RAT PIE, RAT PUDDING, RAT SORBET...

Here's the latest illustration of how the warped mindset of our meat-and-milk culture warps journalism. Granted, this is British tabloid "journalism," but it's only a more condensed form of the rest.

Heather Mills' latest bizarre rant: 'Why don't we drink milk from rats and dogs?' is the headline of this report on standard piece of vegan rhetoric pointing out how unthinkable it would be to drink these other animals' milks, yet we find it not only attractive but "natural" that we should be stealing milk from mother cows. In the mainstream world, though, doing that is not considered "bizarre," yet using logic and analogy to highlight the actual bizarreness becomes a "bizarre rant." It's the journalistic equivalent of fingers in the ears and "la,la,la, I can't hear you!"

RELATED? Just saw the movie Ratatouille, and couldn't help noticing that all the foods presented as staples of Paris' greatest restaurant were vegetarian, with the title dish, so epochally flavorful as to cause a Proustian epiphany to the food critic, is vegan. Make of it what you will.

HOW YOU KNOW TOFURKY HAS ARRIVED

Mainstream US newspapers mention it and spell the product's name correctly.

ANIMALS THINK...

Heh. Although it was somewhat misleading to me, I have to applaud the headline applied (almost certainly not by the writer) to this op-ed - you just don't see that many references to little-known early Talking Heads songs these days.

WATER WE WAITING FOR?

The news broke this week that 36 states in the United States could see a water shortage within five years. More intensively, Atlanta is now dealing with a real-world, right-now water shortage, and one Tennessee town has already run out of water, having to restrict its availability to 3 hours a day.

It's clear that there is an overall water emergency, although its effects will be felt by different people in different localities at different times. But once it hits a community, measures such as not washing your car for a while will only stave off the inevitable for a tiny bit. Meanwhile, there's one long-term, nationwide measure that gets zero news coverage, even though it would, by the most meat-industry-friendly estimate, triple the availability of freshwater (more realistic assessments put the ratio between 20 and 100 to 1): STOP EATING ANIMALS.

Oh noes! Not that! Our precious habits! Such a radical solution!

Fine... call me back when you're ready to admit there's an emergency.

NEWS FLASH: BACON AND OTHER PROCESSED MEATS CAUSE CANCER

In a familiar routine, the news that a major scientific study has (again) confirmed a causal connection between processed meats (bacon, sausage, lunchmeat etc.) and cancer has already been swamped by stories of "defiant" meat-eaters who oh-so-bravely continue to eat the crap in question despite warnings from "scaremongers." (How come those noting lead content in toys aren't "scaremongers"? I suppose they are, to Mattel.)

What's both amusing and sadly predictable in the situation is the media presentation as though this was one new, sole piece of data, when it's actually an overview of reams of science confirming something that's already been pretty well known for at least a decade.

We get it - to meat-lovers, no amount of science is sufficient to alter your eating habit. But really, if "living it up" is your highest goal in life, great, go ahead and kill yourself - as long as you do it without ruining the environment and killing animals, more power to you!

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SPINACH? (UPDATED)

I know, eating plant foods is just as dangerous as animal foods, because don't you remember how there was that big spinach recall last year? And the peanut butter? And, like, a few years back there was a problem with green onions?

Meanwhile, if I hadn't checked the FSIS recall list for info on today's 3.3 Million-pound meat Pizza recall for E.coli (which has already caused more than 20 illnesses across 10 states - hear about this one?) I would otherwise have not heard (as you also didn't) of these additional meat recalls just within the past few weeks: 173,554 pounds of frozen ground beef products for E. coli; 1,900 pounds of ground beef products for E. coli; 8,200 pounds of frozen ground beef products for E. coli; and, in addtion to smaller recalls, 4,374 pounds of various cooked beef and chicken products that may be adulterated due to inadequate verification and documentation of processing activities as required by the establishment's Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan. Hmmmm. That one kind of begs the question, adulterated with what? But the wise USDA realizes that we don't really want to know the answer to that.

Heckuva job, news media! Remember, when millions of pounds of meat products are found to be contaminated with animal feces, that's "dog bites man" - Borrrrring. But when the animal feces cross-contaminate plant food products, now that's a story!!! Crack out the Drudge siren!

UPDATE SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4: Hey hey hey, another weekend recall to add to the crop - Over a Million Pounds of Cargill Hamburger Tainted with E. coli, and yes, that's the second Cargill recall in less than a month. How many people do you suppose will a) hear about this one at all, or b) have any notion that Cargill has had two separate recalls recently? Hmmmm, a real toughie.

HUNTING ON THE DECLINE - AWWWWWW

Saw this at the beginning of the month and noted it but didn't publish the entry. Now that I'm ready to, the link on the newspaper site has already expired. (Bradenton, is it possible people might want to read columns that are more than five weeks old?) So I'll link to a forum where someone helpfully posted it. Some highlights:

Recent figures from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have shown the number of hunters over 16 years old declined by about 10 percent from 1996-2006.

