People who believe a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids from fish is cardioprotective may soon have a change of heart. A new study in the May issue of the American Journal of Cardiology suggests that fish consumption does not improve heart health or prevent coronary heart disease. The study found that the heart benefits so often associated with a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids from fish were more likely the result of people regularly consuming fish also having healthier dietary patterns overall. The study, which is based on analysis of the Diabetic Control and Complications Trial database, tracked nutritional data for 1,441 Americans over nine years.

"Fish is not a boon for good health as consumers are often led to believe," says study coauthor Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D., a senior nutrition scientist with PCRM and assistant professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. "Fish has a questionable role in heart-disease prevention and contains surprisingly high levels of mercury and other toxins, as well as fat and cholesterol, making it a poor dietary choice."

Most of us would agree that sugar and spice aren't sufficient to sustain little girls. What about nuts and berries? Can plant matter provide what a child needs? A spitting match, instigated by a column in The New York Times last month, pitted a book author against proponents of vegetarian diets. Nina Planck's column, headlined "Death by Veganism," can be summarized by her conclusion: "Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow." Oh, no? The science says otherwise. But that's yesterday's news.

An old standby on child-rearing - Dr. Benjamin Spock's "Baby and Child Care," the seventh edition of which was published in 1998, tells it like it still is. In what he knew would be the last edition of his classic, Spock was determined to make explicit the advice he believed passionately. [Among his advice:] Whole grains, vegetables, beans and fruits are the basics of good nutrition. If a child's diet includes them, the most important nutritional bases are covered. Dairy products (other than breast milk) after the age of 2 years are not recommended. Eliminate meat and poultry and reduce fish consumption. Children raised on plant proteins have better health as adults. Spock's approach is borne out by research findings published since his death, pointing to health advantages of diets based on plant foods. Nearly 10 years on the shelf and his nutrition advice is as fresh as ever.

Three years ago, in a documentary that was equal parts witty and disturbing, Morgan Spurlock took viewers along on his month-long McDonald's binge. For 30 days, every food or beverage that entered his mouth came from the fast-food franchise. And every time a clerk asked if he wanted to super-size-bump up the size of the fries and drink in his order - he did. This gave rise to the feature's title: Super Size Me. [T]he initially trim and healthy Spurlock paid a big personal price to make this riveting picture: He gained about a pound a day, and in just 3 weeks exhibited symptoms of fatty liver disease, a condition that can ultimately kill. At the start of the film, doctors had given Spurlock - and his liver - a clean bill of health.

Spurlock's film "inspired" [Brent] Tetri to investigate just how potent a liver poison fast-food meals might be. Tetri, a gastroenterologist and liver specialist at St. Louis University, undertook a 16-week study of such diets in mice and, on May 22, unveiled his findings at Digestive Disease Week 2007, a research conference, in Washington, D.C. Those data indicate that when offered the rodent equivalent of McDonald's fast food, mice fare at least as poorly as people do. Fat accumulations nearly doubled the size of the animals' livers. And within just 2 weeks of beginning their new diets, mice on the fast-food-like fare exhibited signs of incipient diabetes. "It was a surprise to see how soon this developed - and very disturbing," Tetri says. [Editor's note: We deplore the use of animals in any experiment.]

Geese force-fed and then slaughtered for their livers may get their final revenge on people who favor the delicacy known as foie gras: It may transmit a little-known disease known as amyloidosis, researchers reported [June 18]. Tests on mice suggest the liver, popular in French cuisine which uses it to make paté de foie gras and other dishes, may cause the condition in animals that have a genetic susceptibility to such diseases, Alan Solomon of the University of Tennessee and colleagues reported.

That would suggest that amyloidosis can be transmitted via food in a way akin to brain diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, which can cause a rare version of mad cow disease in some people who eat affected meat products or brains. Amyloidosis can affect various organ systems in the body, which accumulate damaging deposits of abnormal proteins known as amyloid. The heart, kidneys, nervous system and gastrointestinal tract are most often affected but amyloidosis can also cause a blood condition. Sometimes Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is described as a type of amyloidosis as well. "In addition to foie gras, meat derived from sheep and seemingly healthy cattle may represent other dietary sources of this material [the researchers said]."

