In this edition...
Health |
 Video: Largest study ever sheds light on causes of pancreatic cancer |
| Can eating fruits and veggies outwit bad heart genes? |
| High intake of calcium, dairy products boosts prostate cancer risk |
| Michael Pollan: How change is going to come in the food system |
Environment and World Hunger |
| Feeding 9 billion people is possible with sustainable farming |
| 7 reasons kale is the new beef |
| Some say cows are killing the earth. So do we need to ban beef?
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| An interview with James Cromwell |
Lifestyles and Trends |
| Being vegetarian a dangerous idea: Foer |
| "Ethical" cheese is hard to come by |
| The ethical dilemma inherent in the 'weekday vegetarian' plan |
| Global celebrities join the fight to ban shark finning |
| Veggie celebs: 'Tree of Life' star Jessica Chastain's 'beautiful year' |
Animal Issues and Advocacy |
| Animal cruelty: Who is to blame? |
| Animal-rights groups defined as terrorists on Canadian government website |
| Q&A: Using the law in defense of animals |
| Finland: No justice for animals |
| Animal sentience: Remarkable video - fish uses tool |
Of Note - Recipes, Blogs, Events, More |
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Don't forget to visit:
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(Excerpts are included from current news stories. Click on the "Full story" link to read the full article.)
Health 
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Video: Largest study ever sheds light on causes of pancreatic cancer
Full story: NutritionFacts.org
The largest prospective nutrition study ever published links animal fat to the development of pancreatic cancer - but not plant fat. Animal protein is also associated with pancreatic cancer - reported by Dr. Michael Greger as part of his daily NutritionFacts video series.
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NutritionFacts.org - March 31
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Can eating fruits and veggies outwit bad heart genes?
Full story: Time Magazine Healthland
We know that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is good for the heart, but can a healthy diet really overcome the effect of genes that boost your risk for heart problems? Yes, it can, according to researchers in Canada who studied data on more than 27,000 people to figure out which contributes more to the risk of heart disease: environment or genes. The researchers focused on a group of people with specific genetic variants that are known to increase the risk of heart disease. They found that people who had the variants but ate lots raw fruits and vegetable showed no increased heart risk, compared with those who had a less healthy diet, who were twice as likely to have a heart attack.
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Time Magazine Healthland - October 12
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High intake of calcium, dairy products boosts prostate cancer risk
Full story: Foodconsumer
High intake of calcium from both food and dietary supplements may boost risk of advanced or fatal prostate cancer, according to a review conducted by the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at University of California in San Diego, California. Eating calcium rich vegetables is rarely associated with increased risk of cancer while high intake of dairy products has been associated with increased risk of prostate cancer. [Also] high intake of protein from dairy products may produce high serum levels of insulin-like growth factors or IGF-1, which is linked with risk for both prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women.
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Foodconsumer - September 17
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Michael Pollan: How change is going to come in the food system
Full story: The Nation
The food movement has discovered that persuading the media, and even the president, that you are right on the merits does not necessarily translate into change, not when the forces arrayed against change are so strong. If change comes, it will come from other places: from the grassroots and, paradoxically, from powerful interests that stand to gain from it. It's worth remembering that it took decades before the campaign against the tobacco industry could point to any concrete accomplishments. By the 1930s, the scientific case against smoking had been made, yet it wasn't until 1964 that the surgeon general was willing to declare smoking a threat to health, and another two decades after that before the industry's seemingly unshakable hold on Congress finally crumbled. By this standard, the food movement is making swift progress. [Full article recommended - help may come from a surprising source.]
Read more... |
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| Environment and World Hunger
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Feeding 9 billion people is possible with sustainable farming
Full story: ClickGreen.org
An international team of scientists has proposed a five-point plan for feeding the world while protecting the planet. The research concludes that "feeding the nine billion people anticipated to live on Earth in 2050 without exhausting the Earth's natural resources is possible, provided that we adopt a more sustainable food production approach." [The study identifies] five key fronts: halt farmland expansion, improve crop production, more strategic use of water and nutrients, reduce food waste and dedicate croplands to direct human food production [which] could boost calories produced per person by nearly 50 per cent.
