Health and Environment    

Study links milk to ovarian cancer
Full story: National Post (Canada)

New research shows a link between dairy products and ovarian cancer. Published in the International Journal of Cancer, the study reveals a 13% increase in ovarian cancer risk with a daily increase of 10 grams of lactose - about one glass of milk. Dr. Larsson's study, which pooled statistics from 21 studies following nearly 4,000 women, showed varied findings in cancer risks. Whole milk was associated with the highest increased risk in all 21 studies. But three studies identified total consumption of dairy products - including low-fat milk but excluding hard cheese, which has less lactose - with an increased risk.

An estimated 2,400 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed this year and about 1,550 women will die of the disease, according to Canadian Cancer Society figures. Only one in five women with the illness will survive more than five years. The Dairy Farmers of Canada was quick to dismiss the study.

National Post (Canada) - August 5, 2005

Superbugs in chicken could be source of bladder infections
Full story: BBC ONE (UK)

Significant numbers of chickens on sale in UK shops are contaminated with superbugs, a scientific survey suggests. Of the British-grown chickens analysed, over half were contaminated with multi-drug resistant E.coli which is immune to the effects of three or more antibiotics. More than a third of the 147 samples, which included overseas and UK produced chicken, had E.coli germs resistant to the important antibiotic Trimethaprim which is used to treat bladder infections.

The survey's results could partly explain a rise in the number of women whose bladder infections did not respond to standard treatments, a medical expert [said]. Dr Mike Millar, the head of Infection Control at St Barts Hospital in London, said: "Potentially this is very worrying. We've known for years there've been outbreaks of bladder infections in different parts of the world but we haven't really known where the germs have been coming from. Potentially food could be a source." In worst cases, bladder infections could lead to kidney damage and the need for renal dialysis, he said.

BBC ONE (UK) - August 15, 2005

Vegan diet, exercise help slow prostate cancer
Full story: San Francisco Chronicle

Eating better, exercising regularly and cutting stress apparently can slow the progression of early prostate cancer, concludes the first study to provide direct evidence that lifestyle changes can fight the common malignancy. The study of 93 prostate cancer patients found that at the end of a year those who adopted lifestyle changes that included a primarily vegan diet, regular moderate exercise and yoga and other relaxation techniques scored better on a standard blood test used to monitor prostate cancer growth. They were also less likely to require additional treatment, and their blood showed signs of being able to inhibit prostate cancer cells in lab tests.

Although many studies have suggested that adopting healthy lifestyles can have a host of health benefits, including reducing the risk for various cancers, the new research is the latest of several recent studies that have found that factors such as diet, exercise and stress reduction may have a powerful effect on cancer patients' prognoses. Two recent studies found that breast cancer patients who ate low-fat diets and exercised regularly were less likely to suffer recurrences.

San Francisco Chronicle - August 11, 2005

U.S. Meatpackers cited for over 1,000 violations of mad cow rules
Full story: Bloomberg

U.S. government inspectors cited meatpackers more than 1,000 times over a 17-month period for violating rules concerning the removal of tissue associated with mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Some 1,036 "non-compliance" reports covering the January 2004-May 2005 period were released, the USDA said. The reports document instances of meatpackers failing to properly remove "specified risk materials" - brains, spinal cord tissue and other tissues that scientists say harbor the disease.

"No specified risk materials got into the food supply" as a result of any of the violations, said a spokeswoman for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. The USDA ordered that the risk materials be removed from slaughtered cattle Dec. 30, 2003, a week after the first U.S. mad cow case was confirmed. The brain-wasting livestock illness, clinically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has a fatal human form blamed for more than 150 deaths in the UK, where the disease first surfaced in the 1980s.

Bloomberg - August 15, 2005

Pigs slaughtered in bird flu scare
Full story: The Scotsman

Indonesia has become the first known country to destroy pigs in its efforts to contain the rapid spread of bird flu, which has killed at least 57 people across Asia and devastated poultry stocks. But plans to slaughter 200 swine were sharply reduced as authorities wrangled over the best way to combat the deadly disease.

