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When it comes to gardening, my good intentions vastly outweigh my time and energy. My composter sits unassembled in a shed. Every year, I buy about four times as many types of vegetable seeds as I actually plant. The last bag of seed-starter mix I bought became an excellent rodent nursery.

Those of you who mulch, compost, brew compost tea, and sing lovingly to your seedlings: You are very special. No need to read any further.

To the rest of you, who might need a little store-bought assistance in perking up your flowers and nourishing your vegetable garden: Just remember that even organic fertilizers aren’t necessarily vegan. Many contain manure, blood and bone meal from factory-farmed animals, and fish emulsion and fish meal from the rapacious commercial fishing industry.

If your local garden center doesn’t carry vegan fertilizer, you can order some. Down to Earth offers a Vegan Mix, and Soil Mender offers a Yum-Yum Mix—mmm, makes me want to eat it right out of the bag!

They’re your most dependable form of transportation and the perfect excuse for buying a closet full of cute nonleather shoes. Don’t your feet deserve a special treat? A pedicure is the perfect way to show them some love and put more pep in your step. So put your feet up (literally) and give your toes some TLC with a spa-quality, at-home, cruelty-free pedicure.

What You Will Need
Pillows
A stool or chair
A clean towel
A hair dryer (optional)
A CD player and a relaxing CD (optional)
Cotton balls
Q-tips
A basin or tub
Epsom salt
Nail polish remover
Clippers
Nail file
Small brush
Cuticle treatment
Pumice footstone
Lotion
Nail polish
Search for cruelty-free products.

Procedure
Set aside approximately 45 minutes for your pedicure. Before you begin, set up a comfortable, well-lit area and gather down-free, nonshedding pillows (fluff will stick to polish) and a chair or stool to prop your feet on. Consider playing soothing music for a relaxing ambiance. Then follow the steps below:

• Fill a basin or tub with warm water. Add Epsom salts and soak your feet for 10 to 15 minutes.

• Gently pat your feet dry with a clean towel.

• Thoroughly remove any old nail polish.

• Clip your toenails straight across with clippers.

• File the toenails to smooth any rough edges.

• Gently buff and smooth your feet with a small brush. Make sure to pay special attention to your heels, the balls of your feet, and the outsides of your pinkie toes.

• Push your cuticles back with the edge of the nail file. Use a cuticle treatment if the cuticles do not push back easily.

• Exfoliate any dry skin with a foot scrub. Use a pumice stone on rough patches.

• Apply a generous amount of lotion to your feet. Gently massage it into your feet and calves.

• Wash away any excess moisturizer from your nails and then separate your toes by placing cotton between them.

• Apply one layer of base coat. Allow time for it to dry, or use a hair dryer set on low heat.

• Apply two coats of color. Use a Q-tip moistened with nail polish remover to remove any mistakes. Again, let your toes dry.

• Apply a clear top coat to add shine and to protect the color from chipping.

• Apply foot spray in order to cool and soothe fatigued, overworked feet (optional).

Tips for Happy Feet

• Don’t toast your toes! Protect them from the sun with a cruelty-free sunscreen.

• Trim your toenails straight across at least once a month.

• To give dry feet some extra lovin’, lather them up with lotion, cover them with clean cotton socks, and let them moisturize overnight.

• Now that your feet are happy and your toes are pretty from your pedicure, show them off with a pair of sexy summer sandals.

Order from
PETA Catalog

I went vegan when I was in college, many moons ago. Since I went to a community college and I still lived at home, I didn’t really have to worry about what to buy in the campus cafeteria. It was a good thing, too, because back then, not nearly as many schools offered vegan or even vegetarian options, except maybe French fries or fruit.

Since I lived nearby (and I was new to activism), I never attempted to “veganize the school cafeteria.” If I was going to be on campus for a while, I brought my lunch from home and nuked it in the microwave, if necessary. Usually, it was something boring though, like boiled broccoli and cauliflower or a phony baloney sandwich. I wasn’t much of a cook back then, and I never had enough time (or money) to make something more inventive anyway. When I was in school, I really could have used PETA’s Vegan College Cookbook, the new cookbook with 275 recipes that can be made with only a few inexpensive ingredients and no stove. It would’ve been one of the few books I actually opened!

But even though I’m older and can cook a bit better now, I still need this cookbook. I don’t always have the time or patience to make recipes that have mile-long ingredient lists, and I’m too frugal (i.e., cheap) to buy many exotic spices and oils and such on a regular basis. So the simple sandwich, snack, and smoothie recipes still appeal to me.

Here are a couple of the easy ideas from the book. Try them along with the recipes for fresh salads, hummus wraps, and veggie burgers, and you’ll feel like you’re really cookin’.

