FIGHTING CANCER: PLANT FOODS YES, ANIMAL PRODUCTS NO

These are really quite unrelated, except that they emerged on the same day and can be easily encapsulated by the above headine. "In men with recurrent prostate cancer, drinking 8 ounces per day of pomegranate juice significantly increases the time it takes for prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels to rise," says Reuters, while "[t]reatment with a shark cartilage product does not prolong life in patients with advanced cancer, nor does it improve quality of life, new research indicates."

THE ANIMALS WE DON'T WANT SMART

Here's a fun article that scratches at the surface of a fascinating conundrum in the "animal intelligence" field - it's easy for our culture to accept smart apes, cats and dogs, but we don't want to think of the animals we're eating as having any smarts whatsoever. Unfortunately, coming from ABC News, it skims and then darts away rather than probing this sore spot, but at least the issue is raised. "Was Your Meat Smarter Than Your Pet?" begins, "Testing the IQ of a sheep may seem laughable. But at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England, they know better. One sheep who got a reward every time she recognized a human face correctly on a video screen scored a perfect 50 out of 50. 'If it was a monkey, no one would have any problems, possibly even if it was a dog,' said Keith Kendrick, a neurologist at Babraham. 'They would say, 'Yeah, yeah, that's expected.' But a sheep, no one really believes.'"

Intentionally or not, the article manages to show the paucity of argument on the "dumb animal" side of the equation: "John Redmore, who runs an organic farm in England, disagrees. 'We've been eating meat since we've managed to stand on hind legs,' he said. 'A natural part of being human is to eat meat.' It's natural to eat animals even if they're smart, he added. 'Yeah, they'd eat us,' Redmore said." Well, sure, the smartness has nothing to do with the "naturalness," but as usual that last term is being used speciously. Are you really saying sheep and cows would eat people, farmer John? Uh huh... now who, exactly, is smarter here?

"THAT'S PIG WATER"

Yep, but now that raw sewage is drinkable - with just a few hours of processing. "Don Lloyd dipped his empty bottle into a tank of water that six hours earlier had been flushed out of three nearby pens filled with thousands of hogs. "There, that's pig water," Lloyd proclaimed as he held up the bottle and tipped it back for a thirst-quenching chug. Lloyd's demonstration was to show just how confident he is in his system to purify the kind of putrid, waste-filled water dumped into hog waste lagoons across North Carolina." Mmmmmmm, sounds delicious and perfectly safe - just like that mad-cow free hamburger the British Agriculture Minister so confidently fed his daughter on live TV. Me, I think I'll pass on drinking "purified" hog waste-water, for as long as possible, anyway.

ANOTHER WIN FOR PLANT FOODS

In "Vitamin E cuts Parkinson's risk," the BBC informs us that research has found that "A diet rich in vitamin E could protect against Parkinson's disease." They go on to dutifully inform us where we can get it: "Good sources of vitamin E include green leafy vegetables, nuts and vegetable oils." Yep, plants again.

VEGAN OF THE MONTH

She's always been a sidebar to the story of her boyfriend Morgan Spurlock, the 'Super Size Me' star/provocateur, but here we get a more in-depth look at Alexandra Jamieson, the vegan chef and nutrition planner who rescued the documentarian's health after he spent the month eating only fast food.

IT'S OFFICIAL: NO MORE EXOTIC ANIMAL ACTS FOR COLE BROS.

"It's been a tradition every year -- we've had elephants and tigers. But times have changed, and we're hoping to bring more action," [Cole Bros. senior marketing director Ron] West said. "All the animal rights people -- I hate to say this -- but they've won the war." But Cole Bros., which is celebrating its 121st year, says by no means can it be considered a loser. This year, the circus sold about $7,600 in advanced ticket sales for the four evening performances that end tonight at U-Sell Flea Market on South Delsea Drive. That figure is the highest in the past five years that the traveling circus has set up shop there, West said.

Of course ending animal-abuse entertainment is a win-win. But though the so-called 'war' isn't won yet, the trend lines are obvious to all but the most thick-headed. Within five years, elephants and tigers in circuses will be a thing of the past.

CATCHING UP

OK, here's a bunch of stuff that's been piling up while I've been busy being lazy...

We'll start with the inevitable update on the bird flu: "China has sealed off nature reserves and rushed more than 3 million doses of bird flu vaccine to a remote western province after migratory birds were found dead from the H5N1 strain, which can be fatal to humans. The WHO said last week the spate of human bird flu cases in Vietnam this year suggested the deadly form of the virus may be mutating in ways that are making it more capable of being passed between humans."

If only there were something we could do to stop it... you know, I mean something that wasn't inconvenient.

LIGHT POSTING

In case you didn't notice. Back with more Meat Facts goodness in a trice...

VEGAN MEALS FOR PRISONERS

British Columbia is ahead of the United States so far in one fundamental issue: offering vegan meals for prisoners who do not eat animal products. Notably, it was a human-rights complaint that resulted in this change. If only we had a country that gave a damn about human rights...

BACK TO CHICAGO

"The group that accredits U.S. zoos and had been reviewing elephant care at the Lincoln Park Zoo expanded its investigation to the entire facility Thursday after learning three monkeys had died this week," according to the Washington Post. "A camel and two gorillas also have died at the zoo since October. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also investigating, department spokeswoman Amy Spillman said. The zoo and its president, Kevin Bell, have come under intense scrutiny by animal rights groups after a 36-year-old African elephant was euthanized May 1 shortly after being moved to Salt Lake City." The article adds that "Bell offered his resignation Thursday," but it sounds as though it's not expected he'll be taken up on the offer.