Eighteen pigs that tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus were killed on two farms on the outskirts of Jakarta, the capital. After being injected with drugs that rendered them unconscious, they were loaded on trucks, taken to a field and thrown into a fire.

The Scotsman - July 24, 2005

Got milk? You've got health AND environmental problems
Full story: Los Angeles Times

What nobody wants to say, in this land of milk and cookies, is that we shouldn't be drinking cow's milk. Dr. Benjamin Spock made it clear that cow's milk is for baby cows, not for human children. He suggested that it may cause ear and/or respiratory problems, and may be linked to childhood onset diabetes. But the dairy industry would rather you didn't know that. [It] prefers to scare us with tales of brittle bones, hoping we don't notice studies showing that people in Asia, who consume almost no dairy products, have a significantly lower rate of hip fractures than people in "got milk?" America. [Or] Harvard University's 1997 Nurses Health Study, which followed 78,000 women over a 12-year period and found that those who consumed the most dairy foods broke the most bones.

Now, we learn that the dairy industry may also be harming our children by polluting the air. Dairy cows have overtaken automobiles as the No. 1 air polluter in parts of California. [According to] an attorney for the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, in Fresno, in the center of the nation's dairy industry, one in six children carries an inhaler to school. Unfortunately, the government is unlikely to start running ads suggesting we follow Asia's lead and switch to tofu, or even kale, though both have more calcium per cup than cow's milk. But for your health, the environment, the animals, and for those kids in Fresno carrying inhalers, why not change your next Starbucks low-fat latte order to soy?

Los Angeles Times - August 13, 2005

Impact of meat is more than Earth can chew
Full story: Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada)

How do you persuade someone to go veg when video footage of a chicken factory won't do it? If that person cares at all for the health of the planet, you have a pretty good shot at conversion. Take him for a mental walk around the lagoons of manure stored on factory farms. When those babies break, flood or seep, we're talking serious groundwater contamination. Hormones [fed to cattle] are, sadly, turning up downstream from factory farms and have been found to alter sex-related traits of fish and turtles. Ammonia pouring into our waterways from chicken, pork and cattle feedlots are also proving toxic to fish.

Between all the methane released by flatulent cud-chewers and the carbon dioxide spewed in the transport of animals to slaughter and then to your dinner table, that lone burger patty creates as much greenhouse gases as a 9.6-kilometre car ride. What else goes into a steak? Well, 1 kilogram of beef requires 100 kg of forage, 4 kg of pesticide-laden grain and about 100,000 litres of water. Talk about a super-wasteful protein source. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists says [eating vegetarian] is one of the top things you can do for the environment.

Now Magazine (Toronto, Canada) - August 11, 2005

  Lifestyles and Trends    

Vegetarian experiences: Empathy for animals' pain leads to lifestyle choice
Full story: metroactive.com (Santa Cruz, CA, US)

I know that animals feel. They definitely feel physical pain, no different from the pain I feel. I also believe they feel emotional pain, such as fear or dread. They certainly feel contentment - and the opposite of that. It is this ability to feel that drives my commitment to vegetarianism. It is the human race's ability to think and feel that drives my belief that vegetarianism is the logical choice for anyone. I started to consider vegetarianism because I felt sympathy for the conditions of factory-farmed animals. But what sealed the deal for me was thinking it through: there was no reason to not be a vegetarian. I am not physiologically required to eat meat.

In addition, I could use reason to determine that it is illogical to base the ethics of causing pain or death on whether or not the subject thinks at a higher level - because you'd be opening the door to a whole new crop of test subjects or cuisine options: the infants, the senile, the mentally challenged, the wingnut! It is enough for me that they feel pain, and I don't need to cause them that pain to live my life quite well. If we really want to consider ourselves superior for our wonderful ability to reason and for our finer feelings, then we should use that reason and those feelings to make the more humane choice.

metroactive.com (Santa Cruz, CA, US) - August 3, 2005

Regional organization's growth reflects worldwide trend
Full story: San Francisco Chronicle

Bay Area Vegetarians attempts to advocate animal rights through a trifecta of activism, education and outreach. In addition to monthly protests, the group sponsors lectures and films. Members host monthly vegetarian dinners. They write letters to legislators, distribute vegetarian [information] at major regional festivals. Since the organization's start in 2001, these tactics have worked wonders. At a time when experts say that membership in just about all vegetarian groups is growing, Bay Area Vegetarians is enjoying a truly meteoric rise.