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ClickGreen.org - October 12
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7 reasons kale is the new beef
Full story: Huffington Post
Like the saying goes, the only constant is change. We may resist it all we want, but Time and its inevitable evolution of everything in its path is unaffected by our attempts to stop it. The resulting trajectory of humanity's nascent ascent appears to be positioning itself to sweep us into progressive new times, especially where our food choices are concerned, as nearly 7 billion people are now standing on the little scraps of land that we share with some 55 billion rather large animals raised for food each year. So, beef (and all factory-farmed meat) may be going from rib-eye to relic as we transition to a greener world... literally - as in leafy, green vegetables. Kale is far more nutritious than other leafy greens, but these seven reasons why it is such an important futurefood may just surprise you...
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Huffington Post - October 5
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Some say cows are killing the earth. So do we need to ban beef?
Full story: The Age, Australia
Australians chew through more red meat a head than Americans, and we export more again. When all those sheep, cattle and goats digest and burp, there are consequences. THE QUESTION: When are we going to hear more about the great elephant in the room - animal agriculture? The CSIRO and the University of Sydney have jointly reported that it is responsible for more that 30 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. Meaningful action in [reducing emissions] cannot be achieved without a general move towards a plant-based diet... Bruce Poon, the research manager for [an Australian] lobby group, Vegetarian Victoria, believes that to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction targets we must not only reduce the number of grazing animals but also regrow forests on a large scale.
Read more... |
The Age, Australia - September 25
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An interview with James Cromwell
Full story: The Green Girls
In this engaging interview with James Cromwell, the actor, producer, writer, Holocaust survivor and vegan talks about the lifestyle changes he's made to help the environment. His passion about life and hope for people to change is contagious. "Are you going to choose life or are you going to choose catastrophe?" he asks.
Read more... |
The Green Girls - February 2009
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| Lifestyles and Trends
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Being vegetarian a dangerous idea: Foer
Full story: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
You wouldn't think being a vegetarian is a dangerous idea. Well, says the American [Eating Animals] author Jonathan Safran Foer, that depends on what you mean by a dangerous idea. ''There are ideas that can literally put you in physical danger, which this one can,'' he says. ''There are ideas that are socially dangerous, which this one is. There are ideas that are dangerous because of their potential to change things in a dramatic way, which this one also is. So by most definitions, I would say that not eating animals is a dangerous idea.'' Foer [was] in Sydney at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, speaking about eating traditions, eating fictions and not eating animals. [See also this article in Digital Journal.]
Read more... |
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - September 22
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"Ethical" cheese is hard to come by
Full story: E-The Environmental Magazine
It turns out that suffering-free cheese is nearly impossible to come by. The problem for sympathetic vegetarians begins with the sourcing of milk. In factory farming dairies, milk cows are typically dosed with bovine growth hormone (BGH) to push milk production to 70 pounds per day or more. BGH promotes mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder. Then there's routine dosing with antibiotics to compensate for the spread of diseases on giant, crowded feedlots. The natural life span of dairy cows is 20-25 years but they are slaughtered at four or five years because they are lame from confinement or otherwise "used up." A spokesperson for organic milk says their milk cows are generally allowed to live a few years longer than those on factory farms but are still slaughtered for beef well before the end of their natural lives. And there is still the issue of what happens to male calves. Milk cows have to be re-impregnated about once a year to maintain milk production, and only the female calves have value as replacement milk cows. In factory farms, male calves are slated for veal production or castrated without painkillers, fattened to maturity and slaughtered.
Read more... |
E-The Environmental Magazine - August 26
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The ethical dilemma inherent in the 'weekday vegetarian' plan
Full story: Care2
We recently watched a 4-minute TED talk, Why I'm a Weekday Vegetarian, by Treehugger.org founder Graham Hill. Hill explained why, despite everything he knows about the cruelty, health problems and environmental destruction associated with meat-eating, he wasn't a vegetarian. "Why was I stalling?" he asks in the face of the truth that "my common sense and good intentions were in conflict with my tastebuds." Hill's answer is to become what he calls a "weekday vegetarian," someone who is vegetarian during the week and chooses whatever he or she wants on the weekend. Such a plan, if adopted widely, would dramatically reduce meat consumption and thereby diminish the abuse and death of billions of animals, the environmental harm caused by their production and the number of heart attacks, strokes, cancers and incidences of diabetes. So why wasn't I more enthusiastic when I heard his talk?
