The subtitle to a fantastic article by Michael Pollan pretty much sums up just about everything we believe when it comes to diet:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Read more about us...
We posted a new article: Red Meat Consumption Linked Yet Again to Increased Cancer Risk. This July 2, 2008 article details a study on diet and cancer. Researchers found that people who consumed the most red meat had a 25 percent higher risk of developing colorectal cancer in the study period compared with those who ate the least, and a 20 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer. Yikes! Lung cancer increase linked to diet. It doesn't say whether these participants also had other risk factors, such as if they smoked or not.
A recent article in the New York Times on June 11 entitled Questions on U.S. Beef Remain prompted me to write up the following quick quiz. See how many you get correct.
Ready for the answers?
See below...
It's been a while since I've posted something food-related, but there's a storm brewing thanks to the decision to put corn into our gas tanks. There are food riots in several countries now and the price of food in the U.S. continues to rise as farmers plow under crops for wheat and soy in favor of corn because of the nation's crazy thirst for oil.
First up is a great article called Grains Gone Wild from the New York Times that really summarizes the current situation. It seems that the invasion of Iraq that was supposed to eventually lead to cheaper oil has instead created an oil shortage. The New York times article As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation Program paints an even worse picture. It seems that not only are farmers plowing under other crops in favor of corn, but they're turning away the government subsidy paid to them in order to preserve some fields for conservation. It seems that the subsidies can't compete with the current price paid for crops.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel continues to amaze me. They've published not just one, but two, vegetarian-related articles in their paper recently. Sure, it helps that the Milwaukee Brewers' first baseman, Prince Fielder, went veg back in February. It's only been a week, but he's hitting .364 in the new season. Anyway, Karen Herzog wrote Fit for a Prince this past week about vegetarian tailgaters during opening day at Miller Park, and Stan Miller recently wrote An alternative to meat, an article that detailed some vegetarian eats around town.
Wow! Now here's some serious news you can sink your teeth into. The Milwaukee Brewers' first baseman, Prince Fielder, has become a vegetarian. Hey, when the baseball world's turned upside with ballplayers shooting themselves up with artificial hormones just to get an edge over everyone else, Prince Fielder should be lauded for actually going in the opposite direction with what he puts into his body.
And sure, I know it's the Internet but do a Google search and you'll find quite a few sites pointing out that Hank Aaron is supposedly a vegetarian, as well as Packers Superbowl MVP Desmond Howard. Protein is protein — no matter from where is comes. Prince will have to eat his share of vegetables to get it — but he WILL get it.
A quote we like:
How we treat the creation reveals how we feel about the creator.
- Pastor Rob Bell
Kathy's currently reading Bird Flu: A Virus of our own Hatching by Michael Greger. It's not the most uplifting reading, but it talks about the fact that all mammalian flu viruses originated with birds or pigs and that our current hunger for low-priced meat is pushing factory farming to limits that will once again cause a pandemic. This time, however, it's not the "mere" 5% that would die as in the 1918 epidemic since the current strain of Avian Flu (H5N1) has officially killed half of its human victims.
There's a great quote in the book about how in 2002, ConAgra had to recall 19 million pounds of E.coli-contaminated beef:
Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen the headline USDA orders recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef. That's the record, my friends, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten. Yay! No need to actually recall it or dispose of it now!If 19 million pounds of meat distributed to half of this country had been contaminated with a deadly strain of E.coli bacteria by terrorists, we'd go nuts. But when it is done by a Fortune 100 corporation, we continue to buy it and feed it to our kids.
Our recent issue of Consumer Reports had an article entitled Authorities investigate big rise in beef contamination that mentioned some shortfalls in the food safety system. A couple of points that were made that made eating meat just frightening:
Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler from the New York Times on January 27, 2008 asks: Got vegetables? The days of eating 200 pounds of meat a year may be on the way out.
On a different note, Corn-based fuel fares poorly in new analysis is an interesting article that points to studies that show that ethanol from corn, soy, and sugarcane may be worse overall than fossil fuels in terms of environmental costs. It's bad enough that the government is heavily subsidizing corn to the point where it's pushed out crops such as soy and wheat (and prices for everything are now on the rise), but what are we supposed to use? This study mentions switchgrass, as did the article I posted on January 13 entitled Biofuels on a Big Scale.