No other regional vegetarian organization in the country is bigger, and last month the group's membership stood at 2,200 - the highest it's ever been. To put that into national perspective, recent membership tallies at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) reported nearly 850,000, an increase of 100,000 over last year alone. "No matter where you look, vegetarianism certainly is on the rise," says PETA's director of vegan campaigns. "We want to raise awareness, but we want to make sure we do it at a pace that's comfortable for everyone," says Tammy Lee, [Bay Area's] president. "At the end of the day, making people comfortable with vegetarianism is the first step toward getting them to change the way they live their lives."

San Francisco Chronicle - August 5, 2005

Meatless products gain space on mainstream shelves
Full story: Atlanta Journal Constitution

Traditional grocery stores are dedicating more dollars and shelf space to meatless products for the nation's growing number of vegetarians. It's estimated that between 35 percent and 50 percent of U.S. adults now eat two to three meatless meals per week, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group, a Maryland-based nonprofit group. So traditional supermarkets are slowly adding meatless products while placing greater emphasis on the category in the stores. "It's a clearly defined market segment that can't be ignored," said Todd Hultquist, spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute, an industry trade group.

That doesn't mean meat will be pushed out of freezer cases in favor of veggie burgers, Tofurky and non-chicken nuggets. Demand for meat products remains strong. Traditional grocery stores please those customers as well as the non-meat eaters, and there are only so many shelves. So for now, vegetarian-type products occupy a fairly small space in most supermarkets. And that's an improvement, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group. "In the supermarket, things are much better for vegetarians compared to 10 or 15 years ago," said John L. Cunningham, consumer research manager for the research group. "So to sum up, yes, there has been some improvement. But there is still more progress to be made," Cunningham said.

Atlanta Journal Constitution - July 31, 2005

The bad news: Meat consumption on the rise
Full story: The Namibian

Worldwide meat production continues to grow, with an estimated 258 million tons produced by farmers in the year 2004, a two per cent increase from 2003, according to the Worldwatch Institute publication, Vital Signs 2005. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that by the year 2020, people in developing countries would eat more than 36 kilograms of meat on average - twice as much as in the 1980s. In China, the figure is expected to be a 55 per cent increase from 1993, while in Southeast Asia people are likely to be eating 38 per cent more meat than they do now. People in industrial countries, however, would still consume the most - nearly 90 kg a year by 2020, the equivalent of a side of beef, 50 chickens and one pig.

As production and consumption of meat continue to increase worldwide, the methods of production are also changing. Industrial animal agriculture, or 'factory farming' is the most rapidly growing production system for pigs, chickens and beef. More than half of the world's poultry and pork and much of the beef are produced in these intensive, inhumane and potentially hazardous conditions. These farms also require extensive inputs - producing eight ounces of beef requires 25 000 litres of water, for instance.

The Namibian - July 26, 2005

Vegan Vixens bite beef eaters
Full story: The Sunday Times (UK)

Carrot lovers have never seen anything like them. The fastidious and hitherto not glamorous world of strict vegetarianism has been transformed into the sexiest story on American television. Meet the Vegan Vixens, a group of scantily clad California models and actresses who have joined forces to titillate, tantalise and ultimately transform the beef-loving American male and his traditional dependence on a diet of burgers, steaks and ribs. [The show's creator] Sky Valencia felt the vegan message was not getting through. She decided that it was time to try cleavage and bawdy jokes about cucumbers.

What started as a light-hearted attempt to portray the vegan lifestyle has turned into a television phenomenon. After only five episodes on a Californian cable channel, the Vegan Vixens are attracting national attention. One New York newspaper dubbed them "the soy of sex," The Vixens have become vegetarianism's answer to Charlie's Angels, the popular American television series. Valencia is sure her party-girl vegetarian approach could win more hearts and stomachs than "lectures by men in suits."

