cut the foam as were used to cut leather or work with feathers!

      All the paints were latex rather than graphite, to keep the dogs and cats safe from toxicity, and all the dyes used were vegetable dyes. The bed linens are no-wrinkle, no-iron polyester from W Hotels.

      Other design decisions included knocking down a lot of walls, which means, among other things, according to James, lots of space for the dogs to run. It’s all open. It’s like being outdoors, and they love it! Other dog features include vertical railings on the atrium level so that the dogs can’t climb them and fall over the top, and freestanding lamps with very strong, sturdy bases to prevent the dogs from knocking them over.

      Although most people haven’t a clue that this impressive home is cruelty free, one conversation piece that’s hard to miss is a most intriguing painting accompanied by a photograph of the artist who created it, a chimpanzee named Tom.

      Lisa and James bought the painting at a fund-raiser for the charity Zoocheck and have since found out much more about Tom—that he was born in Africa but taken from his family by force and shipped to the U.S. when he was a child. He spent his first thirty years in the cold world of a laboratory, where records show he was knocked down (chemically restrained) 369 times. He suffered fifty-six punch liver biopsies, one open liver wedge biopsy, three lymph node biopsies, and three bone marrow biopsies. In 1984, he was injected with HIV.

      According to his laboratory keeper, Tom gave up. He became ill and had no appetite. When he could summon his strength, he banged constantly on his cage walls. When he arrived at the Fauna Foundation, a wonderful refuge for primates in Canada, it was clear he lacked the social skills he would have learned from his mother and siblings in Africa. He wouldn’t play or engage other animals or people.

      Tom is very intelligent and understands most of what people say to him. These days, he loves to sit quietly and have a cup of tea and bask in loving words of encouragement. He has learned to laugh. When he came to the refuge, he had one toe that was white. After a year, given paints by the people who worked to rehabilitate him, he painted that toe black and started doing other artwork.

      It’s a very angry painting, James says. You can tell he was in a lot of pain, probably from all the testing that was done on him.

      The living room opens up onto a patio with lots of stonework that is easy to maintain and also bamboo. Neighborhood cats come and hang out in the basement, and James gardens while the dogs, Madison, Bandit, and Lupe, try to make it difficult for him to concentrate. I garden while the dogs play, says James. Inside and out, we just love this home!

      The last thoughts should go to Sasha. He says, "Growing up in Eastern Europe, at the age of twelve you get your first fur coat. Now with all the faux, you can still achieve a perfect look without compromising animals’ lives. Before knowing Lisa and James, I had a coat with a detachable fur collar. I took the collar off, and I’m not wearing it anymore. They are the people who taught me. Sometimes money goes where the conscience does not. I always tell people now, ‘These alternatives are usually cheaper than the real thing.’

      It was an unusual experience for me, and a wonderful one. I’m going to show this house on TV and everyone will go mad!

      RESOURCES

      Designer Extraordinaire

      Sasha Josipovicz

      The Element Group, Toronto

      416-921-8899

      Chimpanzee Rescue

      The Fauna Foundation

      PO Box 33

      Chambly, Quebec

      Canada J3L 4B1

      450-658-1844

      fauna.foundation@sympatico.ca

      Donations gratefully received. Paintings by Tom and other artists available for sale.

      Furniture, Furnishings, and Fabrics Original Ultrasuede

      Alcantara

      Italy-based, with distributors throughout Europe.

      www.alcantara.it

      Faux Leather and Other Fabrics

      Designer Fabrics

      Toronto

      416-531-2810

      www.designerfabrics.ca

      Bamboo Rug

      Nienkamper

      Go online and find the distributor in your area.

      www.nienkamper.com

      Furniture and Upholstery

      Ro-en Furniture

      Can be purchased by individuals through Roots, a Canada-based home and clothing store.

      877-927-6687

      www.roots.com

      Panda-Safe Bamboo Window Coverings

      Sohji

      Montreal

      514-528-4333

      www.sohjico.com

      Vinyl and Ultrasuede Wall Coverings

      Versa

      Kentucky-based

      502-458-1502

      www.lsiwc.com/index.htm

      No-Iron Polyester Sheets

      W Hotels

      New York–based

      800-453-6548

      www.whotelsthestore.com

      Everydaysuede

      The Pottery Barn

      www.potterybarn.com

      Makers of Everydaysuede, a microfiber that feels like real suede but is an entirely machine washable, durable, colorfast slipcover material.

      2.

      Creating a Beautiful Garden to Attract Birds, Butterflies, and Other Natural Life

      And other eyes than ours

      Were made to look on flowers,

      Eyes of small birds and insects small:

      The deep sun-blushing rose

      Round which the prickles close

      Opens her bosom to them all.

      The tiniest living thing

      That soars on feathered wing,

      Or crawls among the long grass

      Out of sight

      Has just as good a right

      To its appointed portion of delight

      As any king.

      —CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, TO WHAT PURPOSE THIS WASTE?

      Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.

      —RACHEL CARSON

      There are as many ways to create a garden as there are gardeners, but the ideas offered in this chapter are meant not only to encourage plantings that are beautiful to behold and relatively easy to maintain, but also to provide a haven for winged wildlife in an ever-more developed world

      Creating a bird- and butterfly-friendly garden involves four key concepts:

      1. keeping a part of the area natural;

      2. using shrubs;

      3. planting flowering food and adding minor attractions, like nesting boxes and seasonal feeders; and

      4. if possible, adding a source of fresh water.

      According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), one of the oldest organizations in the world of its kind, a bird-friendly garden does not have to be wild or overgrown. It can also look attractive all year round.

      Birds these days have lost many of their natural sources of food and lodging, and so providing them with sustenance and opportunities to shelter and raise their young is a wonderful service. The RSPB recommends creating a natural habitat for birds that includes a feeding station. This can be as simple or elaborate as you like and as space allows. Ideally, the design would consist of:

      • a couple of trees (it isn’t hard to plant small trees like holly and ivy, which are important because they produce berries in winter and robins love to nest in them; rowan; fruit-bearing trees like pear, apple, cherry; or, if you have a large garden, a larch, willow, or ash);

      • a thick yew, holly, or other hedge and a group of berry-bearing shrubs (perhaps an evergreen like a strawberry tree; a variegated holly such as Silver Queen; a deciduous bush or two like lilac, hawthorn, or blackberry; pyracantha or cotoneaster, which provide a bird feast; and/or viburnum, snowberry, or elder);

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