Eat veg for two - the earth and you - on Earth Day, April 22
In this edition...
Featured Video |
 Melanie Joy: "Carnism: The Psychology of Eating Meat" |
Health |
| 'The global food system is causing a public health disaster' |
| Red meat definitively tied to increased mortality risk |
| Happy to be vegetarian: Study shows vegetarians have better moods than omnivores |
Environment |
| Shrimp's carbon footprint is 10 times greater than beef's |
| Water pollution from farming is worsening, costing billions |
| Big food must go: Why we need to radically change the way we eat |
Lifestyles and Trends |
| Is vegan the new viagra? |
| Mark Bittman: Finally fake chicken worth eating |
| Is America beyond peak meat? |
| Eating out: easier to find vegan options in U.S., UK than Australia |
Animal Issues and Advocacy |
| The fight to save a pig named Dragon |
| New law makes it a crime to record cruelty |
| Australia: More calls for live-export ban after 3000 cattle die |
| More [good] news about [bad] gestation crates |
| Livestock association buys Animals Australia websites |
Books and Perspectives |
| Are we 'comfortably unaware' while our diet is depleting the planet? |
| The human cost of animal suffering |
| Food activist and vegan chef Bryant Terry talks about his 'inspired' new book |
| 'Sexy vegan' turns comic videos into cookbook success story |
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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.)
Featured Video 
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Melanie Joy: "Carnism: The Psychology of Eating Meat"
Full story: Dr. McDougall
A must-see enthralling and revealing presentation
that explores and explains our disconnect between animals as pets and meat.
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Dr. McDougall - Advanced Study Weekend February 2012
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| Health
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'The global food system is causing a public health disaster'
Full story: Guardian, UK
The global food system is making people sick in both rich and poor countries, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, warned, as he called for a range of dramatic measures to overhaul it and tackle what he described as an international "public health disaster." The report marks a significant increase in pressure on agribusiness. De Schutter has previously highlighted the way the system of global food trade marginalises farmers in developing countries and threatens food security. But it is the first time he has produced a full report on the burden of disease the system also inflicts on western consumers. One in seven people remain undernourished today while at the same time more than 1.3 billion people around the world are overweight or obese. The solutions offered by agribusiness of more hi-tech or fortified foods cannot solve the problems, which are systemic, according to De Schutter.
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Red meat definitively tied to increased mortality risk
Full story: ABC, U.S.
 Eating a single serving of red meat per day [about the size of a deck of cards] may raise the risk of early death, a new study found. The study, which followed more than 120,000 American men and women, linked daily consumption of unprocessed red meat with a 13 per cent increase in mortality risk. A daily serving of processed meat carried an even bigger risk. Eating one hotdog or two strips of bacon per day was associated with a 20 per cent increased risk of death, according to the study. "I think the public health message is pretty straightforward," said [Harvard researcher] Hu. "We should switch from a red meat-based diet to a plant-based diet with healthier protein choices." [Editor's note: Unfortunately such studies can lead to an increase in the number of animals that suffer.]
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Happy to be vegetarian: Study shows vegetarians have better moods than omnivores
Full story: This Dish is Veg
If you think you're happier than your non-vegetarian friends, there is new evidence to suggest that you may not be imagining it. A study conducted by Dr. Bonnie Beezhold, Assistant Professor of Nutrition at Benedictine University, and Dr. Carol Johnston, Professor of Nutrition at Arizona State University School of Nutrition and Health Promotion, suggests that following a vegetarian diet free of meat, fish and poultry may reduce short-term mood disturbance in omnivores. [See also Dr. Michael Greger's article and video.]
Read more... |
This Dish is Veg - March 12
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| Environment
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Shrimp's carbon footprint is 10 times greater than beef's
Full story: Mother Jones
It turns out, not surprisingly, that plates mounded with cheap shrimp float on a veritable sea of ecological and social trouble. In his excellent 2008 book Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, the Canadian journalist Taras Grescoe took a hard look at the Asian operations that supply our shrimp. His conclusion: "The simple fact is, if you're eating cheap shrimp today, it almost certainly comes from a turbid, pesticide- and antibiotic-filled, virus-laden pond in the tropical climes of one of the world's poorest nations." Lest anyone think otherwise, these factory farms generate poverty in the nations that house them, as Grescoe demonstrates; they privatize and cut down highly productive mangrove forests that once sustained fishing communities, leaving fetid dead zones in their wake.
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Mother Jones - February 22
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Water pollution from farming is worsening, costing billions
Full story: Bloomberg
Water pollution from agriculture is costing billions of dollars a year in developed countries and is set to rise in China and India as farmers race to increase food production, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. Costs from agricultural pollution include money spent treating water to remove nitrates, phosphates and pesticide chemicals as well as paying farmers to store manure safely [very difficult with large factory farm operations] and block contamination from reaching waterways, according to the study. Environmental contamination such as algal blooms also adds to the bill. In Australia, the cost of algal blooms may be as high as $155 million while the price of eutrophication of surface and coast waters in France could reach as much as $1.4 billion, according to the study.