The Sunday Times (UK) - August 7, 2005

Can restaurants satisfy both a carnivore and a vegan?
Full story: Chicago Tribune

Look, it's 2005. Vegans, vegetarians and meat lovers should be able to coexist. Or at least have dinner together once in a while. We wondered if that is possible. Our mission was to visit eight Chicago-area restaurants - four on the vegetarian-friendly side of the ledger and four in the carnivore camp. Kelly the Vegan would see if her no-animal-products-not-even-honey lifestyle could be accommodated. Bill the Carnivore would explore the world of tofu and legumes and hoped these places served gravy to wash it all down. Could we both be satisfied?

Interesting statistics in the article: Has our interest in vegetarian fare increased?
41% of family-dining restaurants had customers ask for more vegetarian entrees.
39% of casual-dining restaurants had customers ask for more vegetarian entrees.
24% of quick-service restaurants saw increased interest in vegetarian entrees.
Source: The National Restaurant Association's 2005 Restaurant Industry Forecast

[Editor's note: Although talking about specific restaurants, the article is interesting for all. It seems a carnivore could eat quite happily and be satisfied more easily at a veggie restaurant than vice versa.]

Chicago Tribune - August 11, 2005

  Animal Issues and Advocacy    

Viewpoint: All beings that feel pain deserve rights
Full story: The Guardian (UK)

The word speciesism came to me while I was lying in a bath in Oxford some 35 years ago. It was like racism or sexism - a prejudice based upon morally irrelevant physical differences. All animal species can suffer pain and distress. Animals scream and writhe like us. Pain is the one and only true evil. Yet [great suffering is] still justified on the grounds that [animals] are not of the same species as ourselves. We treat the other animals not as relatives but as unfeeling things. We would not dream of treating our babies, or mentally handicapped adults, in these ways - yet these humans are sometimes less intelligent and less able to communicate with us than are some exploited nonhumans.

The simple truth is that we exploit the other animals and cause them suffering because we are more powerful than they are. Does this mean that if aliens landed on Earth and turned out to be far more powerful than us we would let them - without argument - chase and kill us for sport, experiment on us or breed us in factory farms, and turn us into tasty humanburgers? Would we accept their explanation that it was perfectly moral for them to do all these things as we were not of their species? It is the heartless exploiter of animals, not the animal protectionist, who is being irrational, showing a sentimental tendency to put his own species on a pedestal. Some international recognition of the moral status of animals is long overdue.

The Guardian (UK) - August 6, 2005

Australian animal advocates expose broiler hen cruelty
Full story: Originally on The Geelong Advertiser (Australia)

Animal Liberation activists have been carrying out "undercover" surveillance of a broiler hen farm over the past 14 months to highlight concerns of cruelty in the industry. During the investigation the activists carried out 17 open rescues and removed more than 200 birds for veterinary care and rehabilitation. Animal Liberation Victoria, said in its objection to [a new facility] it had evidence of cruelty in the industry. This included weak and crippled birds slowly dying from dehydration and starvation, dead carcasses left to rot and decompose among the living birds and dead birds piled up outside sheds.

"Our rescue teams have investigated numerous broiler chicken farms around Australia and the above conditions are witnessed routinely," the objection said. "Rural Farms Management have stated there will be three employees at the proposed development (three farms) meaning each employee will be responsible for 320,000 birds each day. Even a primary school student can do this sum in their head - it is impossible under these circumstances for these birds to receive the individual attention and care demanded by Victorian Law and the Broiler Code of Practice." [Editor's note: Article has moved from its original location on the Geelong Advertiser - link is animal rights site.]

Originally on The Geelong Advertiser (Australia) - August 16, 2005

Animal group calls for lobsters' rights
Full story: Sunday Herald (UK)

An animal rights group is calling on the Scottish Executive to introduce legal protection for the country's crabs and lobsters. Advocates for Animals has launched a report that it hopes will hasten the end of the "cruel practice" of boiling crustaceans alive. The group said the report - drawing on a wide range of scientific research - shows that they, along with octopus and squid, have the potential to feel pain and suffering.