Although the drop was most significant in New England, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific states, the decrease has been felt locally as well.
...

The number of Americans who fish also has dropped, down 15 percent from 35.2 million in 1996 to 30 million in 2006, according to The Associated Press and the latest version of a national survey the Florida Fish and Wildlife service conducts every five years.

...

Perhaps the sport of hunting also has suffered due to the perception it is animal cruelty.

Of course, many people who believe this likely aren't reading this column.

Heh. Wanna bet, Mr. Misunderstood Wildlife Conservationist? We're reading it all right, and laughing at your pathetic attempts to justify this narcissistic anachronism.

MILK IS MURDER?

Here's a cute mainstream article about a supposed romantic rift ("dating dilemmas") within the veg community between vegans and vegetarians. I probably wouldn't make note of it, but the good thing is, there's some nice ink for our favorite Vegan Freaks.

Frankly, any coverage of what veganism is probably helps in the long run, but it's kind of pathetic that mainstream sources have to tart such coverage up into confections such as this rather than address the real societal and industrial issues pertaining to this ideology. A sample quote: "Neither group eats meat. But that doesn't make life easier for vegans who try to date 'murderous' vegetarians."

Uh huh. I guess I don't get out much, because in my interactions with hundreds of vegans and vegetarians I have so far failed to ever encounter a single vegan referring to vegetarians as "murderous." But it makes good copy.

RECALLORAMA

Dunno when I'm going to have a chance to sort out and publish those backlogged entries, but for now Meat Facts is all-meat-recall, all the time. I'd say most consumers who are paying attention to the news probably have a vague idea that there was a big E.Coli recall around the beginning of this month, but how many do you suppose know there was a pretty damn large E.Coli recall a week later that was unrelated? Probably not so many. Yet probably still more than those who've heard about this week's two meat recalls for the same root cause - fecal matter in the meat - but two different names, listeria and salmonella.

There was a recall on Wednesday of 35 tons of Chicken Fettucine Alfredo for listeria, and while that's a lot of stuff to throw out (no worries since very few of the people who bought it will hear about this), it pales next to the one announced late last night, practically Friday - a recall so massive they can't even say yet how big it is, for all of ConAgra's chicken and turkey pot pies, which are marketed under the "Banquet" label as well as many store brands. If and when they release an exact poundage on this one, I'll update this for your maximum informativity. This one, oddly, was originally announced as a "psssst, stop selling that because it might be tainted" non-recall, with the company dragging its feet until... hey... the end of the week... for the huge news to come out! Amazing how these coincidences keep piling up, ain't it?

RECALL MANIA

OK, as you can tell I haven't had a lot of time to get to the Meat Facts interface lately and post new stuff. I have a bunch of interim posts from late September in draft form that I will fill in later, but let me just say right now: WTF is up with our War on E.Coli? Looks like that's one war that's already been lost!

First we had this ho-hum midweek recall...

Then, early Saturday (ahem), it was expanded to one of the largest meat recalls in history...

Then, it emerged that ONCE AGAIN, the USDA had dragged its feet on announcing the recall, as though trying to make it clear that business concerns were always paramount over the health of actual consumers...

Then, while everybody was talking about the Topps situation, there was yet another Massive Friday Recall - more than 400 TONS of beef- that was "unrelated" except insofar as the root causes of both recalls - feces in the meat as an unavoidable by-product of current industry practices - tends to relate them. (And of course, it's worth mentioning that neither of these were "abundance of caution" recalls - actual people, mostly children, have suffered terrible problems - including kidney failure - from unwitttingly consuming this feces-laced meat.)

Now it turns out Topps is (again announced on the weekend, strange for a "business" story, no?) going out of business. Yes, the biggest meat supplier in the USA is going out of business. You might think this would be front-page news all over America, but then, we must have our priorities.

PREACH WHAT YOU PRACTICE

This is an interesting ongoing story, and now's as good a time as any to include a snapshot of it: Dave Warwak, a vegan since January, has been "preaching" a vegan lifestyle to students at Fox River Grove Middle School - until administrators sent him home on leave for the offense. For a while the issue was framed as "Show me where it's illegal to tell kids about veganism," but now it's moved into a newer, and in my opinion more strategically dubious, area: Vegan teacher won't return to school until school stops serving milk and meat. Um, OK. Seems like kind of a longshot. I mean, a reeeeeal longshot. Seems counterproductive. But on the other hand, if he wins this...

ONCE AGAIN: VEGAN DIET FIGHTS PROSTATE CANCER

Not sure why this was necessary, when the conclusion could have been as easily drawn by a careful perusal of the peer-reviewed articles cited in Meat Facts, but here it is: "Low-fat plant-based diets may help prevent or slow the progression of prostate cancer, according to a new research review."

