Alicia Silverstone Releases ‘The Kind Diet’ Vegetarian Book

Alicia Silverstone is probably, to my knowledge, the first public vegetarian celebrity. Her ‘coming out’ was followed up with sexy advertisements for PETA and other various activist movements for the cause.  Although she may have strayed from the movie-map since Clueless, Alicia has been one of the most active vegetarian celebrity of our time. With a preface by Paul McCartney, Alicia really hit home as she mentions all aspects of being vegetarian in her book as the title reveals: The Kind Diet, a simple guide to feeling great, losing weight, and saving the plant. Her book was released just this past October. She was recently rewarded for her efforts by The Daily Green, being one of the 2009 Heart of Green Award winners. So far the book has received good reviews and is a promising addition to vegetarian/vegan cookbooks.

Bagheera Kiplingi – A Vegetarian In The Spider World

Bagheera Kiplingi – A Vegetarian In The Spider World

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The world’s first vegetarian spider was just recently discovered! Ok ok, so it may not be a human vegetarian, but I thought this was so interesting! See, even spiders are modifying their diet to their surroundings.

“40,000 or so spiders have been described, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals, trapping their prey in elaborate webs or hunting them down directly. But researchers have found one exception to this rule, a neotropical jumping spider known as Bagheera Kiplingi and the first instance known to science of a spider that dines primarily on vegetarian fare, according to a report published in Current Biology.”

October is Vegetarian Awareness Month!

Celebrate being a vegetarian/vegan for the month of October. Even my fiance is going vegetarian for the month! You can too!! It’s a great excuse to eat tons of vegan cookies and try some new foods in your diet. Here’s some reasons from Boston Food and Whine to get motivated about eating vegetarian…

30 Reasons to Become a Vegetarian

Posted by Tammy (BFW), March 3rd, 2008 at 8:42 am

“Call me a hypocrite because I am not quite a vegetarian… I do not eat any red meat at all and I eat very little poultry… BUT I LOVE fish and seafood. However, that said… I wish I was a vegetarian and strive to be closer and closer to one each day. I love animals and I hate the idea of harming or torturing them…. but I also find the concept of meat pretty gross. Even more importantly, if these reasons do not appeal to you, then think about the environment… (see 1-5)”

