BLACK EYE FOR KFC

"Two animal welfare experts said they resigned as advisors to fast-food chain KFC after the company asked them to sign an agreement preventing them from speaking publicly about its policies on such issues as animal slaughter. Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Dr. Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, said they stepped down from KFC parent Yum Brands Inc.'s animal welfare committee this week after being sent the agreement, which Grandin said would have required them to refer all media inquiries to KFC's corporate headquarters."

This is a well-deserved hit for KFC's PR, but it once again raises the question of why "animal empathizer" Grandin provides "ethical" cover for such scumbags. And what's up with this? "KFC spokeswoman Bonnie Warschauer said the contract was no different from previous confidentiality agreements members of the animal welfare committee, including Grandin and Duncan, have signed. 'It's just the same confidentiality agreement they've always had. We're just asking everybody to re-sign it,' Warschauer said. She did not specify why the company was asking committee members to sign the agreement again, and added that she did not know whether other members of the committee had signed it." Uhhhhh..... huh. Well, that sure makes sense.

NOW IT'S OFFICIAL: PLANTS WIN

A new Stanford University School of Medicine study has shown that it's not just the low-fat nature of a vegetarian diet that makes it healthier than standard meat-based diets - it's that eating plants is healthier in and of itself.

Participants who followed a vegetarian diet full of whole grains and nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables reduced their total and low-density lipoprotein (known as LDL, or "bad") cholesterol by more than twice as much as those who followed a more conventional low-fat diet that simply avoided saturated fat and cholesterol-rich foods. Previous research has demonstrated that diets high in grains, fruits and vegetables help reduce cholesterol, but it was generally assumed that this was because these diets naturally contain less saturated fat and cholesterol than diets with more meat. In this study, all participants ingested the same amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol, no matter which diet they followed.

"This study confirms the 'power of plant chemicals,'" says Jo Ann Hattner, a nutrition consultant who teaches at Stanford. It "demonstrated that plant-based foods do have the power to lower LDLs." For one month, participants could eat and drink only specially prepared meals, snacks and beverages. Both diets met the American Heart Association's dietary guidelines.

Although the plant-based diet in the study was meatless, the longtime vegetarian who set it up diplomatically points out that the AHA includes non-vegetarian options in their "heart-healthy" definition. That's fine for now, but let's put 'em up against these "power plants" and see if those guidelines could use some simplifying.

A JUMBO PROBLEM

The issue of elephants in captivity continues to grow in public consciousness, unfortunately due to coverage of martyred elephants. "Wankie" is the latest, having died in transit from Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo to another zoo in Utah following the death of her two elephant companions earlier this year. The feds are investigating and protesters are calling for the zoo's president to resign, as yet another death there sparks yet another investigation.

Some reactions amount to speculation, e.g. Ray Ryan, who cared for all three elephants previously and predicted they would not survive the climate and smaller space: "What they did is they took the elephant's persona away. She gave up. She just dropped dead. It's like, 'Where else are you going to ship me?'" Others are more sweeping, but seem pretty hard to refute. "We know zoos are killing elephants," said RaeLeann Smith of In Defense Of Animals. "The lack of space causes captivity-induced ailments."

Notice all the discussion of lack of space? Now let's see how RaeLeann Smith's claim is rebutted: "But zoo officials say their animals are never mistreated. 'We felt very comfortable with the quality of care with our exhibit,' Lincoln Park Zoo President Kevin Bell said at a news conference." Hmmmm. Any mention of the chief problem, space? It reminds me of the panther in this short film, who keeps going on about the lack of spaaace. How come zoos can't hear that?

On the bright side, though, it does look as though Cole Bros. Circus is taking the elephant "phase-out" seriously, at least on a town-by-town basis. "It's a big decision to make to do something like this," said Bill Tebbetts, marketing director for the circus. "(But) it's a better show."

EVOLUTION

Just an interesting tidbit in this newfound-dinosaur story headlined "Newfound dinosaur shows transition from carnivore to vegetarian" - "Caught in the act of evolution, the odd-looking, feathered dinosaur was becoming more vegetarian, moving away from its meat-eating ancestors." Evolution, you say? So why should we pay attention to any "humans were meant to eat meat" arguments? Hey, even if that were true, who cares? It's called evolving, baby.