First, a very short article entitled A High Price for Healthy Food whose most-interesting paragraph states:
...a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods. However, most people eat a mix of foods. The average American spends about $7 a day on food, although low-income people spend about $4, says Dr. Drewnowski.You may not read it here too often, but we just find it an interesting correlation that one can draw that as we spend less on food, we spend more on health care. There are always those who say that it costs too much to eat organic food, or locally-grown food. Still, which would you rather spend your money on in your lifetime — healthy food or pricey drugs?
Meanwhile, here is a surprising site by the Evangelical Climate Initiative called www.ChristiansAndClimate.org. While this might not represent all Evangelicals, it was interesting to see that they've concluded that global warming is real. The site states:
Christians, noting the fact that most of the climate change problem is human induced, are reminded that when God made humanity he commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures. Climate change is the latest evidence of our failure to exercise proper stewardship, and constitutes a critical opportunity for us to do better (Gen. 1:26-28).Amen!
"Vegetarians and vegans are not morally superior to everyone else. We're simply healthier, and a hell of a lot better for the environment around us."— Howard Lyman (in "No More Bull!" p. 78)
Here are some wickedly-good articles we recommend you read:
Also, check out these superbly clever posters from SquareMeals.org that you can order. Kathy had these scenes of animals made out of everyday vegetables posted at the kids' grade school:
Lastly, we've added a couple of new restaurant reviews, one good and one ugly:
The authors have taken some of their case studies and expanded them to fill a good portion of this book. The brief versions of those are available on their website. There's great insight in this book, along with fascinating challenges. For example, there's the idea that recycling may cause more harm than good because of the amount of energy involved coupled with the fact that original product is actually "downcycled" into something less durable. For example, recycled paper needs chlorine added to it, so you end up with chemically-soaked paper to use. It's a trade-off, therefore: your original nearly-chlorine-free paper or the recycled version?
Challenges such as these abound throughout the book. For example, there's excessive littering in China with the wrappers from fast-food products. The authors challenge those fast-food makers to use biodegradable food wrappers from rice husks which are abundant (and therefore cheap) as well as biodegradable. Those food wrappers could then me laced with a tiny bit of nitrogen and have seeds embedded in them. At that point, you might see signs in China that actually say "Please Litter". It's stories like these that litter (ha!) this book and make it a quick but worthwhile read. Oh, and the book itself is not printer on paper, but instead on waterproof recycled materials.
Great summary of the recent report by the AICR (American Institute for Cancer Research) that processed meat, red meat, and being overweight are incredibly likely causes of cancer. The article in USA Today that I read ("Study strongly links fat, cancer" , November 1, 2007) had an annoying quote from Mary Young of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association that says they engaged scientists to review the scientific literature and they concluded that there is no evidence red meat causes cancer! Gee, I wonder why THEY would say that.
An article Scott found about a month ago entitled Diet Plans' Heart Health Compared had some interesting things to say about today's current diet fads. Researchers compared eight popular diets. Scoring was based on seven dietary components that strongly affect heart disease risk: fruits, vegetables, nuts and soy, ratio of white to red meat, fiber, trans fat, and ratio of polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats. The Ornish diet, the Weight-Watchers high-carb diet, and the and New Glucose Revolution rank high, but the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet rank low. The USDA diet is not high, but right in the middle.
Weed it and Reap is the new article by Michael Pollan on the upcoming Farm Bill. Sure, there's some great new programs proposed in the Farm Bill, but Pollan states:
We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap.This commodity title he speaks of is the fact that corn is so heavily subsidized that it is fed to us in every store-bought product (just read your labels) as well as fed to nearly every feedlot animal. Essentially, America is mostly eating corn, be it HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) or some other form. Here is another great quote from the article:
Why does the farm bill pay feedlots to install waste treatment systems rather than simply pay ranchers to keep their animals on grass, where the soil would be only too happy to treat their waste at no cost?So...what is the solution? According to Pollan, providing assistance when it is really needed as opposed to the outright subsidizing of a single crop:
A more radical alternative proposed by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, would scrap the current subsidy system and replace it with a form of free government revenue insurance for all American farmers and ranchers, including the ones who grow actual food. Commodity farmers would receive a payment only when their income dropped more than 15 percent as the result of bad weather or price collapse. The $20 billion saved under this plan, called the Fresh Act, would go to conservation and nutrition programs, as well as to deficit reduction.