Advocates' director Ross Minett said: "The scientific evidence strongly suggests that decapod crustaceans and cephalopods have the capacity to experience pain. We believe that the Scottish Executive should recognise this potential for suffering through the inclusion of these animals within the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill." [The report] found that the creatures have a well-developed nervous system, and in the case of the octopus, show intelligent behaviour, such as problem-solving and tool use. And it points out that countries such as New Zealand, Norway and parts of Australia include the species in their basic animal protection legislation.

Sunday Herald (UK) - August 14, 2005

An answer to the question: What's wrong with eggs?
Full story: Vallejo Times Herald (California)

About 160,000 spent hens from an egg farm will be sent to slaughter, except for a few hundred lucky chickens that will be spared thanks to the farm sanctuary Animal Place. Egg-laying hens are raised solely to lay eggs. At birth, the male chickens are immediately slaughtered. "(The females) are bred to produce far, far, far more eggs than a normal chicken is supposed to produce," [Animal Place's Kim] Sturla said. A couple days after birth, these hens are all de-beaked to prevent them from pecking each other in the close confines of captivity. Most hens have spent their entire lives in cages with a floor space the size of a record album, stuffed in with up to 11 other birds.

"After [18 months] their egg production drops and it's not cost-effective for the farmer to keep them," Sturla said. Most of the chickens will go to an area slaughterhouse where they will wind up in dog or cat food, rendering plants or simply be discarded, she said. "These birds when they're liberated don't know what to do with their freedom. They've never seen sunlight, they've never been on the ground. It is a joy to watch them learn to dust bathe and sun bathe, to perch and even go outside," Sturla said. "It's a combination of extremely difficult but also a joyful experience. The only way anyone can survive in animal rescue is to celebrate the ones you save Otherwise you're paralyzed with grief and sorrow."

Vallejo Times Herald (California) - August 14, 2005

21 animals bound for slaughter found dead in truck
Full story: Chandiagarh Tribune (India)

An incident of cruelty to animals, which were being taken to a slaughter house, came to light when the vehicle met with a minor accident. The incident sent shock waves when 21 animals were found dead and 12 were seen struggling for life. Voices of residents, rescuing the animals, were choked with emotion as they offloaded 57 buffaloes and calves, some of them dead, from the jam-packed truck.

Emotions turned into a rage when residents found that limbs of the cattle were ruthlessly tied up with ropes in an attempt to squeeze in more and more animals. The ropes, tightly wound around the necks of some animals, had resulted in deep gashes. Inquiries revealed that some of the buffaloes and calves, piled on one another, had died due to pressure and suffocation, as the two-tier truck was closed from all sides. Their protruding tongues provided testimony to their tragic end.

Chandiagarh Tribune (India) - August 5, 2005

Comment: They're animal advocates, not terrorists
Full story: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Let's stop bandying the word "terrorists" around and restrict its use to "those who engage in violence." Just because I care about the welfare and fate of animals doesn't make me a terrorist. It makes me an animal activist, if you will, or an animal advocate or simply a decent, compassionate person. I'm a 66-year-old grandmother and, yes, I have protested about injustices to animals many times and I've also worked as hard as I can to prevent abuse of animals.

This has taken the form of protests, letter writing and phone calls, volunteer work, political action, boycotts and education. I've never understood the hostility of some people toward animal activists. I think the hostility may have to do with the threat some people feel, knowing that they should pay attention to these pleas but are reluctant to change their comfortable notions and habits. Next time you see some demonstrators who are trying to draw attention to the plight of animals, read the signs, take the leaflets, keep your mind open and don't dismiss us as crazies, do-gooders and certainly not as terrorists.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer - July 18, 2005

Appalling slaughter house conditions take a human toll too
Full story: Houston Chronicle

Working conditions in U.S. meat and poultry plants should trouble the conscience of every American who eats beef, pork or chicken. Dispatching the nonstop tide of animals and birds arriving on plant "kill floors" and "live hang" areas has always been hazardous and exhausting labor. Turning an 800-pound animal (or even a 5-pound fowl) into products for supermarkets or fast-food restaurants is, by its nature, demanding physical labor in bloody, greasy surroundings.

