Why do Swedes Celebrate Cinnamon Bun Day?

Posted by in Vegan lifestyle

I started to think about why Swedes celebrate that day when I heard people talking about it when I went to the grocery store last week, and I wondered why the World Animal Day isn’t celebrated here.

The Home Baking Council in Sweden invented the Cinnamon Bun Day in 1999 to celebrate home-baking. So every year on October 4 Swedes celebrate the Cinnamon Bun Day. The reason why they chose that date is that they didn’t want it to collide with any other theme days for food. They apparently didn’t care that the World Animal Day already existed that date…

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Cinnamon comes from Sri Lanka

Cinnamon comes from bark on trees that grows in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China, Burma, and Vietnam, but most of the cinnamon comes from Sri Lanka. Isn’t it funny that Swedes created a day to celebrate the home-baking tradition in Sweden and chose a pastry with ingredients that don’t even come from our country….

And the Cinnamon Bun Day get more attention in Sweden than the World Animal Day gets. It’s not a tradition here to celebrate the World Animal Day, but it has become a tradition to celebrate the Cinnamon Bun Day because October 4 is marked as the Cinnamon Bun Day in Swedish calendars. I think it’s strange that cinnamon buns seem to be more important than animals since the World Animal Day is not mentioned in the calendar.

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Heinrich Zimmerman came up with the idea of World Animal Day

The German writer, editor and animal protection activist named Heinrich Zimmerman (1887-1942) was the man who came up with the idea of World Animal Day. Zimmerman was the publisher of the magazine called “Mensch und Hund” and the key organizer of the movement to protect animals from cruelty. He used his magazine to promote welfare for animals. The first countries to follow him was Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. And the first World Animal Day was celebrated on March 24, 1925, in Berlin. The reason why it became that date and not October 4 like the organizers wanted was because the Sport Palace in Berlin was the only large venue to hold over the 5000 visitors that came to celebrate the Animal Day and that arena wasn’t available on October 4. So the first few years the World Animal Day was celebrated in March, but in 1929 it was moved to October 4.

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St. Francis of Assisi died on the eve on October 4

And the reason why they chose to celebrate the World Animal Day on October 4 was that it was on the eve that date that St. Francis of Assisi died, and then it became his patron saints day. It is said that Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) was able to talk to animals and that he also preached to the animals and even tamed a wolf. Assisi is a town in Italy that is only two hours away from Florence where the World Animal Day was officially adopted at a meeting in 1931 held by the International Congress of Animal Protection Organizations.

I wonder where the Swedish society is going

The World Animal Day has a website where one can read that their mission is: “To raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe.” So I’m a little bit ashamed to be a Swede when I think of that the Cinnamon Bun Day seem to be more important to the majority of Swedes than animals are. Heinrich Zimmerman managed to get over 5000 people to come to Berlin, although it was 1925 with no internet and not as easy to travel as now, to celebrate the World Animal Day and nowadays here in Sweden everyone talks about eating cinnamon buns on October 4. I wonder where the Swedish society is going when the majority think it’s more important to celebrate the Cinnamon Bun Day than care about animals that get abused and killed every day…

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My experiences of World Animal Day

My family bought a few plush toys named Archie and Purdy when I was a teenager in order to celebrate the World Animal Day. A part of the money went to a charity for animals. Later one year one of our beautiful heifers was sent to slaughter on October 4, it was no one in my family that chose that she should be sent to hell on earth that date because you never know which day the slaughter truck arrives, it can call just a few hours before it turns up. So I didn’t care to do anything special on the World Animal Day the following years because it reminded me of when I had to say farewell to my beloved friend. It was too painful to be reminded of the slaughter truck that came and took my friend. The slaughter trucks give me nightmares.

But this year I went home to our homestead with my sisters on October 4 to place flowers, Calluna, and candles next to our animal graves. We put the Calluna and candles in various locations on our homestead since we don’t have graves for all of our friends. We did that in order to remember our beloved ones since it was World Animal Day.

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