Dr. McDougall's email list provided a ridiculously good story about Ellen Jaffe Jones who has the following medical history yet is 54 years old and on no medications:
When I was five years old my aunt died of breast cancer in our home. My mother and sister also had breast cancer. My mother later died of Alzheimer’s, but she also had diabetes, osteoporosis, and had had several open-heart procedures. Both of my sisters have heart disease, and my sister who hasn’t had cancer has diabetes. In addition, both of my parents and their parents had diabetes.It's one worth reading, as are all the success stories of people who are experiencing positive weight loss and recovery from pain and disease due to the adoption of a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Along those same lines, an article entitled How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes points out that:
Here's a really good 10-minute video on YouTube entitled How to Get Fat Without Even Trying. It's a great introduction into one of our favorite food topics regarding how the government subsidizes the foods which make you fat (corn syrup!) and not the ones that keep you healthy (such as fruits and veggies).
The cartoon shown above was sent to me by a co-worker, but it inspired me to research rennet a bit more...
Rennet is essentially a bunch of enzymes produced in the stomach of mammals to help the offspring digest the mother's milk. One of the enzymes causes the milk to coagulate, to curdle or separate into solids (curds) and liquid (whey). Now you understand what Little Miss Muffet was eating. Couldn’t tell ya why she'd wanna eat it, but now at least you know what it is: curds and whey are the solid and liquid results of curdled milk.For cow's milk cheese, the rennet is extracted from the fourth stomach of young calves. And where would you find an abundance of young calf stomachs? The veal industry, of course. The stomachs used to get rennet are a by-product of veal production. Each ruminant animal produces the special kind of rennet needed to digest that species' mother's milk, so there is kid-goat rennet especially for goat’s milk cheese and lamb-rennet for sheep’s-milk cheese.
Read even more at http://www.compassionatecooks.com/blog/.
8 Foods You Should Eat Every Day
This article from Best Life Magazine highlights: spinach, yogurt, tomatoes, carrots,
blueberries, black beans, walnuts, and oats. The article points out why each food is so
worthwhile, highlighting effects like sexual enhancement, muscle growth, brain stimulation,
and more. Walnuts, for example, are:
Richer in heart-healthy omega-3s than salmon, loaded with more anti-inflammatory polyphenols than red wine, and packing half as much muscle-building protein as chicken...
Here's more proof that the vegetarian diet is beneficial:
Scott's most recent bloodwork statistics:
| Statistic: | Scott: | Optimal: |
|---|---|---|
| Cholesterol | 113 | Less than 200 |
| HDL Cholesterol | 36 | Greater than 32 |
| LDL Cholesterol | 62 | Less than 130 |
| Chol./HDL Ratio | 3.1 | Ratio less than 4.5 |
| Triglcerides | 77 | Less than 150 |
| Glucose | 94 | Between 50 and 99 |
Anyway, we've posted a great editorial entitled The Farmer's Nightmare
printed August 10, 2007 in the New York Times. Also here is a goofy vegetarian joke we encountered recently:
Why did the tomato blush? Because it saw the salad dressing.
Oh, and a co-worker gave me a variation on a quote from Jack Lalanne regarding
his long life and health:
If god made it, eat it. If man made it, don't.
Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water. In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
We've added a review of the new Shiraz Persion Grill that just opened on Oakland Avenue. This is a decent option for fast-food vegetarian, but they missed on just enough things to not really make this is favorable dining option.
Also, we've culled some facts from the June 2007 McDougall newsletter article entitled Confessions of a Fish Killer. There's a misunderstanding that fish is actually health food, when it is not. Here is a frightening quote from that article:
Reliable predictions warn that by the middle of this century (2048) all fish and seafood species will have collapsed — they will be extinct or on the verge of extinction.
"There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig — an animal easily as intelligent as a dog — that becomes the Christmas ham." — An Animal's Place, by Michael Pollan, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 10, 2002.
McDougall ran a great article on protein in his newsletter this month.
In it, he talks about how America's protein requirements are grossly overstated, and that
this excess protein is the cause of many of today's leading illnesses.
