STILL MORE VEGAN HEALTH BENEFITS

Vegan Diet Reduces Risk of Arthritis, Heart Attack and Stroke is the headline for this report on a small study that found that "eating a vegan, gluten-free diet may reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes in rheumatoid arthritis patients, as well as reducing the severity of the disease." So the headline may be a tiny bit overblown, as the gluten factor wasn't controlled for separately. But on the other side, I find it interesting that those on the non-vegan diet were eating the same carb-fat-protein ratio. That should knock the whole "it's the fat" excuse down a bit.

CHINO UPDATE

Hey, remember the largest meat recall in US History? The one caused by a couple of rogue slaughterhouse employees who were skirting the rules?

The main guy says he'd been abusing downer cows "had been going on for 23 years and "nobody ever complained or disciplined him for the manner in which he did it."

Many additional interesting details in the story. Give it a read.

SPELLING IT OUT: MEAT = CLIMATE DESTRUCTION

It's no revelation, but this new study puts its data points in good, media-friendly sound-bite form:

"Giving up meat could drastically reduce your carbon footprint, with meat-eaters' diets responsible for almost twice the emissions of those of vegetarians, a German study said on Tuesday. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car 4,758 kilometres (2,956 miles), the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said. [PDF of study]

"But the food a vegetarian consumes in 12 months is responsible for generating the same emissions as driving 2,427 kilometres. Going vegan -- giving up meat and dairy products -- would cut the emissions released in making what you eat more than seven-fold, to the equivalent of driving 629 kilometres."

Some great international headlines:

Going vegan the way to reduce carbon footprint

'The Cow Is a Climate Bomb'

Meat-eaters, the end is nigh

Too bad that as of this writing the story has apparently not seen the light of day in any US media outlet. Shocking, huh?

RELATED: Just prior to this study, E Magazine came out with a cover story on the topic: The Meat of the Matter:
Our Livestock Industry Creates More Greenhouse Gas than Transportation Does

MONKEY SEE

As usual, I find this animal-behavior study a little suspect, in that behavior that could be instinctual for evolutionary reasons (keeping the entire clan alive rather than just yourself would increase chances for population expansion) is considered only as an analog of a human mental process. BUT: That said, this is still cool:

"Monkeys can experience the joy of giving in much the same way as humans do, U.S. researchers reported on Monday. Tests in capuchin monkeys showed the animals consistently chose to share food with another monkey if given the option, suggesting they are capable of empathy, the team at the Yerkes Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta found."

"They seem to care for the welfare of those they know," Frans de Waal, director of the Living Links Center at Yerkes, said in a statement.

BREAKING: FRUIT & VEGETABLES GOOD FOR YOU

Yet another for the pile of studies showing health benefits:

"Antioxidant-rich fruit and vegetables such as oranges, carrots and broccoli can reduce the risk of diseases such as cancer of the larynx, oesophagus, cervix and lungs... The study by Edith Cowan University nutritionists found that people who ate two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables a day could cut their risk of developing a range of cancers, heart and blood vessel disease, metabolic syndrome, and bone disease.

The researchers said while some of the protection against common diseases came from the weight loss associated with diets high in fruit and vegetables, there was now good evidence that phytochemicals and vitamins such as A, C and E in fresh produce had their own powerful antioxidant effects."

I thought there was already "good evidence," but I guess now the evidence is even better.

I'LL JUST SWITCH TO BS

"A University of Guelph study published Thursday said 25 percent of fish sold in Toronto and New York are mislabeled. The university study isn't based on fish tales, but DNA analysis. According to the samples analyzed by the university, tuna was actually tilapia, halibut was hake, and red snapper was sold as lavender jobfish, Labrador redfish, perch or cod."

Gosh, I wonder why they don't have this problem with plums, lettuce or bananas?

RECALLORAMA

I'm not going to try to catch up on every recall from the past month, but a couple notable ones...

First, this recall was still going on through mid- to late August, with even Whole Foods getting dinged for handling the potentially E.coli-tainted meat.

Then just after I left Canada there was this huge Maple Leaf recall of 220 deli-meat products, which has resulted in sicknesses and deaths and, of course, a class-action lawsuit. Gee, it would be a shame for that meat producer to go the way of Topps, wouldn't it?

BACK FROM VACATION

I was on vacation for a couple weeks there, but took a longer vacation from blogging, what with preparing for the big 50th Vegcast (more on this later). Anyway, I'll try to catch up on the most important developments over the past month or so, but feel free to write in with any I've missed.

WATERMELON = VIAGRA!

The concept that meat-eating interferes with sex drive has been well documented and promoted to the max - but what about the flip side? Well, yes, as it turns out, at least in the case of watermelon, you can actually increase your sex drive by eating plant foods. Texas A&M researchers found that "watermelon causes the same type of effect as Viagra and other drugs used for erectile dysfunction."

BIG HUGE KROGER RECALL

Once again it's impossible to estimate how big this recall is, but in a virtual Friday (Thursday night) recall that I just found out about (and you?), Kroger has reacted to a wave of E.Coli cases by pulling back "all varieties, weights and sizes of ground beef bought in Kroger stores between 21st May and 8th June in Michigan and in central and northern Ohio (Columbus and Toledo). Neither FSIS nor Kroger have said how big the total amount of beef affected is." Gee, I... wonder why.