Anybody who reads the newspaper comics pages is familiar with Bizarro - the surrealistic panel 'toon with a die-hard following of fans of all that is warped [created by Dan Piraro]. Environmentalism and animal rights play a central role in his life, and the two issues are often reflected in his work. He became more ardent after meeting his second wife, Ashley Smith, a long-time animal-rights activist. Like Smith, Piraro turned to veganism when he learned more about how farm and agricultural animals are treated. "There are so many people out there that just have no idea of the impact that their day-to-day lifestyle choices have, and that was me six years ago, so you know, I'm not being judgmental."

"A lot of my cartoons are born out of anger. And a lot of it is just the anger of ignorance," says Piraro. "Environmental and animal rights issues are so interwoven, there's no way to separate those two issues. Vegetarianism is environmentalism. It's all the same issue." His anger is aimed at a media that he says doesn't give the issue enough coverage, at politicians who turn a blind eye, and at the average citizen who doesn't bother to get informed. "There's is an inordinate amount of suffering caused by a person's 99-cent hamburger... [Most people have] no idea what tremendous amount of suffering and environmental damage is being done - and political damage with all the subsidies. It just drives you crazy once you know."

Hunted for food, medicine and souvenirs, sharks are in serious decline. Love them or loathe them, as top predators, sharks play an important role in the marine ecosystem - their decline is symbolic of all that's gone wrong in the oceans as a result of mismanagement and greed. Contrary to popular belief, shark fins have little nutritional value and may even be harmful to your health over the long term as fins have been found to contain high levels of mercury. Consumers may also be shocked to learn how the fin in their shark fin soup got their in the first place. Destructive and wasteful fishing practices - like shark finning, the cutting of a shark's fin and discarding the [still alive] rest of the carcass back to sea - are pushing several shark species to the brink of extinction.

Although the fishing industry is well aware of the need to safeguard fish populations and the marine environment for the future - their own future included - they continue to plunder what's left of a dwindling resource. Why? Because the incentive is there. Each year, taxpayers are forced to cough up US$15 billion in perverse government subsidies to keep many fishing fleets afloat. Sharks were living well before the time of the dinosaurs, and have proved to be good survivors. But given current fishing trends and growing demand for their meat and by-products, they will need all the help they can get just to survive to the middle of this century. Think about that the next time you see shark fin soup on the menu.

I've been reading the book Vegan Freak and authors Bob and Jenna Torres bring up the issue of people who say one thing, but do another, when it comes to their food choices. You know who I mean: the people who call themselves vegetarian, but eat fish. Or the ones who call themselves vegan, but occasionally eat cheese. It's not that the Torres are seeking perfection and purity from everyone who uses the veg*n moniker, but they want the words "vegan" and "vegetarian" to have meaning. And to have meaning they hope that people will be honest about how hard they're really trying to stick to their named dietary preference. This led to some self-examination. Do I deserve to call myself a vegan, or am I a vegetarian in vegan's clothing?

At home I'm perfect - and I've been enjoying cooking with new ingredients like seitan. But then there are those times when we order food in, and I make a leap of faith that the items I've ordered that sound vegan are vegan. Most ethnic cuisines are really veg-friendly on the surface, but you can't count out hidden ingredients. Do I ask the probing questions that would uncover fish sauce in the Thai food, ghee in the Indian food or chicken broth in the pasta primavera? Honestly, I sometimes don't... So, I guess I'd call me a 90 percent vegan. And my question is: Is that good enough to use the name?

Citing the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on congressional leaders to give vegetarians a tax break. In a letter sent [May 30], PETA President Ingrid Newkirk stated, "[V]egetarians are responsible for far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and other kinds of environmental degradation than meat-eaters." The letter added that vegetarians should receive a tax break "just as people who purchase a hybrid vehicle enjoy a tax break."

The PETA letter draws on research conducted at the University of Chicago and a U.N. report. According to the letter, anyone switching to a hybrid car will lessen the emissions of carbon dioxide by only one ton per year, while anyone forgoing their love of meat will spare the environment one and a half tons per year. Citing the U.N. report, Newkirk wrote, "[S]cientists determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, and [planes] in the world combined." "Although most Americans can't afford to pay upward of $20,000 for a new hybrid car," the letter continues, "everyone can go vegetarian."