1. Conservation of Fossil fuel. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef protein; 35 calories for 1 calorie of pork; 22 calories for 1 of poultry; but just 1 calorie of fossil fuel for 1 calorie of soybeans. By eating plant foods instead of animal foods, you help conserve our non-renewable sources of energy.
2. Water Conservation. It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does plant protein. As a vegetarian you contribute to water conservation.
3. Efficient use of grains. It takes up to 16 pounds of soybeans and grains to produce 1 lb. of beef and 3 to 6 lbs. to produce 1 lb of turkey & egg. By eating grain foods directly, you make the food supply more efficient & that contributes to the environment.
4. Soil conservation. When grains & legumes are used more efficiently, our precious topsoil is automatically made more efficient in its use. We use less agricultural resources to provide for the same number of people.
5. Saving our forests. Tropical forests in Brazil and other tropic regions are destroyed daily, in part, to create more acreage to raise livestock. By not supporting the meat industry, you directly reduce the demand to pillage these irreplaceable treasures of nature. Since the forest land “filters” our air supply and contains botanical sources for new medicines, this destruction is irreversible.
6. Aesthetics. Decaying animal parts, whether in a freezer case or served in restaurants, can never be as aesthetically pleasing to the senses as the same foods made from wholesome vegetable sources. Only habit can allow one not to perceive this: a change in diet makes this self evident.
7. No deficiencies. There is no nutrient necessary for optimal human functioning which cannot be obtained from plant food.
8. High fat plus cholesterol. Animal foods are higher in fat than most plant foods, particularly saturated fats. Plants do not contain cholesterol.
9. “Carb” deficient. Meat is deficient in carbohydrates, particularly the starches which are so essential to proper health.
10. Vitamin deficient. Except for the b-complex, meat is largely deficient in vitamins.
11. Agricultural Chemicals. Being higher on the food chain, animal foods contain far higher concentrations of agricultural chemicals than plant foods, including pesticides, herbicides, etc.
12. Exposure to livestock drugs. There are over 20,000 different drugs, including sterols, antibiotics, growth hormones and other veterinary drugs that are given to livestock animals. These drugs are consumed when animal foods are consumed. The dangers herein, in secondary consumption of antibiotics, are well documented.
13. Pathogenic Microorganisms. There are a host of bacteria and viruses, some quite dangerous, that are common to animals. When you eat meat, you eat the organisms in the meat. Micro-organisms are present in plant foods too, but their number and danger to human health is by no means comparable to that of those in meat.
14. Worms and other Parasites. Same as #13.
15. Shelf life differential. Plant foods last longer than animal foods. Try this experiment: Leave out a head of lettuce and a pound of hamburger for 1 day, which will make you sick?
16. Organoleptic Indications of Pathogens. Plant foods give tell-tale signs of “going bad”. Ever hear of someone getting sick from “bad broccoli”?
17. Heart Disease. Meat eating increases the risk of heart disease, this country’s #1 killer. The correlation is an epidemiological fact.
18. Cancer prevention. Of all the natural cancer prevention substances found: vitamin C, B-17, hydroquionenes, beta carotene, NDGA, – none has been found to be animal derived. Yet most meats, when cooked, produce an array of benzenes and other carcinogenic compounds. Cancer is infinitely easier to prevent than cure. Soybeans contain protease inhibitor, a powerful anticancer compound. You won’t find it in useful quantities in animal based food.
19. Disease Inducing. The correlation between meat consumption and a wide range of degenerative diseases is well founded and includes….. Osteoporosis, Kidney Stones and Gallstones, Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Arthritis, Gum disease and Acne.
20. Obesity. Studies confirm that vegetarians tend to be thinner than meat eaters. Obesity is considered by doctors to be a disease within itself.
21. Intestinal Toxemia. The condition of the intestinal flora is critical to overall health. Animal products putrefy the colon.
22. Transit time. Wholesome food travels quickly through the “G.I” tract, leaving little time to spoil and incite disease within the body.
23. Fiber deficient. Fiber absorbs unwanted, excess fats; cleans the intestines; provides bulk and aids in peristalsis. Plant food is high in fiber content; meat, poultry and dairy products have none.
24. Body wastes. Food from animals contain their waste, including adrenaline, uric and lactic acid, etc., Before adding ketchup, the biggest contributors to the “flavor profile” of a hamburger are the leftover blood and urine.
25. Excess protein. The average American eats 400% of the RDA for protein. This causes excess nitrogen in the blood that creates a host of long-term health problems.
26. Longevity. To increase ones risk of getting degenerative disease means decreasing ones chance to live a naturally long healthy life. Huzas and other peoples with large centenarian populations maintain lifestyles that are relatively meat free.
27. Well Being. You just feel better (mentally and physcially) when you give up meat and become a vegetarian.
28. Health care costs. Being healthier on a vegetarian diet means spending less on health care.
29. Food costs. Vegetarian foods tend to cost less than meat based items.
30. Easy substitutes. There are vegetable based substitutes for every meat product imaginable. And they taste good!

“This is a revised list originally taken from British Meat, which, unless you have a strong stomach, you may want to avoid visting.”

Hello I’m Vegan; A Documentary of Vegans Nationwide

“I’m Vegan is a series of short documentary profiles that will feature vegans from all walks of life. The project is being produced to address preconceptions about vegans and veganism. The profiles–or “vignettes”–will be distributed for free over the web so that people can share the videos with family, friends, and visitors to their own sites.”

From what I gathered from the various webpages of the Vegan Documentary project, it appears that these filmmakers are traveling across North America in pursuit of some real-life interviews with everyday vegans. I believe their main objective is to address the stereotypes of ‘animal lovers’ and showcase how living vegan is very possible regardless of location. This is a great idea to put all three stages of pre-production, production, and post-production online so that viewers everywhere can see how the film is progressing and developing over time. I think that’s a really interesting approach to filmmaking and utilizing all the social networks we have available these days. You can see some videos on their website (linked to the logo above) and learn more about the film and it’s creators. Thus far they have completed their casting and mapped out their journey which looks quite ambitious. Check it out! Here are some links to their other networking sites if you want to become a fan, friend, or get some updates.