PITCHING THE CITY VEGGIE

Just stumbled across this and wondered what vegetarian organization had put out this press release. Notably, it's from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation, a decidedly non-veggie outfit dedicated to selling the city's strong points to attract tourists. Although I would quibble with some of the descriptions and inclusions and omissions, this is a very good sign.

VEGAN(S) OF THE MONTH

The headline, "Iowa City Makes it Easy to Go Vegan" somewhat oversells the scope of this story, but it's still an encouraging read, focusing on three vegans and businesses associated with them, all of which are smack dab in the heartland of America, knocking down some coastal preconceptions.

LATEST E.COLI RECALL - EIGHT NINE PEOPLE SICKENED

If it's Friday, it must be meat recall time. This one is not for E.Coli that might cause a problem, but already has, and that was distributed throughout the Northwest. But did you hear about it?

UPDATE 9/4: This is an odd one - I'm trying to nail down whether it was a bona fide Friday Recall or a late-Thursday one (which, going into Labor Day weekend, amounts to the same thing) and getting conflicting info. Also, this source I've never heard of pegs the amount of meat recalled at a whopping 41,000 pounds (yes, that's a little over 20 tons of ground beef), but I look to the USDA FSIS page to settle such discrepancies, and here's the oddity - it's not there at all! Did the USDA give everybody in the department the long weekend off? What's going on?

YOUR GUIDE TO HOGWASHING

Lee Hall provides a good overview, well written and well packaged for the Web, of the latest industry effort to co-opt animal activism: Re-packaging the killing and enslavement of animals as "compassion." A wacky concept? Maybe, but it's successfully hoodwinking way too many people.

KILLING FARM ANIMALS IS CRUELTY

Not just cruelty, but "A beastly kind of cruelty," according to the headline on this story. You see, because the punks who did the killing didn't eat the animal afterward, that somehow made its death 'cruel,' unlike, you know, the death all farm animals are headed for. Not sure how an animal that's being shot has its experience altered by what's going to happen in the future, but then, I'm not a farmer.

The buzzards led Nick Bursio to his prized calf. He found the body just over a rise in the field, with a bullet hole in its left shoulder, near the heart. Bursio had heard of animals killed by rustlers for their meat. But not until that May morning had he ever imagined anything so senseless as shooting cattle presumably just to watch them die. "I had a hollow feeling in my gut, to see that dead calf laying there, with the mother cow bellowing nearby," said the Sonoma County rancher. "I thought, what the hell's going on in this place?"

Exactly. I mean, if that calf had been taken away to be turned into veal, that mother cow would've been chuckling gleefully, right?

So that's one cognitive-dissonance oddity. But here's another: "In California, state law provides some protection for large farm animals, but enforcement varies among counties. As a result, prosecutors in farm cases often settle for convictions on lesser vandalism charges." So to sum up, if you destroy the farmer's animal (the putative basis of his very business), that's "vandalism." But if you take any photos of his operation from anywhere near his property, that's, yes, "terrorism." Okey-doke.

FED TO THE LIONS

According to the Seattle Times, there's trouble a-brewin' in our nation's zoos over feeding horsemeat to the big cats. "It's definitely up for debate," said Kathleen Larson, Point Defiance's interim veterinarian. "Unfortunately, all people won't be happy until our carnivores are eating salad."

Uh, no, Kathleen. For the record, we won't be happy until 'your' carnivores are no longer held captive in 'your' zoos. But the point is, this is just one more issue pointing out the fallacious idea that wild animals can be kept in captivity for human entertainment without severe problems resulting. The best, most professional zoo in the world is still not completely prepared for everything (aside from freedom) a wild animal needs, and to put it lightly, most US zoos are far, far below that standard.

Good to hear at least some thinking going on in Columbus... "Don Winstel, the Columbus Zoo's assistant director, like representatives from several other zoos, said the switch six months ago was a pragmatic one as domestic sources for horse meat closed down. He also recognized that zoo visitors might be more comfortable knowing horse was off the menu. 'It's just more alien to people in the U.S.,' he said of horse-meat consumption. 'But, in reality, I'm not sure how to judge which animal should be butchered and which one should not.'" Hmmmmmm, good point, Don.

VICK GUILTY PLEA

So the sports hero is just as despicable and cowardly as some of us had figured, and were chastised for rushing to judge him. Time to judge now? Who wants to put money down on how long this criminal loser has to wait before walking back onto an NFL playing surface?

'WESTERN' DIET BRINGS CANCER BACK

"Patients who had received surgery and chemotherapy for state III colon cancer would be better off eating a so-called prudent diet as researchers found that eating a Western diet would increase the risk of cancer recurrence," according to a new study, which spotlighted red meat and dairy along with processed foods and sweets as making up the 'Western' diet.

"In response to the study news, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) published a press release to emphasize the importance of plant foods in prevention of colon cancer. The AICR recommends 'colon cancer survivors follow the dietary advice known to reduce risk for colon cancer and cancer in general: aim for a diet high a variety of vegetables, fruit, whole grains and beans and low in meat and dairy foods.'"