UPDATE 5/16: The story of the "troubled" Lincoln Park Zoo is gaining steam, as the zoo only saved a gibbon from death by amputating its arm after the ape broke it reaching through an ill-designed mesh barrier, and hundreds of people continue to protest at the zoo. Meanwhile, this has inspired a predictable "think piece," Have zoos outlived their usefulness? which at least presents the anti-captivity argument via someone other than PETA (as well as PETA). But once again we get this:

"Zoos are essential for the public," said Eric Peters, an associate professor of ecology and environmental sciences at Chicago State University. "When well-designed and well-executed zoos allow the public to see these animals up close in as natural an environment as possible, that makes people care more about protecting the animals' original environments," he said.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Show me the stats on this. What studies have been done? I've been looking for them and haven't found one study to support this claim. If you know of one, please feel free to send it in. In the meantime, I will continue to maintain that seeing animals in cages reinforces the culture's view that animals are expendable objects put here for our pleasure or diversion. After all, there are zoos all over the place now, and animal habitats are disappearing faster than ever. Man, just imagine how bad it would be if we didn't have zoos to make people care so much!

ZOO INCOMPETENCE KILLS MORE ANIMALS

The spotlight has been on the Lincoln Park Zoo and its elephant woes lately, but it's worth repeating that the problems of captive animals are not related to specific zoos, but to the insitution itself: Time and again the most highly-trained and qualified people are found to be at a loss in maintaining the health of wild animals that are forced into a cruel, unnatural lifestyle - it is "incompetence" in the strict sense, only because competency in keeping caged wild animals happy and healthy is virtually impossible.

The latest example is at the Phoenix zoo, which has launched a probe into whether recent mistakes led to "a series of deaths and health problems with animals." The Arizona Republic reports: "Kris Nelson, a veterinarian whose complaints prompted the review, says dozens of exotic animals died or suffered in recent years due to neglect and misjudgments by managers and caretakers. Nelson compiled a list of more than 30 specimens that purportedly died or fell ill due to improper care and conditions, mostly in the past year. Among her allegations: Baby monkeys died because of negligence, disease killed gazelles due to quarantine failures, and many animals suffered as a result of treatment delays. Nelson, who has been on the Animal Health Committee for four years, said alarms should have gone off seven years ago when a series of blunders killed Ruby, an elephant famous for artworks." It all comes back to the elephants, after all... lest we forget.

SLIPPERY LISTERIA

This one slipped by me a few days ago, and doubtless did with a lot of people who needed to see it - Field Packing Company recalled 29,000 pounds of ham products for suspected Listeria contamination. The ham was distributed to California, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Minnesota, and Tennessee. You may not have heard about this because once again the recall was announced on... wait for it... a Friday.

MAMMAL MEANS CARING

It's a pity not all the members of our species can act on the basic mammalian initiative shown by a stray dog in Kenya: "A newborn baby abandoned in a Kenyan forest was saved by a stray dog who apparently carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence to a shed where the infant was discovered nestled with a litter of puppies, witnesses said Monday." While the meat-eating world depends on clear-line distinctions between humans and animals, the ability to care for others is built into the mammal brain, and the similarity is brought out by this "happy ending" quote from the hospital where the child wound up: "She is now fine. She is warm. She is in a separate room ... with a lady who is also nursing a baby admitted in hospital for treatment. The lady is looking after her as if she is her own child."

USDA + FRIDAY + "MAD COW" = SUSPICIOUS

In another Friday release that mysteriously got swept under the news rug, the USDA has admitted that the "BSE Firewall" does not exist. "There is still a risk, though slight, of mad cow disease in the United States, and it is greatest in the three Northwestern states bordering Canada." Remember when the risk was so small it amounted to "no risk?" How'd we get to particular states with "greatest risk?" Well... "Investigators tracked the animals born in the same herd within a year of the [BSE-]infected cows or born to them, and of those, 29 were shipped to the United States. Investigators were unable to find 11 of those animals; 18 were slaughtered for their meat or killed for other reasons." Interesting that this is coming out now. Are we being softened up for another "discovery?"

UPDATE: Don't know if this answers the previous question, but it's certainly an interesting coincidence: 5/6: Feds probing claims of mad cow violations. Plenty of provovative tidbits, as usual, in this Steve Mitchell story. Some excerpts:

Investigators with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General's office are looking into allegations that cow brains and other risky materials that could carry mad cow disease might be entering the human food supply in violation of agency policy, United Press International has learned.

Stanley Painter, chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals... said he had been informed other USDA meat inspectors were aware of cases where employees of meatpacking plants failed to ensure specified risk materials or SRMs -- such as brains and spinal cords -- from cows over 30 months old did not enter the nation's food supply.

Painter said OIG investigators told him in March they did not have the non-compliance reports and also were having difficulty obtaining them.

OIG officials have informed Hinchey's [Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.] office they interviewed Painter and also are investigating how the USDA handled his complaints, the aide said, and added Hinchey plans to follow up on this matter.

Painter said the agency officials asked him questions that suggested they did not understand USDA policies and implied he should have handled the reports of alleged violations by doing things that would have been a breach of official agency procedures.

Painter said the violations continue to happen and noted he just recently learned of another one. "The potential is there for it to happen all across the country," he said. "It's not just in one location, it's not isolated, because the policy is the same nationwide."

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."