Skinny Chick Chickpea Salad
1 (16-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1 1/2 cups celery, diced (can usually be found on any salad bar)
1/2 cup vegan mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh or from the squirter)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pita (optional)

• Mix the chickpeas and celery. Add the remaining ingredients and season with salt and pepper. Serve in pita pockets or as an individual salad.

Melon-Berry Bliss
2 frozen bananas (peel and cut into chunks before freezing)
4 or 5 cantaloupe chunks (grab them from the dining hall salad bar)
4 or 5 honeydew chunks (grab them from the dining hall salad bar)
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup apple juice

• Blend everything together until smooth.

See, no matter how old you are, there’s no need to subsist on unfrosted blueberry pop tarts, peanuts, raisin bran, and bananas alone.

P.S. You can try your luck at winning a copy over at the Veg Cooking Blog!

mambosprouts / cc

They’re great for helping you relax or igniting some passion for a romantic rendezvous, but did you know that candles often contain ingredients that snuff out animals? Many candles are made from beeswax stolen from industrious bees’ hives, stearic acid made from tallow (a slaughterhouse product derived from beef or sheep fat), and cetyl palmitate, a waxy oil taken from sperm whales’ heads or from dolphins.

Although some paraffin candles are animal-free, they can be bad for your health and the environment. The soot given off from the burning of petroleum-based paraffin candles is essentially the same as that given off by burning diesel fuel. Fortunately, it’s now easier than ever to find or make soy candles, which burn cleaner, last longer, are better for the environment, and do not depend on killing and stealing from animals. Check out our list of compassionate candle companies, or get crafty and make your own.

These soy container candles are fun and easy to make. Get ready to let your creativity and compassion shine!

What You Will Need
• 1 pound of soy-wax flakes (found on the Internet or in local hobby shops)
• 1 mason jar or another type of decorative jar made with thick, heat-resistant glass
• 1 ounce of fragrance oil (since you won’t be adding dye to the wax, we suggest picking a scent that complements a white candle)
• 1 cotton wick (use a wick that’s attached to a metal disc)
• Scissors
• Superglue

Procedure
1. Wash and dry your glass jar completely.
2. Put a couple of drops of superglue on the bottom of the wick (metal tab), then place the metal tab at the bottom of the jar.
3. Hold the wick in place for about a minute or until the glue dries.
4. Slowly heat soy wax in a pan over medium heat until it is completely melted.
5. Remove the soy wax from the burner.
6. Stir in fragrance oil (we recommend essential oils) until it is absorbed into the soy wax.
7. Gently and slowly pour the soy-wax mixture into the jar.
8. Position the wick in the center.
9. Once the wax turns solid, trim the wick to ½ inch.
10. Light your candle and enjoy!

Find more animal-friendly candles by checking out PETA’s handy online shopping guide or shopping at the PETA Mall.

Click here for a larger view.

The following post was originally published by Karen on KP’s Dog Blog, November 19, 2007.

Whenever I’m at the dog park, inevitably I’ll hear someone talking about putting their dog in a crate or even exclaiming, “Oh, my dog LOVES his crate!” At that moment, my hackles go up big-time, and I want to say, à la Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady, “Well, isn’t that convenient!” Of course, it’s highly convenient to lock your dog in a box when you’re too busy or stressed out to deal with misbehavior or rambunctiousness.

“Oh,” they’ll say, “dogs are den animals. A crate is exactly like a den and being in it makes them feel secure.” What they always so conveniently gloss over is the fact that a den doesn’t come with a locked door. In a den, you can come and go as you please.

It boggles my mind that people can be so obtuse about something so obvious. Birds hate to be caged, lions in the circus hate being in cages, humans hate being behind bars … why should it be any different with dogs? Oh, wait—there is one big difference: Dogs are the only animals willing to do ANYTHING for someone they love. And that includes tolerating being locked inside a cage. Dogs are stoic and they love unconditionally and they want to please their guardians, which is a perfect recipe for abusive treatment.

People take full advantage of their dogs’ desire to please and then they even twist it around and tell everyone that their dog enjoys being taken advantage of. It would be like a controlling husband saying, “Oh, my wife LOVES to stay home every night,” when in reality, he won’t permit her to go out.

I wish people would think for themselves and stop taking everything that their veterinarian or their dog trainer or the pet store sales clerk says as gospel. Vets and trainers and sales clerks can have ulterior motives or be uninformed or even mean. Common sense is really the bottom line. Does it make sense to say, “My dog LOVES to be locked inside a cage”? You can put a soft bed in there, and you can throw in some toys and treats, and you can “acclimate” your dog to the crate, but you can’t change the basic fact that the dog is locked up with very little space to move around in.