Masterfoods' [maker of Mars and Snickers bars] U-turn over its plan to reformulate its famous confectionery brands using animal-derived whey sets a precedent that will prevent any other food manufacturer from flying in the face of the trend towards the vegetarianisation of our food. The decision, based on the desire to shave a few digits off the company's costs, sparked huge debate played out in columns of mainstream newspapers. The company issued a lengthy apology to its customers and vowed to keep its products meat-free. And in the light of the embarrassing conclusion to the affair, other food manufacturers are highly unlikely to try the same tactic.

For a start, it was problematic that Masterfoods' decision was financially motivated. Secondly, how on earth would a company communicate its intention to take a product from vegetarian to non-vegetarian? As Masterfoods discovered, decisions like these have to be handled with the utmost delicacy so as not to blow up into a public relations disaster that will have long-lasting effects on the brand. But there is no denying that there is a general shift towards making foods suitable for more consumer groups - not only vegetarians but also people who adhere to kosher or halal diets, or allergy sufferers. The sense behind such strategies increases with every animal-related food scare. Even those who aren't strictly speaking vegetarian are more and more sensitive about the source of the food they eat.

A Malaysian court has ordered national flag carrier Malaysia Airlines to pay an Indian man 20,000 ringgit (about $6,800) in damages for serving him meat after he asked for a vegetarian meal. M Rajalingam, a magistrate in northern Penang state, ruled that Sharma - a member of the priestly Brahmin caste who said he had never eaten meat in his life - should be compensated for the depression, shock, mental anguish and humiliation he suffered.

Nobody knows what happened to her mother. Nor do they know how the Appaloosa filly, estimated to be about eight months old, ended up at a slaughterhouse. Yet, through the efforts of Front Range Equine Rescue and Ahimsa Ranch Animal Rescue, the filly, dubbed Fortune, was saved from slaughter, along with a herd of 31 other horses, and brought to Colorado for adoption. "You can only guess where they've been, what they've been through," said Lauren Tipton, director of Ahimsa Ranch Animal Rescue and someone who helped negotiate the purchase and transfer of the herd.

"The biggest misconception is that if they end up in a 'kill' pen, they deserve to be there. That's not true," Tipton said. "A lot of these horses are young, good quality horses." Yet, some of the herd, saved when the governor in Illinois signed legislation at the end of May banning horse slaughter for human consumption, were in such poor health from neglect and abuse they had to be humanely put down, said Hilary Wood of Front Range Equine Rescue. Since horse meat is considered a delicacy in Europe and Japan, the animals are often sold by owners who have too many and need to thin their herd. The hardest part of her work, she said, is when she walks around a kill lot, carrying money to buy one horse, and 20 of them are following her around. "Who do you save?" she said.

The executives who run America's chicken industry might not want you to read this article. Spokesmen at the five biggest companies refused to show me the farms where their suppliers raise the chickens you eat, so that I could see firsthand how they treat them. They refused to show me the slaughterhouses, so I could see how the companies dispatch them. Executives even refused to talk to me about how they raise and kill chickens. Maybe it's because they realize that the entire food industry is being kicked and shoved toward transforming the way it treats animals - and chicken executives are making a last ditch effort to resist... The [recent advances in humane treatment] don't even touch the species that suffers most on our culinary behalf. The food industry slaughtered roughly 30 million cattle last year. And 100 million hogs. But people in this country also ate nearly 9 billion chickens.

To understand what kind of changes are possible, we need to see how the typical chicken gets treated now. Be forewarned: The story of an industrial chicken's life that follows, based on interviews with leading scientists and industry sources, is not for the faint of heart. When the chickens weigh four to seven pounds, a team of "catchers" wades into the flock and rounds them up. A typical catcher nabs up to five squawking birds at a time in each hand, by grabbing their legs and yanking them upside down, and then stuffs them into crates and loads them unto trucks... forklifts transfer the crates to a conveyor belt, which dumps the chickens out of their cages so they fall as far as several feet onto an assembly line. Again, workers grab the birds by their legs, flip them upside down, and jam their feet into metal shackles... up to 180 million chickens each year suffer through a botched death in the slaughterhouse. Almost 4,000 miles away, down a country road in Norway, a man who has killed millions of chickens says the U.S. could easily send its own birds to a kinder, gentler death.