 

-miranda

 

New York Times Strikes Again: E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection

New York Times strikes again with another piece about the inspection of beef production and the possibility of spreading e. coli. I took some interesting excerpts from the story but I encourage you to go visit the story online with the link provided. It gives a lot of information about the unsanitary conditions of processing meat and how you should be aware. If you’re not interested enough to read the whole article, there’s also a video interviewing Stephanie and talks about everything that the article mentions.

E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection

By MICHAEL MOSS

Published: October 3, 2009

“Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.”

 

Ben Garvin for The New York Times

Stephanie Smith, 22, was paralyzed after being stricken by E. coli in 2007. Officials traced the E. Coli to hamburger her family had eaten.

“Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.”

THE THREAT “In a warm kitchen, E. coli cells will double every 45 minutes,” said Dr. Mansour Samadpour, a microbiologist who runs IEH Laboratories.

“On Aug. 16, 2007, the day Ms. Smith’s hamburger was made, the No.3 grinder at the Cargill plant in Butler, Wis., started up at 6:50 a.m. The largest ingredient was beef trimmings known as “50/50” — half fat, half meat — that cost about 60 cents a pound, making them the cheapest component.

Cargill bought these trimmings — fatty edges sliced from better cuts of meat — from Greater Omaha Packing, where some 2,600 cattle are slaughtered daily and processed in a plant the size of four football fields.

As with other slaughterhouses, the potential for contamination is present every step of the way, according to workers and federal inspectors. The cattle often arrive with smears of feedlot feces that harbor the E. coli pathogen, and the hide must be removed carefully to keep it off the meat. This is especially critical for trimmings sliced from the outer surface of the carcass.

Federal inspectors based at the plant are supposed to monitor the hide removal, but much can go wrong. Workers slicing away the hide can inadvertently spread feces to the meat, and large clamps that hold the hide during processing sometimes slip and smear the meat with feces, the workers and inspectors say.

Greater Omaha vacuums and washes carcasses with hot water and lactic acid before sending them to the cutting floor. But these safeguards are not foolproof.”

New York Times Dispatches From the ‘Phuket Vegetarian Festival’ in Thailand

In Thailand, Vegetarians Find a Place at the Table

Justin Mott for The New York Times

By GREGORY DICUM
Published: March 1, 2009

“FIRECRACKERS rained down like hail, filling the street with sulfurous billows. Young men, dressed in white, waved towels, trying to keep the explosives away from the black-faced god seated in the ornate sedan chair that some of them held aloft. There, in the center of it all, Phuket Town fell away; the formerly opulent Portuguese-Chinese mansions and rows of boxy concrete shops faded as the hot morning sun swooned before clouds of acrid smoke…”

Amy’s Organic Food Makes Way to College Campus’

When I was a freshman at my college university, George Mason in Northern Virginia, there were pretty much no vegetarian/vegan food options on campus. Since I was taking a University Living course (required if you lived in the Healthy Living Learning Community- which I did) we were able to meet with our university’s food board and discuss our likes and dislikes of the campus food. I recommended providing more lactose-free, gluten-free, soy, vegetarian/vegan products since a majority of students couldn’t even use their campus meal plans because there was nothing to eat! Since then, our university has created a huge dining hall that features an entirely vegan buffet where you can have your meals prepared to your liking right in front of you! They’ve also added a variety of global foods like Indian and Chinese food that is vegetarian/vegan. While all of these are great improvements of the food options, my favorite addition is the Soymilk and Amy’s Organic Frozen Food Bowls in our general convenience store.

Amy’s products just about save my life when I’m really hungry and need to take my food to go. They provide all kinds of vegan dishes from the one I’m currently eating ‘ Santa Fe Enchilada’ to ‘Teriyaki Bowl and Brown Rice.’ The bowls are completely vegan and uses 100% organic ingredients. Most bowls are gluten-free and don’t contain any bioengineered  ingredients. They taste delicious and smell delectable. The only downside to this cuisine bliss is that they’re a bit pricey. My Fuze Tea and Amy’s Enchilada Bowl cost me a whole $9, but with all things considered I don’t mind dishing out the pennies for a complete organic vegan experience.

