Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Animal Friendly: What it means to me to be Animal Friendly

Everyone who knows me, knows that I have a big heart for animals.  I love animals, and I hate to see any of them hurt.  Now, I am not vegan by any means; but that doesn't mean I still can't love animals.  Not just dogs and cats but all animals of this world.  For the past 2 years, I have adapted to an “Animal Friendly” life style and I’m still adapting.   Okay now let me explain this.  My “Animal Friendly” life style only includes the extra stuff in life that I can do without; like the makeup, lotion, nail polish, etc.  However, I have my own definition of “Animal Friendly.”  To me, “Animal Friendly” means that no animals are harmed, hurt, killed in any way, form, or fashion when manufacturing, producing products, etc.  Now let me clarify this.  Bee’s Wax, commonly found in chap stick, comes from animals, but the bee’s are not harmed in any way in terms of gathering the wax from the bees.  So to me, chap stick with bee’s wax is an “Animal Friendly” product.  

Now comes the big Vegan term.  To me, Vegan means that the product is completely free of any animal by-products of any kind.  This means that if I were Vegan then I would not use the chap stick as mentioned earlier because it had an animal by-product as an ingredient, i.e. bee’s wax.


Then we have these Cruelty Free Companies, featured at PETA.  I have nothing against PETA, but be careful. When I first started my Animal Friendly quest 2 years ago, I learned a valuable lesson.  Don’t always assume that a company is Cruelty Free unless you do your homework.  For example, a certain product could be cruelty free/ animal friendly, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the company that manufacturers or distributes that product is.  So to me I check both the product, the manufacturer and distributor before labeling that product animal friendly or not.
My Definition of Terms:
Animal Friendly
The animal was not harmed, hurt, killed, tested on, etc in any process of producing, manufacturing, etc. the product to be sold.
= There can be animal by-products only if the animal was not harmed, hurt, killed, tested on, etc in any process of producing, manufacturing, etc. the product to be sold.
Vegan
= 100% free of animal by-products
= animals are not tested on, harmed, hurt, killed, etc in any process of producing, manufacturing, etc. of the product to be sold
Cruelty Free
= animals are not killed/ tested on in any way in any process of the product that is to be sold
= However manufacturers, distributors, etc may test/ kill, so do your research!
This is only my opinion and the way I view this specific topic, so please do your research and have your own opinion , views, etc. 

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