THE VEGETARIAN BLOG

The vegan cyberspace continues to grow at amazing speed as more and more people are trying to harness the power of the internet to spread the love for animals and help stop the daily carnage that goes on on animal farms and slaughterhouses. Today I came across Vegan Break, a video-based website/blog run by Michelle Taylor, “a recent graduate from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio”, in Michelle’s own words.

The latest entry in Michelle’s Vegan Break is a review of the Engine 2 Diet book, by firefighter Rip Esselstyn. I haven’t read it but Vegan Break has a very positive review of the book so I may well give it a go. So here goes the video. Thanks Michelle.

A piece of news I saw on the Latin American news agency Ansa lept to my attention. The headline announced that vegetarianism can have a negative effect on sexual performance, which seems to be the exact opposite of what Peta often says. After reading the article, though, I realized it was just a slack attention-grabbing exercise. The editor must have been short of news on the day in order to indulge in such sloppy journalism.

The article was based on statements made by one Nicola Mondaini, a Florence doctor who was making a presentation about an endocrinology event in Milan, Italy, that will take place later this month. Mondaini said that vegetarianism is not necessarily healthy; it’s what you eat that matters. So far, so good. Variety and balance are very important factors. Zinc is also mentioned and it’s true that it’s a very important mineral. It helps wounding and scarring. Seeds are good sources. Avoiding frying food is also important, said Mondaini, and I couldn’t agree more. Steam those vegetables, I say.

So what about the sex issue? Well, it was limited to a brief statement in the last paragraph where Mondaini suggests a Mediterranean diet in order to have a great sex life. And that’s it. Why vegetarianism is linked to a bad sex life is left unexplained, or, at best, vaguely implied. And even so, that would be a false statement. Vegetarianism does not improve or compromise sex life. It’s irrelevant. This is the kind of biased journalism that really gets on my nerves. All the editor wanted was a headline with the word sex in it and if to achieve that it took some creative editing, so be it. Such a shame.

For more information on zinc, go here.

Well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful choices for pregnant women and their children, and vitamin B12 needs can be easily met with fortified foods or any common multivitamin, say doctors and dietitians with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). PCRM released the statement in response to a new Pediatrics study showing that low levels of vitamin B12 may increase the risk for neural tube defects.

The Pediatrics study is based on analysis of stored blood samples originally collected during pregnancy from three groups of Irish women between 1983 and 1990. It’s not clear if any of the women were vegan, but the study clearly states that this population was deliberately chosen because vitamin supplementation and food fortification were rare at that time. The women lived in a region of traditionally high neural tube defects prevalence, suggesting a moderately high genetic predisposition.

Experts agree that pregnant women can thrive on vegan diets. The American Dietetic Association, the nation’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, states that “well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence.” Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat and cholesterol and higher levels of fiber, folate, and cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals.

“Women who follow vegan diets not only have healthy pregnancies, they are often healthier than moms who consume meat,” says Susan Levin, M.S., R.D., staff dietitian with PCRM. “By eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, and other healthful vegetarian foods and including breakfast cereals or other foods fortified with vitamin B12, mothers and their children can obtain all the nutrients they need to thrive.”

Choosing a vegetarian or vegan diet can also help women avoid the unhealthy hormones and environmental toxins found in dairy products, meat, and fish. Analyses of vegetarians’ breast milk show that the levels of environmental contaminants in milk are much lower than in non-vegetarians.

Vitamin B12 needs can be met easily with fortified breakfast cereals and soymilk, which are low in fat and calories. The most convenient and reliable B12 source is a daily multivitamin.

This is what I call a responsible public administrator. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, the city’s health commissioner Dr. Terry Mason has told his constituents to put an end to their meat-eating habits. Apparently, Chicago is big on animal fat (pun intended) and now that they’ve mentioned it, it makes historical sense as the city was the place where the concept of the modern, mechanized slaughterhouse was created, and which is chronicled in the famous book, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair.Of course, animal food is a health hazard and Mr. Mason knows that.

“For the entire month, I’m not eating any meat,” he has told listeners to his Sunday morning radio show, “Doctor in the House,” on WVON-AM. “If it walks, runs, hops, flies, swims, crawls or slithers, I won’t eat it. If it has eyes, I won’t eat it. If it had a momma and a daddy, I won’t eat it. . . . I’m going to focus on eating a healthy and delicious variety of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. . . . And I want you to do the same.”

The Afro-American community particularly shows a high-than-average rate of health problems related to animal fat, such as diabetes and heart conditions so it will be a good thing to educate these people about the benefits of a plant diet. Go on Chicago, go vegan!

Besides the protein issue, vegans are always asked about calcium - did you know you can gets lots of it from broccoli and other dark green vegetables? Anyway, I got sent a link to a lecture given by Paul Appleby, an International Vegetarian Union patron from the UK, who has co-authored several papers arising from studies of the long-term health of vegetarians, including the Oxford Vegetarian Study, the Health Food Shoppers Study, and the Oxford arm of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), which includes 20,000 vegetarians. The lecture is from last September and was given to London Vegans. You can listen to extracts and view slides here .

With London being completely dead during the Christmas period, I got a bit lazy too and it’s been a few days without posting. But let’s make up for it right now: I got an email from The Point, which is a campaigning social network, where Make Law No Animal Testing got the number of people it was looking for (100) and so it can start fundraising. Here’s the link: click in and let’s help put an end to barbarism in the name of bogus science.

Elsewhere, Alternet has an incredible article, one of the best of 2008 pieces the website is running again, about veganism. Author Kathy Freston focuses on the protein myth, which the dead flesh industry, aided by misinformed doctors, loves to resort to in its desperate attempts to defame a plant-based diet. Read it – it’s very good.

For more tips on how to eat well – and the post-Season period is ideal for that, with all that New Years Resolution business going on – check out this article on the Examiner. Great tips on veggies and fruits.