SORRY, BUT BOMBING IS VIOLENCE

I got some yeas and some nays at a recent conference where I argued that animal-rights activists should disavow any tactics that smack of terrorism, specifically singling out SHAC. Now a new bunch of fanatics, "the Revolutionary Cells," has bombed a building of some business somehow affiliated with Huntingdon, and SHAC, who has linked to the bomber's statement, can't even be moved to say they're against bombing buildings. SHAC president Kevin Jonas makes a general statement about non-violence, then turns around and says "If I were Huntingdon or Chiron, I'd be worried." Yeah, and if I were an animal rights activist, I'd be worried. Because these clowns are making us all look like hypocritical nincompoops, and are making the job of all of us who try to spread the word of the true meaning veganism harder - if not impossible.

MILK KILLS CHOCOLATE'S BENEFITS

By now just about everybody's seen the "Chocolate is good for you" story, based on a small but intriguing study. Of course the media in general are treating the phrase at face value, implying that the garbage Americans call chocolate is included in this. But some stories specifically explain otherwise: "European researchers say eating milk chocolate, which is most commonly used in candy bars, does not raise antioxidant levels in the bloodstream. They found the same discouraging result among patients who drank milk while eating dark chocolate. The results suggest that milk and other dairy products somehow discourage the body's ability to absorb the protective compounds in chocolate. Only subjects who ate dark chocolate showed a temporary increase in their antioxidant levels." And New Scientist goes further, reporting that the researchers "speculate that milk may also have the same effect on other antioxidant-rich foods, including fruit and green vegetables."

AMERICANS GETTING CHEESIER

Didn't think it was possible? Think again. Actually, that's CNN's headline, in which apparently "cheesy" is now a new synonym for "fat." And rightfully so: We're eating six times as much cheese now as in the '40s, and it shows.

A PUNCH IN THE HEAD

I would've put this at the end of the last post, but can't be sure it's E.Coli-related. Why? Because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued a recall of meat products from a Southern Ontario plant, but refused to say what health concern spurred the recall. Unsurprisingly, the plant has a history of health/safety violations, but the refusal to identify the threat to consumers, that's, well, out of the ordinary.
UPDATE 8/27: "An Aylmer meat packing plant was shut down by the provincial government because of an investigation into "illegal processing" of dead animals, the Star has learned." What a downer.
UPDATE: 8/29: "Tainted-meat scandal 'another punch in the head' for beef industry" ... coming soon: KO.

MORE BATTLES IN WAR ON E.COLI

They all blur together, don't they? I assumed this recall "expansion" (to 659,000 pounds) was tied to the one I blogged on the 5th, but no, this is a whole different state, different company, different "does business as" pseudonym. Same problem: Fecal matter on the meat people are eating, making them sick. And in the case of J&B Meats, it is the same company - same as last summer, as this Illinois meatpacker recalls 76,000 pounds of meat, following up on an incident from June 2002 when people at a picnic were sickened by the company's feces-laden meat. Hey, at least J&B's not selling E.coli-laced meat door-to-door like these bozos in Seattle!

And in related stories, the much-ballyhooed solution of blasting the fecal matter with radiation got a big thumbs-down from Consumer Reports, the main problems being that irradiated meat tastes bad and fails to kill all bacteria, which probably won't help the "low demand" problem such as this one affecting Indiana. Maybe they should just concentrate on stopping people from mentioning stuff like "So they're saying it's totally fine for students to eat feces in their meat as long as it's been irradiated." See, that can't be helping.

ATKINS vs. HEALTH

Hey! I'm back, finally. Lotsa stuff piling up. No time for sentence subjects. Must get on with it:

The Atkins diet is banned by a hospital in England, with a senior dietitian there explaining that "There is no evidence to suggest that the Atkins Diet has any medical benefits" (in fact, the NY Post reminds us, the possible side effects include death). The hospital ban was provoked by a British panel of experts calling the diet 'pseudo-science', though there's a sidebar story about the big "conflict of interest" in the chair receiving money from flour concerns. No, really! Meanwhile, here in the US, there's no such thing as a conflict of interest - as long as your interest is meat and dairy!