"Our greatest time of growth — thus, the time of our greatest need for
protein — is during our first 2 years of life — we double in size. At this
vigorous developmental stage our ideal food is human milk, which is 5%
protein. Compare this need to food choices that should be made as
adults — when we are not growing. Rice is 8% protein, corn 11%, oatmeal
15%, and beans 27%.8 Thus protein deficiency is impossible when
calorie needs are met by eating unprocessed starches and vegetables."
A recent article entitled Arsenic In Chicken Production appeared in the April 9, 2007 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. It states that about 70 percent of chickens in the U.S. are fed arsenic (to promote growth, stave off disease, and so on). This arsenic coverts into inorganic arsenic within the bird and becomes a known carcinogen. The European Union banned arsenic additives in 1999 yet they're still used here. Arsenic — in chicken?!
Also, we've added a review of bd's Mongolian Barbeque to the vegetarian restaurants in Milwaukee section.
Speaker at U. Oregon: Meat-eaters to blame for global warming
Key points:
The Healthy School Lunches site has a great list of resouces that make for very interesting reading. As we work on improving the lunch program in our own school district, I know that we'll be refering back to this site frequently.
For some good fun, check out a segment from one of our favorite shows, The Colbert Report entitled Milk and Hormones.
Ever read the Wikipedia entry for milk? I'm pretty impressed by this entry. There's a section on the health "benefits" but then an even bigger section on the detriments and controversies. It's not a huge article, but it's pretty well-written and talks about how a good portion of the milk in the U.S. would be illegal to sell in Europe or Canada because of pus or rBGH content. Interesting fact: skim milk is 0.1% fat but is allowed to be called "fat free" according to USDA guidelines.
Wisconsin consumers buy $19 billion worth of food products annually but only 0.1% of those purchases are made directly from state farmers. A bill Senator Alberta Darling is supporting, known as the Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin Initiative, creates a marketing and promotion program that will help connect restaurants and consumers with more locally-grown food products.
The Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin initiative will shift 10 percent of the state's consumer and business food expenditures to foods grown by Wisconsin’s producers. The goal is to improve Wisconsin's economy and consumer access to fresh, healthy food. The Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin initiative will reduce the distance from farm to table as a result of individuals, local businesses, schools, and other institutions purchasing foods directly from Wisconsin farms.
A Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin email discussion list is now available.
Scott's added a new story, Going "Veg", to the stories section.
Also, there is a great new article out entitled Five reasons why Americans must stop eating animals that is worth reading. In short, the reasons it gives are:
Well, Scott didn't win the VegNews Magazine vegetarian Haiku contest, but he's entered another contest with the following tofu-related Haiku:
Of all the choices
Tofu is my favorite
Substitute for meatTofu any style
So satisfies the palette
Sweet bliss to ensue
(This one is actually by Gillie and Carly)
Tofu is good to
Eat instead of all that meat
Because it's yummy!
Two thousand years ago, in this Bible passage, Paul asked for tolerance between meat eaters and vegetarians (Romans 14:1-2). "One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does..."
We've added a potlucks section to the vegetarian restaurants in Milwaukee page as well as a review of Barossa.
Here is a joke that Gillie made up:
Q: What kind of dog that doesn't eat meat?
A: A vegiterrier!
Also, Scott entered a vegetarian Haiku contest from VegNews magazine but lost. Here was his Haiku:
Out of all the beans
Cocoa is my favorite
Substitute for meat
With Passover just around the corner, I thought I'd post a great article entitled Passover and Veganism - A Great Complement.
We finally got around to watching the DVD of Fast Food Nation. While it was right up our alley, we could see how it didn't do well at the box office. It felt mostly like the facts had been taken from Eric Schlosser's book and given to fictional characters as their dialogue.
Anyway, the Vegetarian restaurants in Milwaukee page has been updated and we've added a "world hunger" set of reasons to the Why go Veg? page. There's a new "relgious" section of links on the links page. We've started it off with a link to the Schwartz Collection on Judaism, Vegetarianism, and Animal Rights.
So what are the effects of our diet? Aside from improved energy, shorter illness time, and clear mental faculties, I can also point to our blood test results. Two years ago, pre-vegetarian, Scott's total cholesterol was a pretty good 186. In August of 2006, Scott's total cholesterol was down to 133 and Kathy's was 139. We'll continue to post to see if the fact that we've recently cut out most dairy and eggs has an even further positive effect.
We have started a bulleted list of some reasons for going vegetarian. Also, we added a story by Kathy's sister, Barb.