From pizza to desert Amy’s Kitchen has covered all the bases in the food realm and are continuing to expand their production and variety of dishes. “Since then [the first Amy's dish: vegetable pot pie] Amy’s has created over 88 frozen meals, including pizzas, pocket sandwiches, pot pies, entrées, snacks and whole meals. In 1999, we introduced a grocery line that now includes canned soups, beans and chili as well as jarred pasta sauces and salsas. Our foods are carried by all natural food stores, supermarkets and some club stores in the United States, Canada and abroad”

So go look for an Amy’s frozen food bowl at your local grocery store and taste the goodness!

Why Pescovegetarian?

A lot of people tend to ask me, ‘So if you care so much about animals, why do you eat fish?’ It’s not that I don’t care about the friendly creatures of the sea as much as the loving land animals, theres lots of reasons why!  Mostly, its because I have a weak-spot for the occasional seafood session on holidays. I’ll admit it! I may not be a perfect vegetarian, but I’m certainly trying. However, despite popular belief, saving animals isn’t the only reason people become vegetarians/vegans. If you’re not so concerned about the animals, people can be vegetarian in order to promote a healthy lifestyle, save the environment, or simply because they just don’t like meat!

Saving animals from factory farming cruelty and promoting ethical animal treatment is one of the many reasons to cut back on meat and other animal-derived products. And you don’t have to be a dedicated vegan in order to help out! Although, of course, your impact will be much more significant while maintaining a vegan diet; I’d still encourage everyone to try and eat less animal by-products.  Your diet can still effect other important aspects of life, like previously mentioned: the environment, your health, and even your wallet! 

A popular argument over vegetarian and vegan diets is that ‘its not healthy’ and ‘you won’t get enough protein without meat’. This is a sort of lame argument since theres plenty of sources for protein and its possible to be unhealthy whether you don’t eat meat or you do! Being vegetarian/vegan doesn’t automatically make someone healthier, it requires conscious eating just like people who eat meat. The difference is that once you cut meat or dairy out of your diet it limits and even eliminates the consumption of fast-food and other health risk foods. Like the Nutrigrain commercials say, ‘one healthy choice can lead to others’!

When I decided to stop eating meat I started with cutting out chicken, beef, and pork. I figured quitting these cold turkey would be challenging enough since I’d been eating meat my whole life. After a while I eventually stopped drinking milk and I only ate eggs on rare occasions. I try to eat vegan as much as possible and rarely consume any fish or dairy. It’s rather complicated to put a label on that. Nomilksometimesseafoodrarelyeggsmostlyvegan vegetarian! I call myself a pescovegetarian simply because I do eat fish maybe once a week or even less sometimes.

 

An important aspect of being pesco-vegetarian or anyone who eats seafood is being aware of where the fish and seafood you’re eating comes from. Sensible Seafood is a program run by the Virginia Aquarium Marine Science Center in order to ‘ promote seafood choices that make sense for a healthy marine environment.’ The guide can inform you what seafood is safe to eat and which is promoting a natural marine life. Many popular seafood dishes are being endangered and even have the risk of becoming extinct in the near future. So if we want crabs in the future, we better start eating more responsibly now! The guide divides seafood into three categories: best, good, and avoid. The lists include almost every option you can think of and divides them so you know which are safe to eat and which you should avoid. They also prompt you to ask questions when buying seafood such as: Where is the seafood from, is it farmed or wild-caught and how was it caught? These are important questions since many non-traditionally consumed sea creatures, such as dolphins, frequently get caught in fish farming nets and often die or are seriously injured.

Basically, if you decide that completely cutting out meat or dairy is impossible for your lifestyle, then you can at least try to cut back and be conscious of the food you do eat.  Unfortunately, our eating habits don’t only affect our weight but it can affect entire ecosystems and life as we know it.

Second-Hand Vegetarian?

ZapRoot: A Quirky Show About Animals and The Environment

It may be old, but I really enjoyed watching these short episodes. They’re informing and comedic! Just FYI: After traveling extensively throughout Japan, they really do have a TON of these ‘Hanko’ stamps. They’re used for signatures on documents and other paperwork. People can find their name and buy a stamp at almost any convenience store and some people have they custom made.

This video is kind of hilarious, but kind of sad at the same time if you know what I mean. I’m also giggling about the video comments, people just can’t take jokes these days! Check out more of ZapRoot’s old youtube videos online. I think the most recent on is 4 months old but they’re quite funny and you might learn something!