The so-called Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is at it again. Now they're targeting individuals, celebrity chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck, and Florida-based philanthropist Nanci Alexander. But what are these people doing against consumer freedom? Why do they merit the attention of a powerful national lobbying group like the CCF? The CCF's recent attack on Puck came after he announced plans to revamp his menu to make it more animal- and planet-friendly. Nanci Alexander is a philanthropist and founder of the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida. What's the point here? You have to wonder about the CCF's agenda and why they attack the American Medical Association, doctors and scientists, the menus of Wolfgang Puck or the work of an unknown philanthropist like Nanci Alexander?

You might think that these folks have little to do with limiting consumer freedom, and you'd be right. The real answer can be found by looking behind the scenes. The misnamed Center for Consumer Freedom is a group of lobbyists masquerading as consumer advocates. Founded in 1995 as the Guest Choice Network with a grant from Big Tobacco, the CCF has never strayed far from its roots. Consumer freedom is not nearly so important to them as corporate bottom-lines... well, ordinary people are wising-up to the tactics used by PR firms and - more and more - responsible businessmen like Wolfgang Puck are joining compassionate folks like Nanci Alexander and Bob Barker and coming to the conclusion that profit-margins are not the be-all and end-all. Maybe there's hope for us all yet!

It seems undeniable that, over the past two decades, the ethical arguments of the animal rights movement have caught on with a broader public. Even many skeptics now agree that animals feel pain, should not suffer unnecessarily and should not be subject to every human whim. Their lives, on some level, clearly matter. In an e-mailed response to questions, [Peter] Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, said more people are rejecting the idea that humans have rights other species don't have. "But I also think," he wrote, "there is growing awareness of the cruelty we routinely inflict on animals, especially in farming, and more people are turning away from that cruelty."

"Surveys have found that few Americans are comfortable with the idea of animals being abused or neglected, yet they also struggle with the implications: Dogs should be walked regularly, so shouldn't cows be allowed to graze? Do tigers at the zoo really have enough room? Should shampoos be tested on animals before they're sold to people? Is it right to eat veal? Wear leather?" "I think people are really defensive about their food," says Omnia Ibrahim, the Chicago-area events coordinator for Mercy for Animals. "I think it's hard to think something is wrong that you've done your whole life." People often ask why she spends time on animal rights when so many other issues could use her attention. "There are a lot of horrible issues in the world, but to me they're all connected: It's about looking out for life," she says. [This is an extensive, interesting and worthwhile article.]

The book: reFresh: Contemporary Vegan Recipes from the Award-Winning Fresh Restaurants by Ruth Tal and Jennifer Houston. [This] is a revised edition of Tal's first book, Juice for Life: Modern Food and Luscious Juice (2000). Back then, "the word `vegan' was on the fringe, often mispronounced and possibly alluding to a cult," remembers Tal, who was encouraged not to use the word in the title. Now, the negative stereotypes associated with a vegan diet ("undernourished, protein-deficient hippies and boring, bland health foods") are mostly gone. "My dream all along has been to get more people to believe that it's hip to be healthy, that having a healthy natural glow, exercising, relaxing and eating right for yourself and the planet could be the new definition of modern, trendy and cool," writes Tal. "Being proud of our poor eating habits used to be a badge of honour; now it's so uncool."

Convincing, compassionate and comprehensive! That's Richard's seminal work Judaism and Vegetarianism. Every argument is supported by facts and every fact is documented. Former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, David Rosen, said of his book, "It is hoped that this major publication will not only adorn the bookshelf of many a Jewish home, but also will become guide to an every-increasing movement of Jews towards vegetarianism, born out of an sincere religious conviction rooted in our most sublime teachings." Here is our interview with Richard Schwartz...

[Rabbi Schwartz concludes in this interesting and extensive interview:] Those who gain from the status quo unfortunately have the power of money, publicity, conventional wisdom and the establishment on their side, but we have truth, justice, morality, compassion, and, I hope, fervor and dedication on our side. And the case for vegetarianism based on Jewish values is so strong that it must eventually prevail. We shall overcome.

[Rabbi Schwartz' "Judaism and Global Survival" is also recommended reading, especially in light of global warming issues.]