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Global celebrities join the fight to ban shark finning
Full story: Care2
 [In September], the California State Senate approved a bill that would ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fins inside state borders. Up to 73 million sharks each year are slaughtered to make shark fin soup, a popular Asian delicacy. Shark finning is a cruel and wasteful practice - captured at sea and hauled on deck, the sharks are often still alive while their fins are sliced off [and then usually put back into the water to suffer a slow, agonizing death]. The bill, AB 376, now sits on the desk of Governor Jerry Brown, waiting to be signed into law, and celebrities around the world are raising their voices to ensure that he does just that. [Watch the ad in support of the campaign at the link. The governor signed the bill into law on October 7.]
Read more... |
Veggie celebs: 'Tree of Life' star Jessica Chastain's 'beautiful year'
Full story: Canada.com
Her high cheekbones and sea-green eyes can seduce the lens in a single glance, but Jessica Chastain's screen presence isn't really rooted in the physical... Money and career just aren't priorities for Chastain: "The most important thing in my life, and the thing I try to focus on, is to try not to live a life of cruelty,'' she says. "That means trying to make sure I look people in the eye when I meet them and have a real experience of what it is to communicate with someone. I try to live a life where . . .'' Chastain's green eyes look down at the carpet for a brief moment before re- engaging. "I don't normally get into this, but I'm a vegan. And I try not to, well, I don't want to torture anything.'' Chastain smiles at the dramatic sound of it all and laughs, ever so gently. "I guess it's about trying to live a life where I'm not contributing to the cruelty in the world. . . . While I am on this planet, I want everyone I meet to know that I am grateful they are here.''
Read more... |
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| Animal Issues and Advocacy
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Animal cruelty: Who is to blame?
Full story: Care2
When thinking about it honestly, most of us would be hard-pressed to find it in ourselves to slaughter an animal - or to rip off her skin, or slice open her body to remove the entrails, or butcher her flesh into supermarket-sized pieces... And yet, we continue to ask others to do it for us, while most people refuse to even watch these things on video or hear others describe them. There is something very unjust about the fact that we delegate the most obscene work of our society to a select few who are emotionally hardened enough to carry it out, only to later denigrate them for their disconnection from their natural sense of empathy... We cannot separate ourselves from depravity simply because we have found a way to tuck the dirty deeds out of sight. As expressed so eloquently by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
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Animal-rights groups defined as terrorists on Canadian government website
Full story: Montreal Gazette
A [Canadian] government agency responsible for tracking financial transactions to ensure they aren't used for illicit purposes has identified animal rights activists and "environmental extremists" as terrorist groups on a website rife with references to al-Qaida. The page is part of an online terrorism-financing tutorial hosted by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre.
Read more... |
Montreal Gazette - October 13
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Q&A: Using the law in defense of animals
Full story: E-The Environmental Magazine
Joyce Tischler is a California attorney who co-founded the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a collective of attorneys and supporters who are advancing anti-cruelty legislation, encouraging enforcement of animal protection laws and taking steps to bring the field of animal law into the mainstream. Tischler served as the group's executive director for 25 years and now serves as its general counsel. Here, she talks to E about where animal law is headed, the BP spill and the environmental - and health - impacts of ignoring factory farms... "Our goal is to get animal law taught in every accredited law school," she says.
Read more... |
E-The Environmental Magazine - August 26
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Finland: No justice for animals
Full story: Huffington Post
In December 2009, Finnish media outlets stunned and outraged the nation by publishing disturbing video and photographs from inside 30 pig factory farms, the result of a two-month undercover investigation by the leading Finnish animal rights group, Justice for Animals. Now, almost two years later, the events have taken a truly incredible turn. Instead of charging a single pig factory farmer with cruelty to animals, Finnish authorities are prosecuting the two activists who made the undercover videos. The charges are "aggravated defamation" of the nation's pig farmers and "disturbing the peace." What makes this prosecution so startling is that not one person has disputed the authenticity of the images, nor claimed that the filming involved break-ins or property damage of any kind. But the logic of this prosecution - at least to Finnish authorities - is clear: the conditions at the pig farms, while accurately recorded, are in themselves legal, therefore making their exposure illegal and defamatory.
