BEEF NOT NEEDED FOR BEEFY BODY

This is a small, preliminary study, but it does give a small, preliminary raspberry to the quacks who try to convince vegetarians that plant protein doesn't do the same job of body-building that animal protein does. Hopefully once there are more 70-year-old vegans (the term was only coined 60 years ago, after all), more comprehensive and precise studies can follow up.

GARY TAUBES'S "BIG FAT LIE"

Barring some dramatic development, such as a 'fraud' lawsuit, this will be the last post on Gary Taubes's sensationalistic NYT Magazine piece, mentioned earlier, which explained how Taubes's own fat-laden (Atkins) diet was better for you than actual healthy food. It was no surprise that the Pritikin folks, who got slammed in Taubes's drive-by, soon posted their own common-sense corrections, as did PCRM. But some readers may have been a little unnerved when CNN had three of Taubes's experts on to discuss how they were wildly misquoted and misrepresented in the pro-fat rant. Now the Washington Post has followed up with a careful background check debunking - to his face - Taubes's assertions about what has or has not been proven by peer-reviewed research. Astonishingly (I guess), study after study shows that low-fat diets are better for not just overall health but weight-loss as well. Taubes is given a chance to explain how and why he managed to miss all of this crucial evidence, and his answers are priceless, especially the one that closes this article.

WHERE THE HEALTH IS

I'm including this not because it's particularly noteworthy or surprising or anything, it's just that I've been falling down on the job of the Meat Facts mission statement, which is to compare news about corpse-based nutrition to that about plant-based nutrition. So far it's leaned wayyy over into the former realm, mainly because the positive effects of plant foods are all in stories like this, that aren't nearly as dramatic and outrageous as the "meatier" stories. But there are thousands of these, so let this stand in for at least a few hundred: Vitamin E protects against artery disease, and according to this, good vitamin E sources are legumes, vegetables and olive oil. The NIH concurs, adding nuts and specifying green leafy vegetables.

MORE BAILOUTS FOR RANCHERS

Once again the USDA steps in to assure that the "free market" for beef isn't affected by the same realities - such as weather - that affect plant-based agriculture. Four states will get $150 million - courtesy of taxpayers - in livestock feed at a drastically reduced cost. This isn't the only helping hand ranchers get, of course. Other than the USDA's constant buying and price-fixing, there's stuff like the following: "The Emergency Conservation Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program have helped ranchers get water to dried up watering holes and stock dams. Opening land in the Conservation Reserve Program to haying and grazing has been a tremendous help as well, but Karlen says it still takes a lot of money to get the feed and water to the livestock." Yep. It sure does. Good thing you don't have to actually watch that money go down the drain.

NOW TASTELESS IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE!

McDonald's, reeling from recent international PR fiascoes in Italy and Japan (and, of course, the earlier one in England), now manufactures another in Norway with its "badly timed" introduction of the "McAfrica" burger - that's right, named after the very country where 12 million people are starving largely due to the global pillaging of Western behemoths like McDonald's. Bad timing? Or just plain ol' bad attitude?

WHAT? NO MORE INTESTINE-BASED TREATS?

Scots and Scot-wannabes are mourning (and defiantly challenging) the demise of haggis, one of the most bizarrely disgusting foods yet devised. The traditional treat is being banned not because it's just plain sicko, but because it's a great vehicle for BSE.

'SHE ATE A DIET RICH IN FRUITS AND VEGETABLES'

...and lived to be 114. Not that there's necessarily a correlation between a plant-based diet and longevity - I'm just posting this to balance out any other long-lived people before or since who will credit their two cigars a day or fifth of scotch or whatever.