BSE INACTION COST BILLIONS

Remember the commentators who whined, upon discovery of the first U.S. Mad Cow case, that it was us vegetarians who were hurting the (beef) economy by blowing the whole thing out of proportion and scaring away U.S. beef consumers? Well, as was obvious to thinking persons then and is now documented, it was in fact the beef industry's own blundering that caused the damage: "The most significant economic impact of BSE is from lost beef export markets," said Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Adrian Polansky. That's to the tune of $4.7 billion in 2004. And for anyone who needs it spelled out: "The study also concluded that voluntary testing for the disease would have provided an economic gain to the beef industry despite the added testing costs."

HORSE'S FATAL INJURY - "FUN" FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

"Eleven-year-old Kristin Close cherishes the horse figurines in her room and tries to go riding every week, where she enjoys brushing and stroking the graceful animals. So when she went with her family and friends to the PRCA Rodeo last weekend, the last thing she wanted to see was a bucking bronco snap its leg and hobble bloodied all over the arena. The incident occurred during Saturday's bareback riding event at the Auburn Wild West Stampede when a 4-year-old mare named Wrangler Gold broke its leg and was euthanized."

This article from California's Auburn Journal is OK, and is obviously trying to put an anecdotal, personal spin on the horrific abuse that is patently obvious in the institution of rodeos, but it has typical mainstream-journalism problems: "While the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association says their events are humane, many animal rights groups think it is a brutal custom that costs animals their lives." This is the classic "on the other hand-ism," where two perspectives are presented as though equally meriting consideration. On one side we have a claim, unsupported by any facts, from the animal exploiters. On the other, we have what AR groups "think." But what is it that they "think?" Does the story not show it costing an animal its life? Are we to believe this is the first animal this has happened to? And if not, does that not make it, in fact, a "brutal custom?"

Meanwhile, rodeo spokeswoman Karen Spencer maintains this spectacle of animal domination and degradation is wholesome family entertainment: "Rodeos are wonderful family events, and any time you have a sporting event, there's a risk of accidents, whether it's a football game or at a racetrack," she said. Wow, good point, except for one salient detail - anyone who's involved in a potentially fatal accident at a football game or a racetrack has chosen to be there. When an animal is forced to perform, resulting in its death, that's what's more accurately called "a travesty."

COW PIE BINGO: THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME

I'm including this only as an example of how the sillier forms of animal exploitation tend to knock themselves out, and are not worthy of the sputtering outrage we might expend on, say, seal-clubbing: The Vernon County spring festival in Wisconsin has canceled the traditional cow-pie bingo event for what the article knee-slappingly calls "liabullity reasons." It seems that "The decision was based - unfairly, says dairy farmer Rodney Johnson - on Baby's impressive but unexpected fence-vaulting escape from the bingo grid at last year's Syttende Mai Festival... Dorothy Jasperson, editor of the Westby Times, said the cow 'knocked down some stuff, scared some little kids and for insurance reasons, they decided to go away from cow pie bingo.'"

UPDATE 4/26: Hey, talk about your fence-vaulting escapes...

FIRST HUMAN MAD COW CASE IN NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands has diagnosed its first known case of the human form of "mad cow disease" - variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Mad cow disease has hit more than 70 animals in the Netherlands since 1997.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM: IOKIYAR

This is one of those "sun rises in the east" facts that stares us in the face daily but few people bother to articulate, so when they do, it becomes news: "The Homeland Security Department is focusing on possible terror threats from radical environmental and animal rights activists without also examining risks that might be posed by right-wing extremists, House Democrats said Tuesday." This was intentionally brought up on April 19th, the 10th anniversary of the worst domestic terrorism on U.S. soil (168 people killed - by right-wing extremists). Here's the kicker, which we all know but forget to bring up: "ALF and ELF are accused by the FBI of committing hundreds of acts of arson or other attacks on property in the United States, causing millions of dollars in damages. None of their attacks, however, have caused human deaths."