Read more... |
Huffington Post - September 22
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Animal sentience: Remarkable video - fish uses tool
Full story: Care2
Humans had long thought they were the only species capable of using tools. Then in the 1960s, Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees using them. Later birds were seen as tool users. Now, thanks to [University of California] professor Giacomo Bernardi, fish can be seen utilizing this skill. The video [at the link] shows an orange-dotted tuskfish digging in the sand for a clam, then carrying the shell fish in his mouth for quite a distance looking for a rock large enough to toss the clam and break it. "The fish is planning the whole action. It's really interesting," states Bernardi. "The fish is doing a number of really complex things."
Read more... |
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| Of Note - Recipes, Blogs, Events, More
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Recipes - Holiday Fare
 Bryanna Clark Grogan, author of eight vegan cookbooks, including the new World Vegan Feast has amazing holiday recipes on her website - and, as always, our recipes pages have lots of great recipes for the holidays - search for "French-Canadian" to find vegan versions of traditional French-Canadian holiday fare ("francaise" for some traditional choices in French).
Bryanna Clark Grogan's Vegan Feast holiday recipes
VegE-News recipes and tips
Podcasts/Blogs/Websites
"When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores" - A quote by William C. Roberts, M.D., editor, American Journal of Cardiology featured on The Herbivore Awareness Project site where you can compare the anatomy of herbivores and carnivores.
The Herbivore Awareness Project
Videos
Dr. Michael Klaper is a genuine healer, in the best sense of the word. He's a brilliant, warm-hearted individual, and a lecture of his was largely responsible for yours truly going vegan 21 years ago. His charm, good sense, compassion and enthusiasm have not waned one bit since then. Watch this video and imagine how nice it would be if all doctors were like this.
Also this month:
What can happen when just one person takes the time to care - Gar, a fish almost as big as its tanks is freed to swim - aptly featured on the Care2 website.
'Alligator' Gar Freed: Watch Him Swim For First Time!
Calls to action
Animal Advocates has a petition on Care2 to stop the Ukraine from shooting stray cats and dogs and burning them alive. More info and the petition at the link.
Tell Ukraine to stop burning animals alive
Farm Sanctuary's annual Adopt-A-Turkey project is in full swing with Ellen Degeneres as its spokesperson.
Adopt-A-Turkey
The Center for Food Safety in the U.S. recently filed a formal legal petition with FDA [Food & Drug Administration] demanding that the agency require the labeling of genetically engineered foods. They are spearheading a drive with over 350 other organizations and businesses in the Just Label It! Campaign, to direct one million comments to the FDA in support of their petition.
Tell the FDA to label genetically engineered foods
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Events
Farm Sanctuary Walk for Farm Animals, continuing to November 6
Farm Sanctuary’s Walk for Farm Animals is a series of annual fundraising and outreach events that take place in cities across the United States and Canada, plus anyone can participate virtually. The walks raise vital funds for Farm Sanctuary's life-saving rescue, education and advocacy work and create awareness about the plight of farm animals. You can also join the virtual "Sleep In for Farm Animals" - register below.
Farm Sanctuary's Walk for Farm Animals
Farm Sanctuary's Sleep In for Farm Animals
National Conference to end factory farming, October 27-29, Washington, D.C.
The agriculture industry's operating principle is "more, at any cost" with inevitable consequences for our planet and our health, not to mention the mind-numbing cruelty involved. Farm Sanctuary's first ever and only conference of its size to focus exclusively on factory farming, this event promises to equip attendees for advocacy and explore opportunities for collaboration between movements and organizations. One collaborative project already realized is the new mircrosite Plate to Planet.
Conference
Plate to Planet
Vegan Retreat at Sthitaprajna, India, Dec 2011, Jan 2012 & Aug 2012
The Indian Vegan Society says that at Sthitaprajna one learns to live life in a state of constant happiness with good health and in harmony with nature using minimum resources. Sounds good!
Vegan retreat in India
Search our archives
Looking for articles on specific topics, or sure you saw one awhile ago that you want to revisit or forward? Just visit our home page and search archived issues.
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