THINK GLOBALLY, EAT QUICKLY

McDonalds Around the World: In the UK the company will start selling sliced apples, grapes, pasta salad and juicy juice - vegan options, gotta love it. But meanwhile in the US the restaurant tries tired gimmicks and meat-formula tinkering, and continues to slide. And in the East, a previous harbinger of bad news for McDonalds, the founder and president of McDonalds Japan resigned in the midst of that ongoing bad scene.

A REGULAR IRREGULAR DIET

Vegetarian diet slashes cholesterol levels blares the Orlando Sentinel, on an experiment where subjects lowered cholesterol by a surprising one-third. "Whether most people would stick with such a diet is another matter," cautions this AP story, "because it involves daily okra, eggplant and Metamucil, among other things." Uh-huh. Well, whatever those "other things" might be, you can count me out of this particular vegetarian diet right here and now, Jack.

Ain't no friggin' way you're gettin' me to eat eggplant every day. And that is a fact.

STOP AND GO

Yet another hole in the theory that we can trust livestock operators with the integrity of our food: The FDA has reiterated a ban on a drug used in cattle that can cause anemia and other blood diseases in humans. Reiterated because they had already phased out the drug in 1996 in regulations that have apparently been ignored by enough farmers to warrent this public airing of dirty laundry. Not all farmers were flouting the law, but "I think it was enough for us to feel that this was not an isolated incident," said the FDA compliance officer. Great, these are the folks making sure we don't wind up with Mad Cow here; wonder what they'll reiterate next?

FORTIFY THIS!

There are a couple good lines in this story on efforts to make soy milk available to public school kids through the National School Lunch Program - like the dairy spokesperson's dismissal of enriched soy milk's equivalent nutrition with the phrase, "You can fortify anything." Uh, yeah. Like, for example, cow's milk? Which is fortified with vitamin A and D? The punch line is that it's only this added vitamin D that may make the difference, ultimately, in the one "health" area milk can claim: Osteoporosis. A recent study as concluded that "Neither milk nor a high-calcium diet appears to reduce risk of hip fractures." Instead, the only positive factor seemed to be adequate intake of - what? Yep, Vitamin D.

QUANTITY vs. QUALITY

The International Herald Tribune notes that "Rich diets, poor health are a global killer." Hmmmm. Yes, but what is it about the West's "rich" diets? A popular scapegoat is portion sizes, which are now larger than ever. But that is a large red herring: Note that in the study mentioned here, while the "best diet" control group watched portion sizes and got nowhere, those on a vegan diet reopened their blocked arteries and lost 22 pounds, without having to watch portion size at all. Gee, maybe it's not how much but what you're eating that's the problem. After all, even stubborn West Virginians were able to succeed on a "lowfat vegetarian diet." If they can do it, why not you?

LET'S SUE!

Animal Aid, a group in Britain, asserts that vegetarian and vegan children are discriminated against by hostile doctors, teachers and relatives. Well, duh. But this is more than a little silly: The Animal Aid spokesperson, Becky Lilly, said "the finding that shocked us most was the amount of pressure coming from close relatives..." Uh, yeah. Does Ms. Lilly have any close relatives??? Predictably, the article relegates the facts of vegetarianism's healthfulness to quotes from Animal Aid, "balancing" them with insights such as: "On medical grounds it can't be very good," from the eminent medical authority Anthony Worrall-Thompson, owner of the Notting Grill, a meat restaurant in West London. He adds that kids need meat for "vitamins they can't get from soya or the fungus that grows on pipes or whatever they eat." Oh-kayyyy.

DOUBLE PLUS GOOD

How many times must it be proven before mainstream reporters stop repeating the canard that "organic food hasn't been shown to be more nutritious"? Well, whatever the number is, subtract one from it, because a University of California researcher has found, again, that organic plant foods were richer in vital antioxidants than non-organic. Maybe people are confused because "organic" meat, eggs and dairy products often aren't organic, thanks to the lying sacks of feces who run these industries and their congressional partners in crime.