AGAIN - MEAT STARTS CANCER; PLANTS STOP IT

A study of 190,545 men and women over seven years or more has found that "Eating a lot of red meat, and particularly processed meat, increases the risk of pancreatic cancer" - by a goodly margin. "After taking into account age, smoking status, history of diabetes, family history of pancreatic cancer and ethnicity, subjects with the highest intake of processed meat had a 67 percent increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared to those with the lowest intake of processed meat," according to this Reuters report. This is the flip side of another study noted earlier this month, where "a comparison of 585 pancreatic cancer patients and about 4,779 adults without the disease," showed that "the risk of the cancer declines as fruit and vegetable intake increases." It's hard to get more black and white than that, folks. I guess that's what makes complex multi-hued pyramids triangles so useful to certain groups of people.

NEW USDA PYRAMID: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Well, somebody's gotta say it: The "New Food Pyramid" ain't a pyramid. Scrapping the advantage of a pyramid as a way to envision relative food portions, the USDA has turned it into a flat triangle comprising narrow colored triangles representing kinds of food. Note that the plant foods have colors matching their own colors, while Meat and Dairy get blue and purple instead of dark brown and beige, respectively. So already we have the cognitive dissonance of calling something that's not a pyramid a pyramid, and pretending that meat and dairy are not colorless also-rans in the nutrition arena.

Additionally, though, the new graphic (which for the first time endorses stair-climbing exercise) eschews specifics and instead points us to the USDA's "Key Recommendations for the General Population." Despite all the blather about "no one-size-fits-all guidelines," we see this one-size-fits-all guideline: "Consume 3 cups per day of fat-free or low-fat milk or equivalent milk products." That's it. No "or soy milk." No "or calcium-fortified orange juice." No "abundant leafy green vegetables." No, the entire non-white population - who are, by majority, lactose intolerant - is told they MUST DRINK MILK as a general recommendation. Even on the "Milk Tips" page there's further obfuscation afoot, as LI is presented as the only possible reason not to drink milk, and so everyone (again: one size fits all) is steered to lactose-free dairy products. Allergic? Ethical? Concerned about BGH? You don't exist!

In short, those who say this "pyramid" is "definitely not very helpful" and that "USDA seems to have bent over backward to avoid upsetting any particular commodity group or food company by not showing any foods that Americans should eat less of" are right on the money. Read PCRM's analysis of the "unscientific" pyramid triangle for more.

YOUR CHOICE: CAUSE CANCER OR FIGHT IT

A pair of stories appearing today illustrate the opposition of plant and animal foods in terms of human health. The New York Times has a "Really?" feature, which examines claims for accuracy and debunks where necessary. But for this week's claim, "Grilled Meat Causes Cancer," the "Bottom Line" was "Chemicals in grilled meat have been shown to increase the risk of cancer." And further: "For years, studies have suggested that chemicals in grilled meat may be linked to cancer. Now, just in time for barbecue season, the Department of Health and Human Services has added heterocyclic amines - the compounds formed in red meat, poultry and fish during the grilling - to its list of carcinogens. At least one other group of chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which can also collect on meat cooked over hot coals, has been on the agency's list since 1981."

"But there is a silver lining," the Times reports cheerily. "The chemicals are primarily found in meat cooked at high temperatures..." Oh, OK, only high temperatures like those needed to kill E.Coli. So this year we're not going to hear the traditional "cook all your meat at a high temperature" in those pre-summer health stories on how to avoid deadly food poisoning? We'll wait and see on that.

Meanwhile, on the same day, we learn that broccoli and red chili peppers help prevent cancer, according to new studies. Now, note which kind of food is a cancer cause, and which is a cancer fighter. Notice how they always seem to line up in those same columns?

POWER PLANTS

Implicit in this story is the acknowledgement of plant foods' primacy in human civilization - something the current media-industrial complex does its best to make us lose sight of. "French botanist Francois Couplan has spent half a century travelling the globe searching for the lost culinary secrets of the plant world to record them for posterity. 'It is amazing the uses different people have found for plants, but also everything that has been lost in a bid to imitate Western lifestyles,' he said."

"His aim is to refresh our memories of the way our ancestors used to live, when for three million years man lived in symbiosis with plants which were their staple foods, as well as providing medicines, shelter and fire."

I'LL JUST SWITCH TO...

"State health officials Friday warned women of childbearing age and children younger than 15 to not eat most fish caught in the Adirondacks and Catskills -- the most expansive warning ever in New York -- because of mercury contamination. The warning says young women and children should avoid eating northern pike, pickerel, walleye, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass and larger yellow perch," says this Times-Union story. Pretty damn sweeping prohibition - note that "young children" used to mean infants and toddlers; now it's anyone under 15. Getting the message yet, folks?