I wish crates had never been invented. I shudder at their current popularity. I’ve taken care of eight dogs, half of whom came to me as puppies and I never made a single one of them stay in a crate. You puppyproof your house and you train your dogs (getting help as needed) and you stop aspiring to Better Homes and Gardens. That’s all. Sure, I’ve still got some shredded books and furniture as mementos of the puppy eras. But who cares? My dogs’ liberty and comfort and well-being mean far more to me than my material possessions.

If you agree and would like to help counteract this pernicious trend, please order some of PETA’s anti-crating posters and leaflets, like the one accompanying this post.

PETA’s Mom of the Year:
Andrea Kahn Eisenberg!

Happy Mother’s Day and a big congratulations to Andrea Kahn Eisenberg, who’s just been named PETA’s first-ever Mom of the Year! I hope I can be half the wonderful influence that she’s been on her family and community. It’s my first Mother’s Day as a mother, and I’m a little wigged out about getting cards and coupons in the mail for things like massages and haircuts (do moms really have time for fun like that?), but I won’t say “No” to breakfast in bed (hint, hint!).

Our Campaigns Department has been hammering away at our anti–seal slaughter campaign this spring—and even though seals have scored a big victory this week, the details of the slaughter would break any mother’s heart.

Since animal moms get the short end of the stick in our world, I thought I’d take a few minutes to remind our dear readers that some of the best moms in the world are found in the animal kingdom. Check out the following animal moms:

• Seals: Human mothers tuned in to “Channel Mom” may find themselves responding to anybody’s child when they hear someone calling the “M” word, but seals never make this mistake. Fresh from foraging for food, moms have to find their young quickly in a sea of hundreds—or possibly thousands—of seals, so both mother and pup depend on their uncanny powers of vocal recognition to find one another. Both will call out and answer, responding selectively to one another until they are reunited.

• Elephants: The TLC that these mammoth mothers bestow on their babies is among their most endearing qualities. Always ready to give an affectionate caress, a gentle nudge in the right direction, or a cool bath to help their babies beat the heat, doting moms maintain constant touch with their young ones, never allowing them to stray too far from their side. Mothers even stay in touch with their adult kids and enjoy close relationships with their daughters that can last up to 50 years.

• Cows: For cows and their calves, it’s love at first sight. The first minutes after birth are spent developing a bond that will last a lifetime. Throughout life, mother and child maintain social contact and regularly enjoy each other’s companionship. Their attachment and affection for each other is so deep that if they are forced apart, they both suffer severe stress. Moms have been known to escape their enclosures and travel for miles looking for their calves.

• Dolphins: Dolphins are known for graceful synchronized swimming, but dolphin mothers and their babies also synchronize their breathing for the first few weeks following the babies’ birth. These dedicated moms may nurse their young for up to 10 years and will also mentor less experienced females by allowing them to babysit as practice for when they have babies of their own.

• Cheetahs: Let’s hear it for single moms! These lightning-fast felines have their paws full caring for their cubs all on their own. Not only does mom protect her children from predators while she is nursing them, she also hunts for them from the time they are weaned until they are 14 to 18 months old. Overly active offspring can make the task of hunting even harder: Cubs often scare hunted animals away with their animated antics, leaving mom so worn out that she sometimes falls asleep in the middle of a hunt.

• Chickens: Nurturing begins in the nest for these caring moms. Mother hens will turn their eggs as many as five times an hour and cluck softly to their unborn chicks, who chirp back to her and to one another from within their shells! Once chicks hatch, devoted moms use their wings to shield their babies from predators and have been known to refuse to leave their nests during a fire if they have newly hatched peeps.

This Mother’s Day, please take a moment to recognize the unique bond between mothers and children of all species. For more tips on practicing kindness and compassion in honor of all animal moms, check out more PETA Living articles.

Order from Amazon

You may have seen best-selling author Kathy Freston on Oprah or just yesterday on Good Morning America. If you missed either—fear not! She is just getting started with her newest book: Quantum Wellness Cleanse: The 21-Day Essential Guide to Healing Your Mind, Body and Spirit.

The author of New York Times bestsellers Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness and The One, Kathy has in her newest book given readers easy-to-follow steps for improving their health.

Kathy outlines essential day-to-day plans of what foods to eat—complete with recipes. As a vegan herself, one of the steps that Kathy recommends in the cleanse is eliminating the consumption of animal products. Freston also covers topics such as how to deal with complex feelings that can arise from detoxing and how to redirect energy to take on a fresh momentum. This book is a must-have addition to any health library and for anyone interested in improving their well being.

Now is your chance to win a free copy of Kathy’s new book. Just leave a short comment below telling us about your health goals this year that involve being healthier for you, animals, and the planet. Five winners will be chosen at random.

The contest ends on May 29, and we’ll contact the winners by June 3. Be sure to read our privacy policy and our terms and conditions, as you’re agreeing to both by commenting. Good luck!

This contest has now ended.