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Big food must go: Why we need to radically change the way we eat
Full story: AlterNet
[By Christopher D. Cook, author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis.] It is time for an end to Big Food, and a societal shift to something radically different. Big Food has attained phenomenal and destructive power over what we eat - our diets, our health and the planet. Consider a few quick facts: Four corporations control more than half of grocery sales [in the U.S.]. Three companies own 47 per cent of the world's seeds. Nearly every major commodity - wheat, corn, soy - is controlled by just four corporations. This corporate occupation of our food isn't just unfair and wrong; it's impractical and destructive. It's ruining farmers, the land and our future food supply. We cannot solve this simply by going vegetarian or vegan, or buying organic and fair trade. To truly "occupy the food system" we will need nothing less than a fundamental restructuring of the economics and policies that currently enable our corporate food system.
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| Lifestyles and Trends
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Is vegan the new viagra?
Full story: Fox40 News
 It seems almost natural; the older we get, the more health problems we have. One of the peskier problems though happens in the bedroom: sexual and erectile dysfunction. While many have turned to the little blue pill, author Ruben Guzman said that doesn't have to be the case. Guzman says ditch meat and dairy and go vegan. If it sounds crazy, Guzman said there is science behind the madness.
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Mark Bittman: Finally fake chicken worth eating
Full story: New York Times
Really: Would I rather eat cruelly raised, polluting, unhealthful chicken, or a plant product that's nutritionally similar or superior, good enough to fool me and requires no antibiotics, cutting off of heads or other nasty things? Isn't it preferable, at least some of the time, to eat plant products mixed with water that have been put through a thingamajiggy that spews out meatlike stuff, instead of eating those same plant products put into a chicken that does its biomechanical thing for the six weeks of its miserable existence, only to have its throat cut in the service of yielding barely distinguishable meat? Why, in other words, use the poor chicken as a machine to produce meat when you can use a machine to produce "meat" that seems like chicken? [Video at the link. Also see Vegan Outreach, Vegan.com and Mother Jones reactions. MJ suggests eating "whole food" alternatives like falafels, tempeh, and tofu instead.]
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Is America beyond peak meat?
Full story: TriplePundit
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average meat intake for Americans peaked at 184 pounds (84.5 kilograms) a person in 2004. By 2011, that amount dropped to 171 pounds, and projections for 2012 indicate even more of a decrease to 166 pounds per person this year. So what is going on? A convergence of forces are at work: a bad economy has forced families to cut back on their food expenditures; concurrent rising prices due to the increased costs of energy and commodities; and concerns over health, the environment, animal welfare and industrial meat production. [Unfortunately other countries are increasing consumption with increased wealth.]
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Eating out: easier to find vegan options in U.S., UK than Australia
Full story: Sydney Morning Herald
How easy is to find vegetarian food on restaurant menus? That depends on where you are and what kind of vegetarian you are - and it helps to be in love with quiche, risotto or pasta with tomato sauce, the standard veggie options in many places. If you eat eggs and dairy products, the choices are wider, but for vegans it's trickier - unless you're in a big U.S. [or Canadian] city. On a trip to Chicago, Ondine Sherman, managing director of the [Australian] animal protection organisation Voiceless, found so many vegan friendly restaurants she was spoilt for choice. But while Australian restaurants increasingly offer a vegetarian option and are happy to 'vegetarianise' dishes by removing ingredients like prosciutto, many meatless offerings rely heavily on cheese, she says - and the term 'vegan' can leave the wait staff scratching their heads. [Happy Cow helps you find veg eateries all over the world.]
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Sydney Morning Herald - March 20
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| Animal Issues and Advocacy
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The fight to save a pig named Dragon
Full story: Care2
I received an early morning call from an animal welfare group that needed someone to rescue a 4H pig named Dragon, who was about to be auctioned off for slaughter. Apparently, this pig was a 4H project for a group of special needs students that had no idea of the impending fate of their beloved pig. Well, this sounded like a job for me. The group wired me enough money to win the bid on Dragon, and I left... The bidding became a bidding war that I could not win.
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New law makes it a crime to record cruelty
Full story: Huffington Post
Iowa became the first [U.S.] state to make it a crime to surreptitiously get into a farming operation to record video of animal abuse. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad signed the law despite protests, letters and campaigns launched on Twitter and Facebook by animal welfare groups that have used secretly taped videos to sway public opinion against what they consider cruel practice. But Branstad's action wasn't a surprise. Iowa is the nation's leading pork and egg producer, and the governor has strong ties to the state's agricultural industry. [See Mercy for Animal's reaction. Also at the link: Scroll down for an informative talk on animal law by Kathy Hessler, Director Animal Law Clinic, Lewis & Clark Law School.]