STUDY: DAIRY INDUSTRY'S WEIGHT-LOSS CLAIMS ARE BOGUS

Contrary to previous claims from the dairy industry, new study findings show that "downing lots of dairy food appears to do little in the short term for young women's waistlines," according to this Reuters story. But remember, no new study will deny that dairy is chockful of IGF-I. Mmmmmm, hormonerrific.

BEANS FIGHT BREAST CANCER

"Eating beans or lentils at least twice a week may reduce a woman's risk of developing breast cancer," says this Food Navigator write-up of a study in the International Journal of Cancer. The data comes from 90,630 women who participated in the Nurses Health Study II. So it's not just your heart, after all, that beans are good for. (Via Vegan Porn)

MEDITERRANEAN BENEFIT: IT'S NOT THE FISH

This is a first, at least in my experience: An article on the benefits of Omega-3s that gives double billing to a plant food along with fish. More on the fish thing below, but another attention-grabbing thing is that it's not flax or flax oil, but soy oil that's touted for its Omega-3-based heart-healthiness. First I've heard of that... but I don't get out much.

As to the fish itself, once again, it does contain beneficial substances, but usually pretty significant harmful ones as well, in the same place - the oily fat - unlike plant sources of this same beneficial fat. And the relative benefits of the Mediterranean diet - as well as fish consumption in general - couldn't come as much from the inclusion of fish as they do from the exclusion of even worse animal products, and the inclusion of whole plant foods. That's because despite the wide variety in our diets and attendant health, the per-capita fish consumption of the US and Italy (where it seems all Mediterranean-diet stories are based) is practically the same: They eat 23 kg of fish per capita, we eat 21 kg. You're not going to tell me the health benefits of that diet are locatedin the 2-kg difference, are you? Let's not kid ourselves: It's cutting out as much meat and dairy as possible that brings you the life-extending goodness.

NOTE: I got the per-capita numbers from two different sources, as I couldn't find one page on the Web that compared them for the same time period side-by-side. If you know of such a page with more exact information, please feel free to pass it along.

ANOTHER BAD APPLE

I'm sure it's just a meaningless coincidence, but it happens that "a three-time Iditarod musher has been found guilty of animal cruelty after officers found some of his dogs dehydrated and so emaciated that their spines and hip bones showed." How ironic, right, that his hobby involved what some wild-eyed activists termed as cruelty? Bizarre.

DRUG-RESISTANT BACTERIA SPREADING FURTHER

"Antibiotic-resistant bacteria [campylobacter] continued to be found in chickens bought at [Baltimore] area supermarkets a year after two large poultry producers stopped using an antibiotic blamed for creating the resistant strains, Johns Hopkins researchers report. The researchers say the findings suggest antibiotic-resistant bacteria may persist in the poultry industry after the use of the antibiotics, known as fluoroquinolones, has stopped and may contaminate more poultry than previously thought." Great. So for the foreseeable future, our entire population has to live with a threat created by short-sighted meat producers, while Perdue, Tyson and their ilk pay absolutely nothing for unleashing this scourge on us.

FORMER USDA INSPECTOR: THEY'RE HIDING MAD COWS

"A scientist and former inspector for the U.S Department of Agriculture says he is willing to take a lie detector test to back his charge that the United States is covering up mad-cow disease. Lester Friedlander, now a consumer advocate, was fired from his job as head of inspections at a large meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices. Mr. Friedlander said U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians sent suspect cow brains to private laboratories, which confirmed they were infected with mad cow disease. Samples from the same animals, however, were cleared by government labs. He would not reveal the names of the veterinarians, saying in an interview that they still work for the agriculture department and would be fired if identified."

Interesting. Friedlander was quoted a lot by Steve Mitchell last year, but not to the extent of this allegation. It will be interesting to see if he can back this up with anything, though.

UPDATE 4/13: Wow. Two other USDA scientists, one retired and the other apparently still on the job, tell a very similar story of bad and/or suspicious testing - dating back to 1997. Still no one else coming forward to confirm the spiked positive test, though. I gotta say, love how Canada is going after this like a pitbull, as it would "prove" the US really was the cause of Mad Cow in North America after all. Fascinating stuff.