UPDATE 7/3: After the traditional announce-and-expand strategy, and now that everyone's on the road to their July 4th cookouts, the powers that be have finally pinned a number on the amount (and the supplier: Nebraska Beef) 5.3 million pounds of tainted meat. Here's a choice quote: "The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said in a statement Thursday that it has determined these products may have been produced 'under insanitary conditions.'" Insanitary - that's when your conditions are so unsanitary, it's INSAYYYYYNE!

POST-SUMMERFEST: 'MYTH' CONCEPTION

I'm back from Summerfest, and one of the most interesting developments was this site: HumaneMyth.org, developed by James LaVeck and Jenny Stein, of The Witness and Peaceable Kingdom fame. Last year you may recall they were bitching about the animal industry's seemingly successful bid to split the animal movement along welfarist/abolitionist lines, and this year they've moved forward and done something about it. The site has a good overview of the fallacy of "humane" anything involving animal imprisonment, as well as some compelling teaching tools, like this anti-dairy slide show.

SUMMERFEST

I'll be in Johnstown through the weekend (where I'll be performing the song mentioned below), so blogging will pick back up sometime next week.

SOME OLYMPIC CHAMPS ARE VEGETARIAN...

Here's a very noteworthy story, one that would be interesting for its content alone - showing how veganism is compatible with great athletic performance - but what puts it over the top is that it's right there on ESPN, written by one of their own, and is attracting a good big of mainstream attention. Keep it up!

[Note: Title above is a lyric from "Some Monks," the new single off the album Electric Green by Green Beings.]

IT AIN'T JUST EIGHT BELLES AND BARBARO

An astonishing three horses per day are being sacrificed on the altar of horse-race gambling. And that is low-balling it: "Thoroughbred race tracks in the U.S. reported more than three horse deaths a day last year and 5,000 since 2003, and the vast majority of horses were put down after suffering devastating injuries on the track," reports a wire service, which adds, "Countless other deaths went unreported because of lax recordkeeping."

UPDATE 6/17: I guess this could be categorized as good news for horses. Gotta be thankful for whatever you can get.

POL: TURN SF ZOO INTO RESCUE CENTER

This is pretty big, if only because the standard "As if! That'll never happen!" reply from the zoo, about this radical proposal, is absent in this case. "The San Francisco Zoo would transform to a center that primarily houses rescued domestic and exotic animals and those confiscated by law enforcement under legislation proposed at City Hall Tuesday by Supervisor Chris Daly." Daly also noted that the notorious tiger attack on Christmas was "rooted in fundamental animal welfare deficiencies at the zoo."

THE WHOLE WORLD ISN'T WATCHING

Or maybe much of it is, but there doesn't seem to be much of a peep here in the US over the fact that South Korea's previously wildly popular president is now on the brink of being forced from office due to his acquiescing and accepting potentially BSE-tainted US beef. (Many analysts have quibbled that South Koreans are inflating concerns about how dangerous the beef is - but those who have followed the Keystone Kop antics of the USDA in monitoring and testing US beef know there's plenty to worry about.)

Protests have numbered in the tens of thousands and have turned violent, at least one farmer has committed suicide in protest, and the entire cabinet has offered to resign over the matter. This is because the US refuses to back down and accept continuing restrictions, and the populace look on their leader now as a patsy to the globally greedy US beef industry, which, well, he is.

HORSE-RACING AUTHOR: "SPORT" IS ON ITS LAST LEGS

I only came across this now, after the result at the Belmont, which adds a layer of irony. According to the tagline, Nan Mooney is "author of 'My Racing Heart: The Passionate World of Thoroughbreds and the Racetrack' and has written for The Blood-Horse, the journal of record for thoroughbred horse racing." So when this author says horse racing is "hanging on by its fingernails," it's worth noting.

Even better, though, is this line: "Sure, the gambling end of things is supposed to be risky, but racing cannot afford for the lay public to become too awash in cynicism." Heh. Yeah, the gambling end of things sure was risky for all of those who put down large sums of money at 2 to 5 only to watch in despair as the favorite came in dead last. And yeah, I think that, more than events like the killing of Eight Belles, might have an impact on public cynicism.

The only question is, when horse racing aficionados themselves put out pieces trumpeting the fact that horse racing is "on its last legs," who will have the nerve to take the poor hobbled industry out back and shoot it?

MAKING THE CONNECTION

Granted, it's probably easier to go vegetarian in Taiwan than in the cowboy-and-beef-soaked USA, but still, this is heartening, and points to growing awareness of the indisputable connection between livestock production and carbon emissions. If these politicians and role models are actually committing to change their eating for the rest of their life that's pretty astonishing. Even if this is sloppy reporting and they're only going vegetarian for one year, that's still pretty impressive, and it would be great if we could get some version of this going over here.

CRUEL SUMMER

This story is noteworthy because it's not noteworthy. Remember when the concept of a farmer being cruel to a farm animal - especially a cow - was on the outer edge of believability? It was only a few years ago. Now these charges are commonplace. Incremental change is under way, though I don't know how many farm animals exactly have benefited from it so far.

"KFC Canadian franchisee, PETA in accord"

That's the headline. And also, that's the problem, says Gary Francione.