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Huffington Post - March 2
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Australia: More calls for live-export ban after 3000 cattle die
Full story: Stock & Land, Australia
An animal welfare disaster resulting in the death of more than half the 5000 cattle on board a Brazilian-owned live export ship bound for Egypt over the past fortnight has prompted renewed calls to ban the industry. Animals Australia has described the incident as one of the worst shipboard disasters the live export industry has seen in many years. The animal rights group has also pleaded with the Australian industry and government sources to provide emergency assistance for the surviving cattle, utilising its vast overseas resources.
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Stock & Land, Australia - March 8
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More [good] news about [bad] gestation crates
Full story: New York Times
Another significant victory in the fight to ban sow gestation crates: Compass Group USA whose UK parent company is the largest food service company in the world - announced that it plans to eliminate the crates from its U.S. pork supply chain by 2017. Last month, McDonald's announced that it is requiring all of its pork suppliers to submit plans for phasing out gestation crates. Compass-owned Bon Appétit Management Company also committed last month to eliminate gestation crates (and hen battery cages) by 2015. Critics of the crates oppose them for obvious reasons (watch for yourself, if you like), while advocates - usually those in the industrial livestock business - suggest that the alternative system, group housing pens, often leads to fighting and the unequal distribution of food. Group pens may be more labor- and capital-intensive, but I have a hard time believing that they could possibly be more cruel.
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Livestock association buys Animals Australia websites
Full story: Weeklytimesnow, Australia
Animals Australia is describing Meat and Livestock Australia's move to buy web domains containing the words animals and Australia as "bizarre." The move has lead Animals Australia to question MLA's motives and in a tongue and cheek game the group launched a competition asking people what they think the peak livestock meat group plans to do with the sites. Animals Australia spokeswoman Lisa Chalk [said] MLA's motives were yet to be seen. She said the organisation was surprised at first and then flattered. "This is clear recognition that the work we are doing to expose and address animal cruelty is having an impact." She said if MLA chose to donate the sites to Animals Australia the group would be "very grateful."
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Weeklytimesnow, Australia - March 14
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| Books and Perspectives
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Are we 'comfortably unaware' while our diet is depleting the planet?
Full story: Care2
As vast as Global Warming may seem, it is only a small piece in the growing puzzle of Global Depletion, which refers to the loss of all of Earth's renewable and non-renewable resources. One of the few books that captures the whole scope of Global Depletion is Comfortably Unaware, by Dr. Richard A. Oppenlander. This book reaches deep into the heart of the issue, where society seems to avoid looking. The animal industry simultaneously destroys our planet's air, water, diversity, soil, atmosphere, and our own health. "Please understand: this book is not about animal rights, although this is a very noble concern." says Oppenlander. The book simply lays on the table the bare facts that everyone has a right to know about what is being done to the place we live without our knowledge.
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The human cost of animal suffering
Full story: New York Times
If we want a not-too-damaged planet to live on, we're better off eating less meat. But if we also want a not-too-damaged psyche, we have to look at how we treat animals and begin to change it. We can start by owning up to the fact that our system is industrialized. Those who haven't seen this, or believe it to be a myth perpetrated by PETA, might consider reading Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat. [The book] shatters any belief you might have about the system treating animals with a shred of decency. What makes Every Twelve Seconds different from (for example) a Mercy for Animals exposé is, says Pachirat, "that the day-in and day-out experience produces invisibility. Industrialized agriculture perpetuates concealment at every level of the process, and rather than focusing on the shocking examples we should be focusing on the system itself."
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New York Times - March 13
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Food activist and vegan chef Bryant Terry talks about his 'inspired' new book
Full story: Bet.com
For the past 10 years, Bryant Terry has been a vocal part of a food justice movement whose goal is to fight for better access to quality and sustainable foods in communities of color and low-income communities. Whether he is giving lectures, teaching cooking classes or writing books, Terry is trying to better our health, one recipe at a time. BET.com sat down with Terry to discuss his new book, The Inspired Vegan, why white people didn't invent healthy eating and why the key to better health begins with the food we eat.
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'Sexy vegan' turns comic videos into cookbook success story
Full story: OregonLive, U.S.
 "I started out doing a little thing to entertain my friends," Brian L. Patton, a Los Angeles chef, says. "I decided to do a little cooking demo and to make it a spoof in some ways of regular cooking shows. I called it 'The Sexy Vegan' because I thought people would click on it. It was ironic and funny because people think, 'Oh, this must be a girl in a bikini.' And then they click on it and it's this guy." From there, Patton's videos took off, prompting more videos and bigger audiences as social media helped them catch fire. The popularity of the videos got the attention of publishers, leading to this month's publication of The Sexy Vegan Cookbook. We caught up with Patton recently to find out how eating plants changed his life, why more men are now considering veganism, and how to make truly killer mashed potatoes.
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OregonLive, U.S. - March 20
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