But meatpacking and poultry workers face more than hard work in tough settings. They perform the most dangerous factory jobs in the country. U.S. meat and poultry employers put workers at predictable risk of serious physical injury even though the means to avoid such injury are known and feasible. In doing so, they violate the right of workers to a safe place of employment. [Editor's note: These are the people society asks to do its "dirty" work. It cannot help but damage their psyches too.]

Houston Chronicle - August 7, 2005

  Books and Perspectives    

'China Study' reveals benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle
Full story: Nashua Telegraph (NH, US)

The work of T. Colin Campbell [based on 40 years of population studies] was a major addition to the scientific literature and contains studies on the relationship between diet and disease in China. A solid relationship was found between the incidence of major disease and the addition of animal protein in the Chinese diet. These findings, along with background information on the science of nutrition and the interplay of science, business and politics, are summarized in Campbell's "The China Study" (Benbella Books, 2005).

Unlike China, we in the West lay out the welcome mat for heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes with our food and lifestyle choices. Advances in health care have helped us live longer in spite of our choices. I recommend "The China Study." It should be read by anyone who might want to learn more about the interplay between food, the food industry, health and politics. It presents its information in a very approachable way, and Campbell provides valuable perspectives on the intrigues of science. Vegetarianism has much going for it, and whether you support all the book's conclusions or not, you will learn much from the read.

Nashua Telegraph (NH, US) - July 27, 2005

Lunch with Peter Singer: Meaty arguments
Full story: Financial Times

Peter Singer is one of the most consequential thinkers of our time: a radical philosopher whom many regard as the father of the animal liberation movement. He is visiting London to promote two new books: "In Defence of Animals," a collection of essays, and "The Moral of the Story," an anthology of ethics in literature, which he edited with [his wife] Renata. An Australian accent lightens Singer's words. He was born in Melbourne to a family of Jewish refugees from Austria, not long after three of his grandparents died in Nazi concentration camps. I ask Singer if he is surprised or disappointed at how much has changed in the 30 years since he published his groundbreaking Animal Liberation.

"Both, I guess," says Singer. "When we started people told us you'll never change this. There have been significant changes, particularly in Europe." He pauses. "On the other hand, when I was writing Animal Liberation it seemed to me that the arguments were so clear that what we were doing was wrong and indefensible that I hoped people would just read it and say that has got to stop. And it hasn't." I ask why he thinks his argument has been only half-persuasive. Renata laughs. "There are a lot of people who like eating meat and they are not really open to ethical arguments." [Editor's note: A long but interesting article that touches on many moral and philosophical questions.]

Financial Times - July 29 2005

Celebrity chef tosses out the oven
Full story: Arizona Republic

Just a few years ago, chef Matthew Kenney was ascending to the height of success and celebrity, with a string of thriving New York City eateries and a ranking by Food & Wine as one of the "Ten Best New Chefs in America." But after Sept. 11, 2001, his empire collapsed in the economic fallout. And the French-trained chef took a surprising turn. He gave up cooking. For raw food. He and his partner (in life and in the kitchen), Sarma Melngailis, have coauthored a diary cookbook, "Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow" (Regan Books; 2005), and opened a raw food restaurant, Pure Food and Wine in New York City.

After a year of navigating the nutritional maze, Kenney and Melngailis reached the point of deciding to share their newly developed food style with others. They opened their restaurant in June 2004 in the Flat Iron section of New York City, with a raw vegan menu that runs from sushi to stylized beet ravioli, green curry coconut noodles to flatbread pizza with hummus. The new eating style may seem drastic, so Kenney suggests easing into it. "In the beginning, keep it simple," he says. "Take little bites of the philosophy. Go slowly. It can seem overwhelming. It did to us." [Recipes included in the article.]

Arizona Republic - August 6, 2005